The Minneapolis Star Tribune is partnering with CarSoup.com to power the stagnant car-selling portion of the publication's website, StarTribune.com/cars. In exchange, the Star Tribune will become the local sales arm for CarSoup.com products and services in the Twin Cities metro area for both dealership and for-sale-by-owner advertising.
The partnership, which begins Dec. 1, 2009, will give visitors to the Tribune's site access to CarSoup.com's vehicle listings and products, as well as through KMSP-TV’s MyFOX9.com.
Win-Win for Both Sides
The deal promises to prop up the Tribune's faltering online auto sales listings with one of the strongest local-search verticals in the city, according to the Minneapolis Post. Right now startribune.com/cars doesn't even show up among the six local auto classified sites listed in the March-April 2009 Media Audit. Meanwhile, CarSoup is first, with 14.8% of a fractured market - nearly nine times as much as cars.com, and 10 percentage points ahead of Autotrader.com; Craigslist, has 9.9% of the Twin Cities.
CarSoup is also getting important cross-platform ad exposure out of the deal. "While CarSoup is winning the local search wars, owner Larry Cuneo knows there's a lot more to get," the Minneapolis Post said - such as the Tribune's print component, an area in which CarSoup had no partner.
"CarSoup gets about 250,000 uniques a month" in the Twin Cities, Cuneo told the Post. While many of those uniques aren't in the Twin Cities - likely drive-by users who come via search engines - it still adds up to a good deal for CarSoup, which is now in 80 of the nation's 217 designated market areas.
Online Auto Ad Growth
The deal illustrates the lure of the growing market for online auto ads and sales activity, especially for publishers. Auto manufacturers are expected to increase their online ad spend by 14% in 2010, while new- and used-car dealers will increase their ad spend online by 8.6%, according to a new report from Borrell Associates. The increase in expected spending may be because the internet is the leading media driver of walk-in traffic, writes MediaBuyerPlanner.
