The experience behind the advice.
These aren’t Media Guides client deliverables – they’re a selected handful of examples from Tim Lloyd’s career at Domain, eBay, GCA (Gumtree x CarsGuide) and IAG. There’s plenty more where these came from; these are simply chosen to show the breadth of experience that shapes how The Media Guides advises clients today, not a portfolio of work delivered under this practice.
Saving an at-risk customer relationship
Situation
A large automotive OEM appointed a new agency to lead data-driven strategy and measurement. The agency would not commit to the OEM’s historical annual investment with CarsGuide, putting the relationship at risk – they could clearly attribute performance on their major digital channels, but had far less visibility into what local publisher partners like CarsGuide were actually contributing.
Approach
Rather than defend the existing relationship on relationship terms alone, the response was to close the actual visibility gap – coordinating with a data-matching partner to demonstrate CRM-level attribution the agency hadn’t previously been able to see, and going further by showing what the broader Gumtree marketplace network could add on top of that.
Outcome
The withheld investment was reallocated, and CarsGuide became the only portal in the category to secure a renewed commitment – while competing publishers, less able to demonstrate the same data capability, lost ground. The harder part wasn’t the number: it was rebuilding trust with stakeholders who’d already made up their mind before the conversation started.
Account growth through adoption and strategic guidance
Situation
A property developer ran a month-long Facebook audience extension campaign through Domain. Ad engagement matched benchmarks, but the campaign generated only two leads – the destination site the traffic was landing on was poorly designed, with underwhelming listing copy and imagery undermining an otherwise well-targeted campaign.
Approach
Rather than optimise the media plan further, the recommendation was to fix the destination: a dedicated, mobile-optimised microsite, paired with rich media retargeting and a solus email campaign targeted specifically at a high-net-worth apartment seeker audience.
Outcome
Qualified leads jumped from 2 to 48 in the second month – a 2300% increase, with a conversion rate well above the real estate industry average. The client increased investment across other projects off the back of the result, and became an early adopter of new products as they launched.
Cross-functional collaboration to drive transformation
Situation
Gumtree traffic was declining roughly 25% year-on-year, editorial engagement was thin, and any yield gains from existing tactics were short-lived. Third-party cookie deprecation and ageing platform infrastructure were compounding the problem, right as capital and resourcing were tightly constrained.
Approach
The response was a formal business case built in partnership with commercial, marketing, editorial, product and finance stakeholders – capturing the cost of inaction alongside the transformation upside of a customer data platform (CDP), then leading the use case definition and a build-versus-buy RFP process.
Outcome
The case secured funding, and once locked in, it became one of GCA’s five “Big Initiatives” for the year – a genuinely cross-functional outcome, not a single-team win. Delivery continued in partnership with product and technology teams to define the implementation roadmap and enable go-to-market uplift with commercial teams and clients directly.
Building a single source of truth for marketing data
Situation
Domain had no unified source of truth for marketing data – over 200 data streams sat fragmented across booking systems, ad platforms and delivery data, forcing sales, finance and product teams to work from inconsistent numbers and manually compile reporting.
Approach
Led the Media team’s adoption of Datorama as Domain’s marketing intelligence platform – using native AdTech/MarTech connectors (Salesforce, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Magnite and others) to consolidate every feed into a single data model, then built automated dashboards for group revenue, campaign margin and pacing (with alerting via Datorama’s Activation Center), and client-facing reporting combining paid and organic performance.
Outcome
Manual reporting effort dropped by up to 50%, freeing the team to spend time on insight and product innovation instead of report-building – and enabling real-time reporting for clients without the previous delays. The implementation was significant enough to be featured as a real-world case study at Salesforce Live.
Designing operating model governance from scratch
Situation
IAG’s Personalisation Program – with 6,000+ NRMA stakeholders – required an operating model uplift to maximise value from its recent investment in new Adobe MarTech capabilities. Prioritisation, delivery feedback and compliance oversight were being handled ad hoc, a genuine risk to a program of this scale as the new capabilities were operationalised in BAU.
Approach
Designed and embedded a three-part operating model from the ground up: a Journey SteerCo for prioritisation and alignment of initiatives, a supporting squad model for delivery and insights feedback, and an Audience Council governance framework for compliance, standardisation and measurement oversight – alongside Data Usage Guidelines to give responsible AI use a clear framework from day one.
Outcome
Aligned 100+ core stakeholders around a shared governance structure. Also built proactive risk identification and get-well planning, escalating to the GM SteerCo before issues became blockers rather than after.
Building a trading desk from zero
Situation
Domain’s programmatic trading desk didn’t exist yet – there was no established process, platform configuration, or commercial playbook to build from. As the second hire into the function, the starting point was closer to zero than to an existing team needing optimisation.
Approach
Built the commercial and operational foundation from the ground up – platform setup, campaign workflows, and the initial account base – while establishing relationships with major blue-chip advertisers including Volkswagen Group, Kia, NAB, Telstra, AMEX, Westpac and Stockland.
Outcome
Delivered a 75% year-on-year revenue uplift in the desk’s first year – a genuine cold-start result, not an optimisation of an already-established channel. The account base and commercial foundation built in that first year became the platform the function scaled from afterward.
Realising synergies across two rounds of M&A
Situation
The portfolio went through two rounds of consolidation in succession. First, CarsGuide and Autotrader were absorbed into eBay and Gumtree, requiring a genuine combined commercial offering rather than multiple brands sold separately. A second integration followed later, after another change in ownership brought a further set of investor content and forum assets into the group under a new parent structure.
Approach
Built the combined commercial offering across Gumtree, CarsGuide and Autotrader following the first round of consolidation. When the Capital Markets integration followed, led the operating model and synergy realisation work across that combination too – aligning commercial platforms, data infrastructure and team workflows rather than leaving each brand to run its pre-merger setup in parallel.
Outcome
The Capital Markets integration – the most recent of these synergy initiatives – delivered a 35% year-on-year revenue uplift alongside OPEX savings in its first year, evidence the alignment work translated into commercial results across multiple rounds of consolidation, not just the most recent one.
Building a self-serve advertising platform
Situation
Gumtree’s existing sales-led model didn’t scale to the volume and diversity of small and local business demand – most non-dealership SMB advertisers were too small individually to justify a dedicated sales relationship, but collectively represented a genuine market opportunity, distinct from (and smaller than) the larger car dealership advertiser segment pursued later.
Approach
Led the design and go-to-market of Gumtree Ad Manager, a self-serve advertising platform – integrating Adyen for payments, Salesforce for account management, GA4 for analytics, and built-in A/B testing capability. Rather than paid acquisition, the initial non-dealership SMB pipeline was built through house ads across the GCA network and CRM-driven conversion of newsletter subscribers.
Outcome
Built a qualified database of around 150 non-dealership SMB businesses within the first quarter post-launch – without any paid marketing investment. This gave long-tail advertisers genuine self-serve access to Gumtree’s audience without requiring agency or sales-rep involvement for every account, ahead of the larger car dealership TAM the platform later expanded into.
Why this experience matters to how we advise
Each of these situations involved the same underlying pattern: a commercial problem that looked like a media or platform issue on the surface, but actually required cross-functional alignment, a genuine business case, and follow-through past the point most vendors stop. That’s the same lens The Media Guides brings to client engagements today – whether that’s a MarTech stack decision, a governance program, or a growth strategy that needs more than a media plan to actually work.
What people ask us
Were these Media Guides client engagements?
No. These are selected examples from Tim Lloyd’s career at Domain, eBay and GCA (Gumtree, CarsGuide) and IAG, shown here because they’re the direct experience The Media Guides’ advisory approach is built on – not deliverables produced under this practice.
Why show employer-era work rather than Media Guides case studies?
Because it’s the more honest and more substantial story. Enterprise, in-house work at this scale carries more depth than most consulting engagements would in the same timeframe, and pretending otherwise wouldn’t serve you well as a prospective client.
Are the figures shown accurate?
Yes, with one distinction worth noting: the OEM client retention, Domain property developer lead growth, Datorama reporting efficiency, Trading Desk revenue uplift, GCA portfolio integration, and Ad Manager database figures are actual, measured results. The Gumtree CDP uplift and the IAG $47M revenue figure were business case and program targets at the time – presented here as targets, not delivered outcomes.
Is there experience beyond what’s shown in these eight cases?
Yes – a few examples worth knowing about. At Domain, a separate audience acquisition product (Audience Extension) was built from zero into a $32M+ direct acquisition engine, primarily for real estate and property developer partners – the same acquisition strategy and targeting frameworks were then applied to scale Domain’s whitelabelled Home Loans and Insurance joint ventures, contributing to 3x year-on-year growth in that regulated product line.
Is there direct experience with generative AI, beyond governance frameworks?
Yes. At IAG, this included leading the RFI and onboarding evaluation for generative AI content solutions – designing the use case for scaling personalised creative without a proportional increase in production cost – alongside embedding a separate content approval workflow system (Intelligence Bank) across the Customer Experience & Marketing division, with privacy-by-design review and sign-off built in from the start.
What about lifecycle marketing and cross-sell for existing clients, not just new business?
At GCA, this included leading a co-marketing capability (GCA Labs) that deployed lifecycle marketing strategies to drive cross-sell and up-sell for major automotive OEM and financial services partners – using omnichannel messaging and CRM-based data matching to identify customers ready for adjacent sales, delivering 2-3x ROAS improvements for participating partners.
Can you do something similar for my business?
That depends on your specific situation, but the underlying capability – cross-functional business cases, MarTech and data strategy, stakeholder alignment – is exactly what The Media Guides offers today. Get in touch to talk through your context directly.
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