The Cobalt Group Invited to Join Pilot Program for MSN's adCenter

Business Wire, Feb 9, 2006

SEATTLE -- The Cobalt Group, Inc., the leading provider of marketing services to the retail automotive industry, today announced that it will participate in the pilot program for MSN's adCenter. adCenter is a paid-search service from MSN that provides advanced audience intelligence and targeting capabilities to help advertisers improve their return on investment when it comes to Internet paid-search engine advertising.

"We are committed to helping automotive dealer customers create and convert more opportunities using Cobalt solutions," said John Holt, CEO of the Cobalt Group. "Incorporating adCenter into our search offerings gives us -- and our dealer customers -- advance insights into cutting-edge paid search advertising and marketing techniques. MSN Search's audience of more than 2.5 billion monthly users and its sophisticated demographics targeting capabilities, combined with Cobalt's leading Internet advertising and marketing solutions for the automotive industry, will deliver a truly winning solution for our dealer customers."

adCenter is the next-generation of online advertising that will allow companies to conveniently plan, execute, and adjust their online advertising programs. Testing is critical to the success of adCenter in order for MSN to gather valuable feedback from advertisers and make any necessary improvements to the product prior to broad availability.

"We are pleased to have The Cobalt Group participate in the adCenter pilot," said David Jakubowski, general manager of Search Strategy and Go-To-Market at MSN. "We're excited to see industry leaders like Cobalt use our technology to drive better results for their automotive clients. We look forward to our relationship with The Cobalt Group as they deliver new and innovative services using the adCenter product."

About The Cobalt Group

The Cobalt Group is North America's leading provider of automotive marketing services. For more than a decade, Cobalt's exclusive mission has been to help automobile dealers and manufacturers increase their retailing effectiveness and profits. Cobalt provides marketing services to more than half the automotive dealerships in the United States, Canada and Mexico and is endorsed by more than two-thirds of the world's major automotive manufacturers. Cobalt is also endorsed by the American International Automobile Dealers Association (AIADA).

For more information about The Cobalt Group, please call 800-909-8244.

For media inquiries, please contact Cobalt's corporate communications department at 206-219-8022 or email press@cobaltgroup.com

Cobalt and The Cobalt Group are trademarks of The Cobalt Group, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners.