ATLANTA -

Previously unavailable, AutoTrader Group’s financial performance as well as the size of its subscribing dealer network came to light as the company filed federal paperwork to become a publicly traded company.

According to forms submitted to the Securities & Exchange Commission, AutoTrader generated $1.0 billion in revenues, $334.6 million of adjusted EBITDA and $68.1 million of net income last year. Officials said those figures representing growth of 39 percent, 57 percent and 39 percent, respectively, above the prior year.

“We achieved these results through strategic acquisitions and organic growth,” officials said in documents filed late Friday that allowed AutoTrader to seek an IPO. The newly formed entity includes AutoTrader.com, Kelley Blue Book, vAuto and VinSolutions and is looking to post $300 million through the IPO.

What helped to push the company’s overall financial success was the revenue that comes through dealers who use AutoTrader.com to list vehicles. Before going into specific figures, officials explained what they outline as their number of subscribing dealers and the company’s monthly run rate (MRR).

“We track the number of subscribing dealers in our Digital Media and Software Solutions segments. For purposes of our calculation of subscribing dealers, we consider all of the franchises at a single address to be one dealer,” AutoTrader executives shared with federal officials.

“Subscribing dealers consists of the number of dealers subscribing to one or more of our listing packages or software solutions at the end of a period,” company officials continued. “We believe that the number of our subscribing dealers is indicative of the success of our sales and marketing efforts, including our ability to further penetrate the dealer market, cross-sell our software solutions to our Digital Media customers and maintain our existing and develop new dealer relationships.”

Based off of that foundation, the company tabulated that as of March 31 it had 20,170 subscribing dealers, generating an MMR of $3,129. AutoTrader indicated listing subscription fees typically range from $660 to $7,068 per month and can be as high as $42,975 per month per dealer.

Beyond those figures, the company discussed another element associated with its dealer base.

“We review dealer churn, which we define as the total number of subscribing dealers that are no longer customers at the end of a given month divided by the number of subscribing dealers at the beginning of that month,” AutoTrader officials said.

“We believe dealer churn is a good indicator of dealer satisfaction with our solutions and the success of our sales and marketing efforts. In 2011 and for the three months ended March 31, 2012, our average monthly dealer churn was 1.6 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively,” they shared.

Company’s Growth Strategy Tied to Dealer Relationships

Also in connection with an IPO, AutoTrader discussed how it intends to strengthen its revenue streams by delving deeper into the pool with more than 45,000 franchised and independent dealers in business today.

—Increase Share of Existing Dealer Customer Marketing Spending:  AutoTrader wants to increase the share of marketing spending it receives from its existing base through a consultative sales approach and on-going development of new solutions.

“We strive to help our dealer customers realize the value of our premium listing packages and increase adoption of our add-on and recently launched products, such as Alpha, Spotlight and TIM,” officials said.  “Of our approximately 12,000 franchise dealer customers in 2010, only 28 percent subscribed to our paid new-car listings products, and we estimate their spending on AutoTrader.com represented less than 1 percent of their total advertising budgets. Due to the large audience of in-market new car shoppers on AutoTrader.com and KBB.com, we believe new-car advertising represents a substantial growth opportunity, particularly with our franchise dealer customers.”

—Cross-Sell Software Solutions: The company believes only a portion of its subscribing dealers utilize vAuto, VinSolutions or HomeNet software solutions

“We intend to utilize our existing dealer sales force, long-standing customer relationships and consultative sales approach to help our dealers recognize the value of our software solutions in order to expand the percentage of subscribing dealers using our software solutions, and to increase our Software Solutions MRR,” officials insisted.

—Develop New Products and Services for Consumers, Dealers and Advertisers. The company said this element is where one of its strengths resides.

“We intimately understand the car sales process and dealer operations and have continuously leveraged this expertise to develop and launch new products and services,” officials pointed out. “We are also integrating social media capabilities into our digital media solutions to allow us, our dealers and brand advertisers to reach our consumers in new ways. We also intend to enhance the features and functionality of our software solutions to better address the evolving inventory, CRM and marketing management needs of dealers.”

—Increase Mobile Solutions. The company believes mobile devices broaden the access to dealers’ listings while providing in-market shoppers with current, location-specific information that facilitates their decision-making process.

“We believe mobile engagement with this highly-targeted, ‘on-the-lot’ audience enhances the value proposition for our dealer customers,” officials stated. “In addition, as dealers increase their use of mobile devices in the management of their business, they are seeking to access their technology and software solutions through those mobile devices. We are also continuing to develop mobile websites and mobile applications for our inventory management and CRM software solutions.”

—Expand Into New Markets. AutoTrader touched on what might be ahead in areas beyond the United States.

“We believe that there are significant opportunities to expand into adjacent markets in the automotive industry, offer our existing products and services in select new geographic markets and to potentially enter into new industry verticals,” officials stated. “There are a number of international retail automotive markets, such as Canada, that have characteristics that are similar to the U.S. market, primarily strong consumer Internet usage and robust dealer competition, where we believe our solutions can provide key differentiation and enhanced dealer profitability. We are exploring opportunities to expand into other countries on a selected basis through joint ventures and acquisitions.”