Driving the Future of Automotive Customer Engagement with AI and Automation

Mohamed Yousuf Naghi Motors and BMW blog hero image

As the Channel Sales Manager for EMEA South at SAP Emarsys, I am always presented with new experiences and opportunities, but to seize those opportunities it takes having the right team and the right tools. Mohamed Yousuf Naghi Motors – BMW Group KSA and hmmh are a great example to highlight this point.  
 
For leading automotive brands, making the customer journey as personalized and frictionless as possible is essential to closing sales and promoting true loyalty. However, according to the Global Consumer Products Engagement Report, only 36% of all consumer products marketers feel they can effectively personalize their marketing content and campaigns.  

To engage consumers, automotive brands need to create a deluxe experience starting from the very first web search, to dealership visits, and every touchpoint in between.  

We recently held a webinar with leaders from Mohamed Yousuf Naghi Motors – BMW Group KSA to learn how they’ve employed new strategies for delivering omnichannel experiences that are as top-of-the-line as their vehicles. 

Read on and watch short clips from the webinar to see how this leading automotive brand is breaking the mold and driving engagement with AI and automation. You’ll also find 3 questions to assess your AI readiness!  

About Mohamed Yousuf Naghi Motors – BMW Group KSA

Mohamed Yousuf Naghi Motors – BMW Group KSA, founded in 1990, is the official importer of BMW, Mini, Rolls Royce, and BMW Motorrad in Saudi Arabia. The brand is committed to providing top-tier service, innovating for the highest levels of performance and comfort.  

Buying a new car, especially a luxury car like a BMW, is a big deal for consumers, and everything about the experience needs to feel right. MYNM – BMW Group KSA is committed to engaging motorists and ensuring their needs are met throughout the customer lifecycle. 

The Challenge: Leveraging Rich Data at Scale

The challenges:  

  • Siloed data 
  • Limited engagement channels  
  • Limited capability to personalize customer experiences 

MYNM – BMW Group KSA had rich customer data, but they were unable to leverage it. They store their data in Keyloop Drive, which acts as the commercial brain for the automotive dealership and is very effective for storage, but the brand wanted the ability to use that data to create one-to-one dialogue with customers. The brand lacked the capability to execute targeted, relevant, and timely customer engagement at scale.  

AI is an incredibly powerful tool for personalizing customer engagements at scale, but leveraging AI first requires a unified approach to customer data.  

Additionally, the brand relied entirely on email and SMS channels because they were unable to activate other channels. Furthermore, they weren’t able to provide personalized experiences on email and SMS. 

MYNM – BMW Group KSA needed a solution that would enable them to collect first-party data with relevant consent and begin applying that data to create personalized, omnichannel customer engagement in real time.  

The Solution: Unifying Customer Data with SAP CDP and SAP Emarsys

MYNM – BMW Group KSA partnered with hmmh to implement SAP CDP and SAP Emarsys, along with Sinch, to transform their digital journey and evolve the way that they sell, engage, and retain customers. 

The engine: Unifying data and creating a single view of the customer

To manage both the first-party data in the CRM (including marketing, pre-sales data, etc.) and all the ERP data on the back end (fulfillment, deliver, finance, etc.), MYNM – BMW Group KSA implemented SAP CDP. This has brought their data together into one unified solution, creating the core “engine” for delivering hyper-personalized customer experiences. This engine becomes the power for detailed analytics and AI-driven engagement.  

The vehicle: Delivering relevant, personalized customer experiences

If SAP CDP is the engine, SAP Emarsys is the vehicle surrounding that engine, empowering MYNM – BMW Group KSA to drive forward and make the data actionable.  

The brand integrated SAP Emarsys with SAP CDP, enabling AI-powered strategies and tactics, enabling the marketing team to use triggers and automations that engage customers in real time. And with SAP Emarsys, this automated engagement occurs across channels, including email, mobile, web, etc., so MYNM – BMW Group KSA can meet customers where they are with the right message at the right time.  

Analytics also play an essential role in this engagement. AI-powered insights mean MYNM – BMW Group KSA can adapt to customer behaviors and changing trends in real time. It’s impossible for humans to respond to every shift in behavior instantly, but AI makes it possible, with segments that can change on the fly in response to triggers. Personalization tokens in message templates help ensure that the right message gets to the right customer.  

Adding new channels and personalization to better serve customers

Previously, MYNM – BMW Group KSA was limited to engaging on email and SMS. With SAP Emarsys, the brand has been able to add new channels. They added:  

  • WhatsApp 
  • Web channel 
  • Web Push 
  • Mobile Wallet 
  • Digital ads (Meta, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok) 

They’re able to use lookalike audiences to target specific audiences with hyper-personalized content and targeted ads. Their recent Ramadan campaign was a “huge success” using this strategy. According to Vaibhav Bansal, Ecommerce and Marketing Automation Manager at, this helped the brand to “not only reduce the cost, especially for Google, by almost 50%, but also helped us reach the right quality audiences, which we were also able to increase the conversion rates and have much better performance than last year.”  

Using AI to get the timing right with Send-Time Optimization

MYNM – BMW Group KSA truly understands that the future of personalized customer engagement will rely heavily on AI. Watch this clip to hear from Vaibhav Bansal, Ecommerce and Marketing Automation Manager, about why AI is so important for marketing and how they’re using Send-Time Optimization to drive results:  

With Send-Time Optimization, MYNM – BMW Group KSA is delivering messages when customers are most likely to engage. But the brand isn’t stopping there they’re also using Gen AI features built into SAP Emarsys, such as subject line and other content generation, to increase efficiency and reduce human error.  

The Results: Media Efficiency, Scalability, and Personalized Experiences

MYNM – BMW Group KSA saw immediate results right away, shortly after implementation, as Alawi AlAlawi, Digitalization Manager describes in this short clip: 

The brand has seen several benefits from their digital transformation: 

  • Granular segmentation lifted the accuracy of customer targeting year-over-year.  
  • Using lookalike models based on first-party data means the brand can serve personalized messages to high-quality, high-value leads. 
  • Real-time eligibility and suppression helps the brand stop bidding on ads when the prospect converts, decreasing costs and creating a more frictionless experience for the prospect. 
  • They’ve increased the efficiency of their team and are able to execute campaigns “at the speed of data rather than the speed of people executing it,” according to Alawi AlAlawi.  

The brand’s goal is to outperform their baselines across every conversion metric relative to prior year.  

Takeaway: Ask These 3 Questions to Assess Your AI Readiness

Annie Bweya, Senior SAP Emarsys Consultant for hmmh, shared practical advice during the webinar, which can benefit brands looking to scale their efficiency and omnichannel engagement with AI. She proposed asking three essential “AI readiness” questions.  

1. Is my data siloed?

If your data is fragmented across disconnected systems, then using AI to drive your segmentation and personalization will be either challenging or impossible.  

Annie’s insights: “AI thrives on clean, connected, and well-structured data to be effective.”  

Plan of Action: A customer engagement platform helps by unifying your data into a single source of truth, creating a unified view of your customers.  

2. What is the quality and reliability of my data?

The results you get from AI depend entirely on the data you feed into it. If your data is riddled with outdated info, duplicates, or inconsistencies, it will lead to troubles down the line. 

Annie’s insights: “Poor data leads to poor decisions, irrelevant offers, poorly timed messages, and missed opportunities.” 

Plan of action: Start by mapping your customer journey. Plan out how you intend to engage your customers every step along the way. Then ensure your data is up to date and relevant — and if you have data you never intend to use, clean it out.  

3. Am I following proper privacy, compliance, and ethics regulations for data?

We can’t talk about data without consideration for customer consent and privacy. Customers care about how brands use their data, and governments demand it. Brands must be responsible custodians of customer data and comply with regulations like the EU AI Act, GDPR, PDPL, and local laws. 

Annie’s insights: “Without proper governance, businesses risk trust, compliance, and the ability to fully leverage AI.”   

Plan of Action: Ensure you have the proper consents and security in place and be transparent with your customers about how you intend to use their data. Customers are happy to consent to sharing their data, but only in exchange for better experiences, so be sure to deliver on what you promise.  

Conclusion

Mohamed Yousuf Naghi Motors – BMW Group KSA is looking to the future and has implemented new strategies and technology to overcome the rising challenges and meet customer demands for personalized engagement. They’ve recognized the significance of personalizing the customer journey to boost sales and build loyalty, and they’re already seeing the results of their efforts.  

Are you ready to meet your customers where they are?  

Catch the complete webinar (available on-demand) for more details, demos, and inspiration. 

WEBINAR: Unlocking the Future of Automotive Sales

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