The tags are bits of code that enable Clarivoy to re-create a customer's journey from first contact with an Andy Mohr dealership to the sale -- including text, chat, visits to a store's online inventory, telephone and email.
The trail of digital breadcrumbs lets Masariu-McCoy learn which types of communication keep prospective buyers engaged, and thus which marketing opportunities to pursue.
She's learned, for example, to steer away from paying to post ads connected to generic vehicle searches on Google. A person in the Indianapolis area who searches for "Ford F-150 specs" may not be close to buying a truck. And it would probably be costly to have an Andy Mohr link appear in the Google results page because so many companies -- possibly including Ford -- would be competing to win the coveted spot. Something like that could cost $4 or $5 for a click.
But Masariu-McCoy has also seen that a search for "Ford F-150 Andy Mohr" indicates a much more serious prospect. And if a consumer visits an Andy Mohr site from a third-party lead generator such as Cars.com or Edmunds.com, the prospect is red-hot.
"That's someone who's really done their homework, and what we are seeing is those people buy within one or two days," she said.
Using the tools, Masariu-McCoy says, Andy Mohr has cut the cost of drawing visitors to its websites by 64 percent.
Feedback from Clarivoy also helps Andy Mohr dealerships quickly learn if something isn't working.
In January, for example, using Clarivoy data as a guide, Andy Mohr Chevrolet doubled its digital advertising spending to $40,000 for the month. That included video pre-roll clips that run as commercials before videos on YouTube, as well as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram promotions.
By the end of the month, the Chevrolet store had sold about 450 vehicles, more than a 70 percent rise from a year earlier, Masariu-McCoy said.
At the same time, the group's Ford store kicked off an online video and email campaign geared toward winter weather -- a topic that normally resonates in the first month of the year. But temperatures this year were mild, and customers mostly ignored the campaign, which cost about $30 per click.
Seeing the tepid response from data Clarivoy provided, Masariu-McCoy shifted tack. New videos and emails emphasizing Ford truck promotions replaced the winter weather-related ads in the middle of the month, and leads and prospects quickly perked up. The store finished with a solid month at a much lower cost per click.