Ryan Hartman once managed a $100 million digital advertising budget at GEICO. So when we asked how he was deploying marketing dollars at Chaiz, the extended car warranty marketplace he co-founded, we expected to hear about the channels and experiments producing his best customers.
He smiled.
“I spend zero dollars on paid advertising right now.”
Chaiz had tested paid media, he explained, but its growth was coming largely through organic discovery and partnerships. At the time of our conversation, Ryan said customer acquisition costs were the lowest they had been. The marketer who had spent much of his career buying attention was spending more of his time finding businesses that could distribute his product.
That shift became more interesting as we understood what Chaiz had decided to give up. Customers could compare warranty prices without entering an email address or phone number. They could research coverage without agreeing to a conversation with a salesperson. For a company trying to grow, those decisions meant fewer prospects to follow up with.
For a company selling extended car warranties, Ryan believed they were necessary.
“When I often talk to people and they say, ‘Hey, what do you do?’ I’m in auto warranties, they’re like, ‘Ugh,’” he told us. “They kind of cringe a little bit.”
Before Chaiz could persuade someone to buy, it had to address what they expected would happen if they expressed interest.
Ryan had encountered the need for the product himself. After roles at GEICO, Esurance and Custom Ink, he joined insurance comparison marketplace The Zebra, where he watched the company grow from roughly 20 people to more than 400. He was considering his next move when his car needed an engine repair that would cost about $10,000.
The mechanic hoped he had an extended warranty. He didn’t.
Researching the market, Ryan saw a familiar pattern — a complicated financial purchase that consumers could benefit from an online comparison. But the sales process carried its own baggage. Dealership pressure, unsolicited calls and opaque pricing had shaped how people thought about the category.
Chaiz built a marketplace where customers could compare plans from multiple providers and purchase online. The providers underwrite the coverage and handle claims. Chaiz’s job is to help customers choose among them.
That distinction also creates a responsibility. Ryan said the company has turned away prospective providers after reviewing their reputations and finding concerns about unpaid claims. Every provider admitted to the marketplace becomes part of the experience on which Chaiz’s own reputation depends.
The same thinking shaped its quote process. Asking for contact information before revealing a price might create a useful lead for a sales team. It also asks the customer to accept an uncertain consequence just to learn what something costs.
“We’ve always prided ourselves on being anti-spam,” Ryan said.
The commercial cost is real. Without an email address, Chaiz has fewer opportunities to bring an undecided shopper back. We wanted to understand how Ryan reconciled that choice with the work of building a customer base.
His answer started with an unfamiliar search query.
People were searching for “warranty by VIN,” and the team wanted to know what they meant. These drivers were trying to determine whether their existing factory warranty was still valid. They knew their car’s age and mileage but couldn’t necessarily remember the coverage limits.
The question came before a purchase decision; Do I already have the protection I’m looking for?
At a company off-site, Ryan worked with an engineer and a designer to build a tool that could answer it. He said they brought it to market about a week after developing the idea.
The tool does collect an email address. In return, the driver can check their factory warranty status. If coverage has expired, Chaiz can offer extended warranty options. If it remains active, the company has information it can use to follow up closer to expiration.
“We know when your factory warranty is going to expire,” Ryan explained. “We have your email address.”
That was the detail we kept coming back to. The team had found a reason to collect information that followed directly from the customer’s question. Someone comparing prices could continue without surrendering their contact details. Someone checking existing coverage could receive a message tied to when that coverage would end.
For a marketer, those are very different relationships. One begins with a person’s willingness to enter a funnel. The other begins with a specific problem the company has helped them understand.
Ryan’s approach to distribution follows a similar logic. He spends much of his time developing partnerships with companies that already have a relevant relationship with the customer. Chaiz has built APIs that let partners incorporate its warranty offering into their own websites and purchase experiences. Ryan described working with peer-to-peer car marketplaces and financial businesses, including NerdWallet and Self Financial.
Car insurance offers a particularly clear connection. A customer has just arranged protection against an accident. Mechanical breakdowns remain a separate expense. Introducing warranty coverage at that moment gives the product a context the customer already understands.
Building those relationships requires technical work alongside marketing. A prospective partner needs a straightforward way to present the plans and move a customer through checkout. Chaiz’s integration becomes part of its ability to win distribution.
“How do we make it easier for those big brands to sell our products?” Ryan recalled asking. “Let’s build an API that they could tap into.”
His experience in paid media hasn’t stopped being useful. It has helped him judge where a small company’s resources can go furthest. At Chaiz, that has meant concentrating on specific search opportunities and making the product easier for established businesses to offer.
There are limits to what we can conclude from that strategy. Ryan’s account of lower acquisition costs doesn’t tell us how much each decision contributed, or how the mix will change as the company grows. Forgoing contact details also leaves Chaiz with a constraint its competitors may be happy to avoid.
But the warranty-by-VIN tool shows how the team is working within that constraint. A search query revealed uncertainty. Marketing, design and engineering built something to resolve it. The result gave Chaiz both a useful service and a more relevant opportunity to follow up.
A driver whose factory warranty is still active may have little reason to purchase today. Chaiz can answer their question anyway. When that coverage approaches its end, the company has something specific to say.
This season of CMO Uncovered is supported by CleverTap. CleverTap is the world’s leading engagement platform, helping brands build meaningful relationships through data-driven personalization. Powering over 2,000 customers globally, CleverTap’s AI-powered engine processes billions of data points daily to help marketers predict behavior and automate engagement at scale. From onboarding to advocacy, CleverTap provides the infrastructure needed to optimize every stage of the customer journey. For the CMOs building the next generation of iconic brands, CleverTap offers the precision and scale required to win in a crowded market. To learn more, visit clevertap.com.
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