Adapt. Evolve. Transcend.

The original goal of AET was to blur the lines between agency and dealer relationship. Originating from Tier 3 advertising backgrounds, we all saw the opportunity to offer dealers an alternative to hiring an expensive agency or a large inhouse teams.
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Our story

Once upon a time in the auto industry dealerships were forced into a tireless systems where the beginning of each month came with anxiety, stress & uncertainty around digital advertising.

Until one day an opportunity arose within a group of friends and old colleagues. A different way to approach an age-old problem. Unbound from large teams and corporate bureaucracy this group decided to take action on a new, dealer-enabled approach to digital creative process and ad deployments.

The goal was to eliminate the need for an outdated process that was undeserving the need of the dealerships. Combining years of agency experience working with automotive & fortune 500 companies to create their own solution to an agency. This was the blueprint of what was yet to come. [To complete the vision] they then, brought in partners with big tech experience to automate the heavy-lifting for this creative process. Together developed a serve-self design platform that allows users to create, target & deploy digital incentive ads for Social Media, Display & Websites. 

The AET Marketing Cloud was born and this changed everything. No longer were dealerships subjected to paying monthly dues to the classic middlemen for ad content. No longer did they have to wait days to complete the creative & approval process. Everything they needed was now available at their fingertips. Dealers were now free to create their own ads, and better integrate their brand with their location & community. Marketing managers had more time to focus on brand building, customer feedback, ads performance and budget allocations. Fixed-Ops managers could push service specials as needed to fill their bays. Inventory issues were combated with fast-track ad ability to move what vehicles dealers had on their lot.

As Chief Marketing Officer, Andrew leads AET Automotive’s marketing and communications functions and is responsible for driving AET Automotive’s brand momentum, adoption, demand creation and growth. Andrew views himself as a true problem solver. He was involved early on with the company helping to set up the company from day one, assisting with vision and leadership when needed. Andrew has more than 17 years of marketing experience in various verticals. Prior to AET Automotive, he made a career of introducing new technology and services to markets for companies at the start-ups phase, all the way up through Fortune 500. His responsibilities included go-to-market strategy and execution to achieve top-line user adoption. As a keywriter on 4 RFP proposals for Willdan Inc, Andrew helped the company win over $100 million in new contracts in 2 years. He brings an outside perspective that is unique & valuable to the changes happening in the automotive industry. 

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Andrew

Director of Accounts

Since 2004, Annemarie has been a noteworthy leader in the digital marketing space. You may know her from her automotive work starting in 2009 with Moore & Scarry – where she developed the paid search arm, Haystak – key in the creation, development, and education of the platform, or CK – where she built upon those skills and added social media marketing to the mix.
We all know 2020 was a bit of a dumpster fire for everyone, but it wasn't all bad— that was the year Annemarie joined the AET Automotive team as Director of Accounts, using her skills to inspire and empower dealers to take their marketing into their own hands, create ads that stands out, that potential customers will love, and will ignite results for your business.

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AW

Betsy began in the agency setting working in paid social advertising in the days of Power Editor (if you know, you know) and then began to work in tier 3 auto paid social in 2015. Within the agency settings, she worked primarily on Facebook ads for a wide array of clients, with monthly budgets ranging from $500-$1MM+.
Eventually, Betsy got sick of the agency life and dove-in head-first to what would become AET Automotive in 2019. She has loved the journey of going from 0 clients to where we are today, and everything learned along the way. Currently Betsy runs day-to-day operations for the company, working closely with the accounts, engineering, sales, and marketing teams to deliver the AET mission of empowering dealers to take control of their own digital marketing. She loves hearing from AET customers and folks in the industry, feel free to reach out to her at betsy@aetautomotive.com with feedback, digital marketing questions, or dad jokes.

PS: Betsy would like to publicly apologize to the 100s of people she spammed on LinkedIn during 2019-2020 trying to get them to demo AET.

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Betsy

Jeff Gonzales is the original visionary and founder of AET Automotive. He brings 10+ years of digital advertising, automotive and leadership experience to the team. After deciding that being a ski bum in Breckenridge, CO wasn’t going to be a sustainable lifestyle in 2011, Jeff found his start in Automotive working at the dealership level for Stevinson Automotive, but was quickly recruited to CK Advertising (previously Moore & Scarry) to run their social product, Ember Social. Jeff grew his team, which included co-founder Betsy Brookshire, and Ember’s footprint in the auto space to around 350 dealerships before it was acquired by Affinitiv in 2018. From there Jeff, JC and Eamer founded what was the beginning of AET Automotive. Today, Jeff is the CEO at AET and works closely with sales, product creative, marketing, and is usually the one you will find at any industry event.

Let's connect!

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Jeff

Seamus is an experienced and passionate sales professional with a proven track record in B2B SaaS sales and marketing, and in managing business systems. His commitment to delivering exceptional customer service and fostering collaborative teamwork drives results.

His professional journey began in the dynamic world of New England stock car racing, where is family owned and operated several race tracks and sanctioning bodies. He subsequently relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina, and  joined the NASCAR scene as director of events at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

In 2010, he ventured into the automotive industry as a digital marketing sales executive at Gannett. There, he consistently exceeded sales quotas and earned recognition as a two-time award-winning sales leader. His thirst for industry knowledge led to holding positions such as General Manager, Digital Marketing Director, Account Executive at Edmunds.com (where he led the nation in sales), and Head of Customer Acquisition for a B2B SaaS agency. In 2021 he joined AET as Head of Sales bringing his passion for the automotive industry and a proficiency in B2B sales and marketing to the team. 

LinkedIn_logo_initials

Seamus

As Chief Marketing Officer, Andrew leads AET Automotive’s marketing and communications functions and is responsible for driving AET Automotive’s brand momentum, adoption, demand creation and growth. Andrew views himself as a true problem solver. He was involved early on with the company helping to set up the company from day one, assisting with vision and leadership when needed. Andrew has more than 17 years of marketing experience in various verticals. Prior to AET Automotive, he made a career of introducing new technology and services to markets for companies at the start-ups phase, all the way up through Fortune 500. His responsibilities included go-to-market strategy and execution to achieve top-line user adoption. As a keywriter on 4 RFP proposals for Willdan Inc, Andrew helped the company win over $100 million in new contracts in 2 years. He brings an outside perspective that is unique & valuable to the changes happening in the automotive industry. 

LinkedIn_logo_initials

Andrew

Director of Accounts

Since 2004, Annemarie has been a noteworthy leader in the digital marketing space. You may know her from her automotive work starting in 2009 with Moore & Scarry – where she developed the paid search arm, Haystak – key in the creation, development, and education of the platform, or CK – where she built upon those skills and added social media marketing to the mix.
We all know 2020 was a bit of a dumpster fire for everyone, but it wasn't all bad— that was the year Annemarie joined the AET Automotive team as Director of Accounts, using her skills to inspire and empower dealers to take their marketing into their own hands, create ads that stands out, that potential customers will love, and will ignite results for your business.

LinkedIn_logo_initials

 

AW

Betsy began in the agency setting working in paid social advertising in the days of Power Editor (if you know, you know) and then began to work in tier 3 auto paid social in 2015. Within the agency settings, she worked primarily on Facebook ads for a wide array of clients, with monthly budgets ranging from $500-$1MM+.
Eventually, Betsy got sick of the agency life and dove-in head-first to what would become AET Automotive in 2019. She has loved the journey of going from 0 clients to where we are today, and everything learned along the way. Currently Betsy runs day-to-day operations for the company, working closely with the accounts, engineering, sales, and marketing teams to deliver the AET mission of empowering dealers to take control of their own digital marketing. She loves hearing from AET customers and folks in the industry, feel free to reach out to her at betsy@aetautomotive.com with feedback, digital marketing questions, or dad jokes.

PS: Betsy would like to publicly apologize to the 100s of people she spammed on LinkedIn during 2019-2020 trying to get them to demo AET.

LinkedIn_logo_initials

Betsy

Jeff Gonzales is the original visionary and founder of AET Automotive. He brings 10+ years of digital advertising, automotive and leadership experience to the team. After deciding that being a ski bum in Breckenridge, CO wasn’t going to be a sustainable lifestyle in 2011, Jeff found his start in Automotive working at the dealership level for Stevinson Automotive, but was quickly recruited to CK Advertising (previously Moore & Scarry) to run their social product, Ember Social. Jeff grew his team, which included co-founder Betsy Brookshire, and Ember’s footprint in the auto space to around 350 dealerships before it was acquired by Affinitiv in 2018. From there Jeff, JC and Eamer founded what was the beginning of AET Automotive. Today, Jeff is the CEO at AET and works closely with sales, product creative, marketing, and is usually the one you will find at any industry event.

Let's connect!

LinkedIn_logo_initials

Jeff

Seamus is an experienced and passionate sales professional with a proven track record in B2B SaaS sales and marketing, and in managing business systems. His commitment to delivering exceptional customer service and fostering collaborative teamwork drives results.

His professional journey began in the dynamic world of New England stock car racing, where is family owned and operated several race tracks and sanctioning bodies. He subsequently relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina, and  joined the NASCAR scene as director of events at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

In 2010, he ventured into the automotive industry as a digital marketing sales executive at Gannett. There, he consistently exceeded sales quotas and earned recognition as a two-time award-winning sales leader. His thirst for industry knowledge led to holding positions such as General Manager, Digital Marketing Director, Account Executive at Edmunds.com (where he led the nation in sales), and Head of Customer Acquisition for a B2B SaaS agency. In 2021 he joined AET as Head of Sales bringing his passion for the automotive industry and a proficiency in B2B sales and marketing to the team. 

LinkedIn_logo_initials

Seamus
Awards & Recognition
cup

DrivingSales 2021

Innovation Cup winner

Las Vegas, NV -- AET Automotive, the industry's fastest growing dealership creative ad platform, has been crowned 2021’s Most Innovative Solution by DrivingSales. AET was recognized for innovating in the area of creative design tooling, a step of the automotive advertising process often neglected by other technology platforms. The Innovation Cup was awarded at the 2021 Driving Sales Executive Summit in Las Vegas in October 2021.

AWA-Winner-Social_Automation-AET (1)-1

AWA 2022

Marketing Automation

Boca Raton, FL (March 10, 2022) - Brian Pasch, author and industry leader in automotive marketing strategies, online dealer education, marketing analytics, and digital retailing is pleased to announce AET Automotive as a winner of the 2022 AWA Award in the category of Marketing Automation.

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