Relay Payments
Blueprint for Launching Products, Capturing Insights, and Driving Rapid Adoption at MATS
Relay Payments has emerged as a disruptive force in the logistics fintech space, providing a modernized payment network that streamlines transactions for fuel, parking, and lumper fees. As the company continues to scale its digital infrastructure, it has identified the Mid-America Trucking Show (MATS) as its most vital physical touchpoint. For Relay Payments, MATS is not merely an industry event: it is a high-velocity environment where digital innovation meets the physical reality of the road. By consistently expanding its presence in Louisville, the company has successfully bridged the gap between complex financial technology and the daily operational needs of the American truck driver.
David Barak, Chief Marketing Officer, Relay Payments
Challenge:
One of the most significant hurdles for any technology provider in the trucking industry is the extreme fragmentation and mobility of the target audience. As David Barak, Chief Marketing Officer for Relay Payments, notes, drivers are “on the road often,” making it notoriously difficult for product and marketing teams to aggregate them in a single setting to capture meaningful feedback. This digital isolation often creates a “knowledge gap” where the carrier on the road is “underappreciated and not understood” by the very people designing solutions for them.
Solution:
Relay Payments utilized MATS as a strategic engine for both internal readjustment and external network expansion. The company made the decision to go big on exhibit space and bring its “entire company” to the show floor—deploying a team of over 70 individuals from marketing, product, and leadership. This massive commitment was designed to facilitate extensive product feedback, allowing the team to “stand across from the same individuals you’re trying to help.” By treating MATS as the primary launchpad for its fuel network expansion, Relay Payments created a centralized hub to “raise awareness of truck stops and drive gallons to those merchants” while simultaneously capturing the qualitative data necessary to refine its app interface.
Results:
The results of Relay Payments’ participation at MATS have been both quantifiable and transformative. The show was “instrumental” in helping the company gain adoption for its major products, directly contributing to the successful expansion of its fuel network to over 1,100 truck stops. The company has seen its booth presence get “bigger and bigger every year” because it receives “incremental value every time” it exhibits. Beyond the metrics of lead generation and network distribution, the show has served as the ultimate R&D testing environment, providing a “most immersive way” for the entire Relay team to understand what carriers think and do, ensuring that their product roadmap is directly influenced by the individuals using the app.
Strategic Network Expansion and the Power of the “Origin Story”
MATS has served as the definitive milestone for Relay Payments’ product lifecycle, providing a high-visibility stage for major network announcements. For the second year in a row, the company utilized the show to launch a massive expansion, this year growing their fuel network to 1,100 truck stops. Barak credits MATS as being “instrumental in helping us gain adoption for that product,” noting that the show is a “great opportunity for us to raise awareness of those truck stops and drive gallons to those merchants.” By leveraging the “brand exposure” of MATS, Relay Payments can effectively distribute its app and ensure its payment network is adopted at scale, achieving a level of market penetration that digital outreach alone cannot match.
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Beyond the external business objectives, MATS holds a deep internal significance for the company, serving as what Barak calls an “origin story.” He reflects on his own first day with the company, which took place at MATS, describing it as the “most immersive way for me to understand what drivers think, do, and how we can help them.” This cultural immersion is a primary reason why Relay Payments continues to bring its entire company to the show. It provides an underappreciated perspective on the “life on the road” that is essential for building a brand that drivers truly care about. By connecting with partners, customers, and drivers in a single place to do that effectively,” Relay Payments has turned MATS into a permanent pillar of its corporate identity and growth strategy.
Breaking the Digital Wall: The 70-Person Field Research Laboratory
Relay Payments has revolutionized the traditional trade show model by transforming its booth into a high-fidelity R&D laboratory. David Barak emphasizes that while the company attends 20 to 25 shows a year, MATS stands alone as “one of our best shows because it’s the place where you really get to hear from drivers.” Rather than relying on distant digital surveys, the company brought over 70 people to Louisville specifically to “speak directly to drivers and understand their challenges.” This strategy allows the product team to learn first-hand about the struggle to find parking or the complexities of warehouse payments.
This level of direct engagement serves as the foundation for Relay’s “direct-to-driver” marketing philosophy. The show allows the team to demonstrate how their “payment network helps drivers complete transactions faster” for fuel, parking, and lumpers. By sitting down with the largest possible audience, Relay Payments ensures that its solution “caters to every truck driver on the road.” Barak observes that because “everyone has to buy diesel and everyone’s struggling to find parking,” meeting the users face-to-face is the only way to effectively communicate how Relay helps them “maximize their hours of service.” This intensive feedback loop ensures that the brand remains focused on the human element of logistics, turning qualitative insights into high-performance technology.
Conclusion:
The partnership between Relay Payments and the Mid-America Trucking Show illustrates the immense value of merging fintech innovation with street-level engagement. By leveraging MATS to scale its 1,100-location fuel network and deploying its entire team to listen to the “people that really care about the brand,” Relay Payments has solidified its status as an industry leader. The “incremental value” achieved through three years of participation has proven that for a scaling technology company, the most powerful engine for growth is not an algorithm, but a personal connection with the driver. As Relay Payments continues to expand, MATS will remain the essential stage where their digital solutions are refined by the physical realities of their core customers.
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