5:26 pm, January 14, 2009
JUSTGOODCARS.COM reports it has made great strides over the past few months – despite a plummeting car market.
Since October, monthly audiences on the free dealer ad website have risen. This means the site is one of just a handful recording month on month growth.
That’s ‘an incredible result’, said site commercial director, Colin Mathieson.
‘3 in every 4 top-20 UK dealer group now advertises with justgoodcars.com, meaning our audience, stock numbers and response are all climbing steadily.’
This, he says, is because the site is responding to dealer calls for financial help. How? ‘All dealers can advertise on our network free of any fee – no catch, no gimmick and for as long as they want to.’
He stresses the ‘no catch’ line. ‘We will always ask advertisers if they would upgrade to our enhanced package, which giving client branding, weblinks, deeplinks, maplinks and profile adverts in our online directories – but if they would prefer to just stick to the standard package, that’s absolutely fine.’
So how will it make money? Mathieson is clear. ‘In time, our name and standing in the market will grow and we’ll build revenues through display advertising, affiliations and sales of enhanced packages to dealers.
‘However, in the current climate, anyone demanding high rates for online advertising is going to be very disappointed.’
Mathieson reckons software providers could play their part and help dealers, by waiving any upload fees for at least a trial period. ‘Some of the biggest names in the software market continue to insist on a fee for sending data to websites like ours.
‘In more buoyant times, perhaps dealers could afford that, but times are very tough. Sending data is as simple as sending an email, and none of us charge for that, so I’d appeal to all software providers to do what they can to help.’
Car Dealer launches daily bulletin
