Cobalt Newsroom - Press Release

Kelley Blue Book's The Trusted MarketplaceSM Now Part of the Dealix UsedCars.com Network

July 9, 2009

Redwood City, CA, July 9, 2009 - Dealix, a division of The Cobalt Group and an industry leader in automotive sales leads for dealers, dealer groups and manufacturers, announced today that it has signed an agreement with Kelley Blue Book (kbb.com) to offer its classified ad program to the Dealix UsedCars.com Network. Under terms of the agreement, dealers signed up for Dealix's UsedCars.com Leads service will have their inventory presented on The Trusted Marketplace on Kelley Blue Book's kbb.com. The Trusted Marketplace from Kelley Blue Book represents a significant addition to the Dealix UsedCars.com Network due to its trusted brand and well-known web site kbb.com, which attracts 12 million visitors monthly.

The Dealix UsedCars.com Network offers dealers the most efficient and risk-free way to get exposure for their pre-owned inventory to the millions of monthly used car buyers who shop at the top independent auto buying sites on the Web, including kbb.com and UsedCars.com. Dealers are only charged when they receive a lead from an auto shopper at a Dealix network site who requests information by email lead or phone call about a specific used car in their inventory.

The advantages dealers get with representation across the Dealix UsedCars.com network include:

  • Inventory placement on top automotive sites (if the dealer's inventory is not already present) with the convenience of a single purchase and one account to manage.
  • Single, consolidated reporting, showing all leads and all exposures (including searches and views of vehicle detail pages) across all sites.
  • Consolidated management of phone leads, with Dealix placing a single phone number on the dealer's inventory for consistent presentation across the network. Dealix's feature-rich call program adds car buyers' contact information, including name and address, to phone call leads using Dealix CallPostTM, which creates a fully appended lead that is placed directly into the dealers' CRM tool; and, payment policies that charge only for phone call leads over 65 seconds in length.
  • A pay only for performance pricing model, whereby dealers are only charged for verified phone or email leads when a consumer requests more information on a specific vehicle in their inventory.

"Kelley Blue Book and Dealix share a common belief that the most needed value we can deliver to dealers today is a serious car buyer in the form of a high quality lead," said Anna Zornosa, general manager of Dealix and executive vice president of Cobalt. "What we offer dealers is a high-value, pay-for-performance model, whereby they pay only when they receive a quality lead from a car buyer for a specific vehicle in their inventory. By helping dealers lower their customer acquisition costs and avoiding the high-priced subscription fees charged by other classified services, we're offering both dealers and consumers enormous benefits. Quite simply, our model gives dealers the financial breathing room to offer their most competitive prices to car buyers."

"This new strategic agreement greatly strengthens our long-standing relationship with Dealix and enhances the value we jointly bring to their national network of dealers," said Paul Johnson, president and CEO of Kelley Blue Book. "Kbb.com is the first place millions of in-market vehicle shoppers visit each month to begin their vehicle research process, and Dealix provides an essential array of local buying choices through their broad dealer network."

Dealers working with Dealix may have their inventory posted in The Trusted Marketplace starting July 17, 2009.

About Dealix
Dealix, a division of Cobalt, is the world's leading provider of quality leads for new and used cars for dealerships, dealer groups, and automotive manufacturers. Dealix has the broadest reach and the highest quality lead supply network in the industry, including Kelley Blue Book, Edmunds.com, Yahoo! Autos, AOL Autos, MSN Autos, and others. Dealix also represents Edmunds' Premier Dealer Program and powers AOL Autos' and MSN Autos' price quote platforms. Dealix connects dealers with the millions of car shoppers who prefer independent Internet sites when shopping for new cars and used cars online. Dealix's Lead Platform 2009 quickly matches thousands of serious new and used vehicle buyers to the most appropriate dealers daily, delivering a quality car buying experience for consumers and providing dealers with one of the most efficient methods available today for marketing and selling cars.

About Cobalt
Cobalt is North America's leading provider of digital marketing services for the automotive industry. For over fourteen years, Cobalt's mission has been to help automobile dealers and manufacturers increase their retailing effectiveness and profitability. Cobalt provides marketing services to half of the automotive dealerships in the United States, as well as automotive dealers in Canada and Mexico. Cobalt's marketing services are endorsed by approximately two-thirds of the world's major automotive manufacturers.

Media Contact:

Amy Hatch
Email: ahatch@cobalt.com
Phone: 206-219-8132

Visit Our Subsidiaries