Ben Carter reflects on his journey from marketing trade journalist to Carwow’s chief customer marketing officer, sharing lessons learned across Betfair, Just Eat and more along the way.
You’ve been a journalist, a strategist and a marketer at brands like Betfair, Just Eat, Purple Bricks, and now Carwow. Can you walk us through your career journey so far?
Not many marketers start off as trade journalists, but I did. I worked at a magazine called New Media Age in the heady days of the internet and dot-com boom of 1999. I met many people launching dot-coms – big companies and startups. After four years of doing that, I took time out to travel.
Next, I worked at Marketing magazine, where I battled Mark Kleinman for the front page every week – Mark is now business editor on Sky News. My ambition was to work for the national press. I got down to the last two to join The Guardian, having done some freelancing for the Media Guardian supplement. I was unlucky, and didn’t get the role, but I suddenly had this hallelujah moment that I could go and put into practice what I’d heard and seen.
At that time, lots of people were launching websites presuming that visitors would naturally flock to them. These businesses seemed to be forgetting how and why consumers interact with brands: there needed to be some sort of utility. My approach was not to see digital as a new revolutionary media channel, and to view it as another way of engaging with consumers.
I became obsessed with how we can use the physical world to create virtual signposts to a brand’s online presence. I set up my own consultancy, initially called BCA, then ‘Evolv Digital.’ Pitching all day and working all night, we made decent money, but I quickly realized the only way you scale a consultancy is if you have a product or proposition where you have intellectual property and then you can license it. During this time, I worked for a whole load of different companies, including AOL, British Gas, N-Power, Sky and Setanta.
Setanta were a new broadcaster and they had won the Premier League rights in the UK and were going head-to-head with Sky. They wanted to build their subscription base online. They brought me in as their head of online marketing and we grew the business to 2 million subscribers.
At one point, Disney made a bid in excess of £1 bn to buy the business. The founders said ‘no.’ Six months later, the business went bust. I sold our database to Disney ESPN for a pound.
I moved to Malta to work for Betfair for a while, then came back to the UK and became digital brand director. This was ‘post IPO’ at Betfair. We launched the Betfair mobile proposition. Betfair was the first gambling operator to get an app approved in the app store.
After five years, I wanted to go and try my hand at something else. I moved to the online gifting marketplace Not On The High Street as marketing director. I enjoyed it, and we drove some really strong growth. Then Just Eat came calling: Just Eat had all the elements that I was looking for in a role. I love being around brands that are driving a positive disruption, and crucially, have a strong purpose with consumers.
What I loved about Just Eat was they were taking traditional takeaways and putting them online. This was way before Deliveroo or Uber Eats appeared. We were connecting customers with their local chippy, curry house or kebab house. Three years in, the CEO asked if I wanted to go and run Australia. It was an incredible opportunity.
The Australian business we had acquired was called Menulog and it was rapidly losing market share to Uber Eats and Deliveroo. I knew that I could go out there, apply the UK playbook and get it back into growth.
Ben on stage discussing Carwow’s retail media offer.
This was in 2018. When I got there, having just gone through a merger and acqusition, the relationship between the UK and Australia was broken. The Australian team had no confidence in the group delivering the product and tech solutions they needed, and they just felt completely ignored.
I fixed that relationship: it was very a case of hearts and minds, showing the Aussies that we could get things done and that there was love for Menulog within the business. I was there for nine months and we invested heavily in the brand. When I left, it was growing 17% year-on-year having gone backwards prior to my arrival. We launched a three-year partnership with KFC, which drove a lot of growth.
I loved the Just Eat business. Still do. But it was time for a new opportunity: I went to Purple Bricks to be chief marketing officer. I really enjoyed working with the people at Purple Bricks, but I found the property industry really challenging and quite acerbic – it just wasn’t for me.
I joined Dunelm, where they asked me to become their Group CMO. The Ukraine war began and six months to the day after joining, I was told that I was no longer needed. It was incredibly difficult to take but it comes with the territory.
Thankfully Carwow came calling. I met John Veichmanis, who was the then COO, now the CEO, and I knew I just had to work for him. He’s an amazing guy and a brilliant leader. He used to be the CMO of Farfetch. I joined Carwow just as the VC market was catching a cold.
The first thing I had to do in my new role was downsize my marketing team which was really, really difficult. But in 2023, we had a phenomenal year. Having begun as a car reviews platform that drives leads to dealers for new cars, the offer has expanded: around 10 years ago Matt Watson was brought in to run their YouTube channel.
The YouTube channel and our organic content drives 60% of our traffic. We just hit 10 million subscribers and we are now a car-changing platform powered by great content. Three years ago, we acquired a business called Wizzle, which lets us sell cars on the platform. So now Carwow is able to help you find your next car and/or sell your car.
Finally we launched a retail media business. Our mission is to be the online car changing destination. Last year, we bought a leasing broker and a range of websites from a company called Autovia last year. We own Auto Express and EVO, all of which drives a huge amount of traffic.
I’m the Chief Customer Marketing Officer. I look after all elements of marketing and all the elements for customers, bar operations. I also look after our retail media business too. We have grown 50% year on year for the last two years, and we have reduced our EBIT losses from north of £10m to £3m. The aim this year is to be profitable and last year we secured our Series E funding.
I think it’s fair to say I finally found my ‘work home ‘again after Just Eat. I am loving it. We’re building a rocket ship. It’s not easy, but it’s great fun. It’s the type of business I love being involved in.
Carwow offers online car-changing with minimal friction.
What’s coming up in the year ahead for you and the team at Carwow?
We’ll continue to deliver on our vision to be the online car-changing platform. We’ve really started to scale our used car proposition too. Not only can you find your next new car on Carwow, but you can now find your next used car and you can lease a car.
We’ve also taken the ‘sell my car’ side of the business, and launched that in Germany. As mentioned, I’ve now taken on the retail media business. We’ve got really exciting plans in terms of how we scale that. We also recently announced our partnership with ITVx: by taking our data and matching it to ITVx’s, we’re going to let car manufacturers target high the same high-intent audiences.
How’s your marketing team structured?
Our retail media side of the business is separate, but covering Carwow’s marketing, I have four directors. I have a brand and comms director across PR, creative, any campaigns and B2B marketing. I have an organic growth director managing SEO.
We have a growth marketing director managing paid digital marketing – paid search, social, retargeting, prospecting, DSPs. They also look after the marketing technology stack. Our audience growth director looks after our CRM and the operation side of the media business and is responsible for monetizing our content-led brands.
Raising awareness for Carwow by tapping in to the desire to change your automobile.
Drawing on your leadership expertise, what has your career taught you that helps you make a great team?
I don’t micromanage. My whole philosophy is about empowering my team to be successful. I will dive into areas if I need to and I will expect my team to be across what is happening as and when that happens.
In every organization I’ve gone into, I’ve tried to break down the silos that exist between departments. I can’t stand ‘one dimensional marketing’ where marketeers work in their own little silo, or they put a campaign live in their own silo but they don’t think about how it could work across channels. I’m a huge believer in ‘360 campaign amplification.’
I don’t buy into this ‘performance versus brand’ debate: for me performance and brand marketing are symbiotic. You can run performance without investing in your brand, but ultimately, performance marketing has a halo impact from your brand activities.
If you’re sweating your assets and your campaigns in the right way across performance and brand, then ultimately you’ll have a good outcome..
Auto Express: part of the Carwow product portfolio.
What’s your first memory of a marketing success that you were part of where you felt: this is a role for me?
I was at Setanta launching a three-month subscription for £10 with no contract. I was with legendary sports commentator, Des Lynam, sat in a burger van, selling subscriptions for a TV ad.
AI and marketing: what might be some pros or cons?
Lots of ‘pros’. First of all, I don’t buy the ‘robots are going to take our jobs’ argument. I think there’s absolutely roles that AI can and will replace over time. I see AI as much more of a productivity gain at the moment. Whether it’s dynamic creative optimization or translation of car reviews into different languages for other markets as we also operate in Germany and Spain, we’re certainly using AI to do that. We always ensure a human to adds the final touches.
We have always used AI elements in performance marketing. But with AI, you need to feed it with the right data signals. All of our Google activity is done on a value-based bidding approach – in theory, that is AI.
I see mostly productivity gains: you get some of the simple tasks done very, very quickly. AI allows us to be smarter and more effective as marketers.
Carwow’s YouTube channel has over 10 million subscribers.
Please tell us about a customer research discovery you made that you found surprising.
I talk a lot to my team about how we operate in a bubble. For example, in my time at Just Eat, the marketing team were largely in their mid 20s, living in zones 1-3 in London. Just Eat’s market share in London, when I was there, was about 40%. Now compare that to Just Eat’s market share in Bolton, Leeds or Basingstoke where it was more like was 98%.
My point is that you might think that you know how to talk to a Just Eat customer if you’re living in your little ivory tower in London within the M25, but until you’ve actually been in those towns and cities, and spoken to customers there you don’t know your customers.
[At] Carwow, again, we’ve a relatively young marketing team. How many of them buy cars? How many of them buy new cars? How many of them own a car? When you look at who buys new cars in this country, it’s still predominantly middle-class, older men.
Our marketing team is not representative of our target audience. For a start, my team is around 80% female. For me, as a marketer, the myth we need to bust is that ‘we know our customers,’ it is more likely that we don’t. We need to get ourselves out of our bubbles and do more research.
What myth about marketing would you most like to bust?
I’ve mentioned it already but I hate this debate about brand and performance. I was talking to someone today between roles – obviously the job market is tough at the moment. They’re a really good CMO, and they have found that they get pigeon-holed as either ‘a brand CMO’ or a ‘performance CMO.’ I am proof that you can transcend both and bring both disciplines together.
Carwow’s recent out-of-home campaign.
What advice might you give your younger self if you could go back in time?
At Just Eat, I got the work-life balance wrong, and I had my priorities wrong. It will never say on your epitaph: he was a great CMO. So number one is: get your work-life balance right.
Number two is: I should have done the consultancy move earlier, because I could have really built it in something very special. Number three: (and I say this to everyone), a good career always has an element of timing and luck. Knowing that when you start your career, particularly if you’re thinking of making taking a risk and doing a career change, is key. I would always advocate people to do a career change. If they’re feeling it in their gut, then they should do it.
Can you tell us something that maybe not a lot of people know about you?
I co-wrote ‘Digital Marketing for Dummies’ in 2003. My team found it last year. Some of them weren’t even born when it was written and see it as a history book.
What question would you like me to ask the next senior marketer when I interview them?
If you had a magic wand, how would you solve the cross-platform measurement challenge?
Your question from a senior marketer: my kid is 19, should I tell them that he should pursue a career in marketing?
If you ask my 14 and 15-year-olds, because I don’t work for a brand that they have in their world, they have zero interest in me being a marketer. But when I was at Just Eat and they had tickets to the X Factor, they were very interested.
Marketing is a career. It’s the best career in the world. There’s very few careers where what you start doing at the beginning of the year, and what you’re doing in December as you wrap up the year, are totally different. You never know where marketing is going to take you each and every year. I think that’s pretty unique.
If there’s one thing you know about marketing, it is?
Don’t just believe the data. Go with your gut… and data.
You might die tomorrow so make it worth your while. Worth Your While is an independent creative agency helping brands do spectacular stuff people like to talk about. wyw.agency.
This interview has already appeared in The Drum. Discover the best campaigns, industry insights and interviews from world-leading marketers, creatives and more.
