Letter from the CEO

From the top

Well, I think we’d all agree this has been quite an extraordinary year.

We started the year off with winds in our sails knowing that our merge with Gumtree was on the horizon.

We quickly found ourselves - like many other businesses in Australia - in uncharted waters, navigating the impacts of COVID-19 on business, the economy, and of course our personal lives.

The wellness of our staff was a key priority as they transitioned to working from home. We also worked quickly to provide financial assistance to our dealer network through fee relief during April and May and again over August and September for Victorian metro dealers.

We were one of the first auto platforms in Australia to launch contactless badging so that dealers could communicate what they were doing to keep consumers safe, and most importantly keep themselves trading.

Our innovations arm, CarsGuide Labs, launched a 3D product enabling consumers to visit dealerships from the comfort of their home. Mitsubishi, Jeep and Audi were quick to jump on board.

Watching consumer demand has been a bit like a roller coaster ride, with numbers initially dropping off at the onset of COVID then coming back stronger than ever with record lead numbers and strong year-on-year growth in organic traffic.

CarsGuide Editorial was well placed to benefit from this renewed consumer demand and returned to No.1 in Australia for online automotive editorial in July, August and September*.

No doubt you would have heard of our merger with Gumtree under the ownership of eBay Classifieds Group. Dealers are already benefiting from this new partnership through our early bird offering whilst we plan the national launch of our joint proposition. Our planning leverages eBay’s global expertise and our local knowledge with input from customers.

I have no doubt the outcome will herald a new era for automotive marketing in Australia, providing Australian dealers with a huge audience of highly motivated buyers with a pricing model that represents good value. The timing couldn’t be better as Australian dealers look to consolidate their marketing spends to drive profitability in this new trading era.

In conclusion, we could not be in better shape to continue in our work supporting car manufacturers, dealers and Australian consumers as we all navigate this testing time. We look forward to working with you to identify new opportunities as we navigate this period together.

Shaun Cornelius Managing Director

*Nielsen Digital Content Ratings (Monthly) Tagged, July 2020, August 2020 and September 2020 text, P18+, PC, Smartphones & Tablet

CarsGuide reached more Australians than any other editorial automotive site during July, August and September *