Case Study: News Limited achieves rapid, low-cost self-service classifieds booking and billing with Google Cloud Platform

Media giant creates cost-effective, self-service classifieds booking and billing system in the cloud with Google Cloud

News Limited, one of Australia’s largest media companies, faced a slow, manual classifieds booking and billing process that drove up costs, reduced margins and limited customer control. The business needed a fast time-to-market, a self-service online experience for advertisers, and a way to cut overhead from servers, call-centre time and manual data entry in a highly competitive market.

The team adopted Google Cloud Platform and built a lean, ultra‑agile classifieds service on Google App Engine, launching multiple prototypes and a live site (traderoo.com.au) within weeks. Using an “Acceptable Release Candidate” approach plus Google tools like BigQuery and the Prediction API, News Limited cut infrastructure costs, sped innovation, improved ad accuracy and customer usability, and created a nimble, more profitable classifieds business with faster iteration and lower operational overhead.

News Limited

Joshua Lowcock

Head of Commercial Platforms & Products