Abstract: Systems, methods and products for tuning a set of weights for a ranking engine in an automotive data processing system. In one embodiment, a method includes tracking user interactions with an automotive data processing system and identifying, for each user, a corresponding list of vehicles of interest. For each of a plurality of weight sets corresponding to a plurality of ranking factors, vehicles in the user vehicle lists are ranked and scored. The ranking factors include both consumer-facing factors and business-facing factors. These scores are summed to generate an aggregate performance score for the ranking engine using the weight set. This ranking and scoring of the lists and generating an aggregate performance score is repeated for multiple potential weight sets, and the weight set with the best aggregate performance score is implemented as a new working weight set.

Abstract: Systems, methods and products for cold start customization of a vehicle data system. In response to a consumer request to access a search tool, the consumer is identified and if there is no associated historical search information, a cold start customization process is performed. In this process, demographic information for the consumer is retrieved and used to identify specific groupings within several demographic categories which correspond to the consumer demographic information. The system then access a list which stores vehicle preferences for each possible demographic classification and retrieves the specific vehicle preferences (e.g., top-ranked vehicles for consumers in each classification) which correspond to the consumer's demographic classification. The system then generates a cold start search for the consumer which is customized according to the retrieved set of vehicle preferences corresponding to the consumer's identified demographic classification (e.g.