Disruptive Advertising

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are an e-commerce company. I’m the owner and president. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive Advertising?

We were trying to bring new customers to our website and have an increase in sales. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re doing Facebook advertising and recently began with YouTube ads.

How did you come to work with Disruptive Advertising?

They actually found me.

How much have you invested with Disruptive Advertising?

It’s around $30,000 a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

I’ve been working with them since September 2016. The work is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

I'm satisfied in how successfully they have helped grow our sales and leads. We are at around a 5% return. With Facebook, we see certain times where there are good results. With YouTube and Google ads, it’s too soon to tell because we started that a week ago.

How did Disruptive Advertising perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s been good so far.

Are there any areas Disruptive Advertising could improve?

There could be more communication so that I can understand it thoroughly and understand where my money is going. They could be more transparent in telling me what they’re doing behind the scenes, and I’ve been meaning to talk to them about that. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a mobile software provider. We create a CRM. It’s a build sales application. We’ve been in business for about four years and we’ve cornered the market for our particular product. I’m the Vice President of Business Development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive?

Lead acquisition.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It’s all pay-per-click and some pay-per-lead.

How did you come to work with Disruptive?

I wasn’t involved in the selection process; I took over the account and manage it, but it was selected prior to my arrival here.

How much have you invested with Disruptive?

Our pay-per-click budget is about $5,000/month.

What is the status of this engagement?

It’s been about 15 months now, so it was December 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

They’ve absolutely been successful. They’re excellent at client relationship management. They’re excellent at being attentive to reporting and analytics. They’re excellent at creating a continual plan to manage and optimize the account. They create their own initiatives and present those initiatives to you for approval. It makes the process more one of not having to manage a ton, but just having to approve new initiatives. The regular maintenance of the account is very consistent and detailed, a weekly phone call at the same time, always an agenda. It’s just very detailed and organized and lightweight in terms of management.

What did you find most impressive about Disruptive?

Like any consultancy firm, they have experts for each aspect of the business. We only use one segment of their offerings, but we’ve run into situations where we’ve received advisement from other individuals in different departments to make sure we get best in class treatment.

Are there any areas Disruptive could improve?

I’m honestly quite pleased with the relationship. Any time I’ve needed to improve something, it’s been improved. I wouldn’t say that they don’t need to improve; it’s that if anything when improvement is identified, it’s acted upon.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Disruptive?

To have a strong plan in regards to your copy and content that you’re going to be using, to have a library of images and branding guidelines, and to have content pieces that are available to use as click bait.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Chief Marketing Officer at a financial technology startup. We have about 30 employees right now.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive?

Dramatic client growth, so customer acquisition.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Disruptive did social media and AdWords, basically all our direct digital response channels. That encompasses funnel optimization as well.

How did you come to work with Disruptive?

This is the fourth company that I’ve been with where I’ve hired Disruptive as my go-to direct response digital partner. Where I go, they go.

How much have you invested with Disruptive?

It’s been all over the place. Sometimes they’re managing hundreds of thousands of dollars per month and other times it’s $20,000-$30,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

The owner used to work for me a long time ago. I’ve known him for six years now, and I’ve been a client from the outset. I guess I’ve been a client of Disruptive for four years.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

It’s absolutely been successful. The number one benefit is that they know what they’re good at, so I hire them for what they’re good at. They don’t try to be everything. They’re a team that’s really strong at digital direct response in FaceBook, AdWords, and Bing. I know that they’re good at that. They have a pricing structure where you don’t feel like they’re trying to make you spend more because they make more. I feel like I can give them clear direction on my acquisition cost targets and they hit those targets. They can run with minimal guidance.

What did you find most impressive about Disruptive?

There are two or three things that I think help other people see the value in them. Number one is they are not some sort of full-service agency: they are a digital direct response firm, and they stick with what they know and what they’re good at, so you’re not going to waste money with them trying to help you in any way possible. They stick to what they know. They are one of the few firms I’ve ever worked with where I have complete confidence that their goals are my success, not maximizing their billable feed. They just come across as very flexible, ethical people. That means you don’t have to wonder about motive whenever they have recommendations for you.

Are there any areas Disruptive could improve?

Everybody has room for improvement, but I don’t think there’s anything I would call out as a problem area. They just keep growing and improving on what they’re doing.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a handful of businesses, but our main company is a direct-to-consumer birth certificate filing service.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive?

Of course, as a business our primary objective is to make as much money as possible, so we hired Disruptive to bring in more customers through marketing strategies.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve done PPC management, which is really much more involved than just managing our campaigns. They’ve grown them and improved them vastly. Secondly, they do a lot of funnel optimization and landing page testing for us. They’ve AB tested a ton of different things on our funnel, which has lead to quite a bit of improvement. They’re constantly testing different landing pages with different pictures, different copy, that sort of thing. That’s another piece of it. They don’t do social media marketing or SEO for us; they may do that for other companies, but I don’t know.

How did you come to work with Disruptive?

Actually, when we were gaining some traction in the beginning, Google suspended us and told us we were never allowed to advertise with them again. Naturally, that was a huge problem for the business, since all of our traffic is driven through pay-per-click. We did some research for companies that can help you get un-suspended from Google, and that’s how I found Disruptive.

They were able to do that for us because of their relationships with Google, and from there they sold us into using them for management. I was very skeptical about it at first because I’m from a pay-per-click background and I thought we could handle it in-house. So they gave us a couple of months free and it just made complete sense. There was no financial or logical reason not to use them since they were doing such a good job. They produced results so quickly that it was a no-brainer. We’ve used some other companies for other parts of our marketing, and Disruptive is completely different. It’s personal; they’re more knowledgeable; it’s just awesome all around.

How much have you invested with Disruptive?

We spend about $100,000 per month on our marketing objectives, and Disruptive is managing 95% of that.

What is the status of this engagement?

This is ongoing. We’ve been working with since early 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

When we started with Disruptive, we were probably doing $200,000 in sales a year, and Disruptive took us up to $3 million. 90% of that is revenue driven from what Disruptive brought to our website. Essentially, Disruptive is directly responsible for most of the revenue that comes in because our customers come to us through what Disruptive drives. Other companies I’ve worked with just do their job but don’t give you any metrics of their success, so it can be hard to track, but Disruptive is very metric-based, which is good.

We spend about $100,000 per month, and they’ve got our acquisition cost extremely low. It differs for every business, but for us, they’ve taken us from a $50 acquisition cost per customer to about $22-$23. So they cut our acquisition cost in half and increased our sales by 10 times. That’s some great math. So they’re really effective.

What did you find most impressive about Disruptive?

Adam Kaiser manages my account, and on Christmas, for example, if I noticed there was something wrong with one of our campaigns and I was concerned, I could shoot him a text and he would drop whatever he was doing to figure out what was going on right then. So the personal service is unbelievable. Sometimes I feel bad that they do so much and that I bug them so much and they’re so happy to help, but that’s how they are and it’s so awesome. That’s one of the huge values of Disruptive in my experience.

Are there any areas Disruptive could improve?

Not that I can think of. You don’t know what you don’t know, so I’m sure there’s something, but I can’t think of anything that I would like better out of their service.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Disruptive?

You have to trust them. In the beginning, my account manager Adam suggested some things that seemed a little bit risky. For example, when we launched a new campaign, he suggested that in order to drive up our quality score we’d have to spend a lot but it would be worth the investment in the long run. When that happened and I was reluctant, it always ended up working. I would just say that they may some risky strategies, but they know what they’re doing and you have to trust them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The company is an outdoor retailer and my position is e-commerce marketing manager. I oversee everything online for sports sales.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive?

The overall objective has been to increase our paid efforts. Our previous PPC company wasn’t performing at the level that I felt it could, and a lot of the optimization and overall strategies that Disruptive offered was what I felt would be the most effective for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They handle our AdWords accounts, our social media ads, and retargeting. We’re getting ready to launch some site testing with them as well.

How did you come to work with Disruptive?

It was a reference from a colleague of mine.

How much have you invested with Disruptive?

They’re responsible for managing a little bit over $250,000 a year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started at the end of March in 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

They’ve far exceeded a lot of expectations. Right now we’re averaging over a 10x for the year that they’ve been working us, whereas the company we had before had us averaging at 2x. To go from 2x all the way up to 10x on our ad campaign has been quite substantial. Traffic has been up consistently. Last time I checked, it was up around 56% from a paid side and revenue was up over 100% from what it was last year. The performance of our campaign has been through the roof. It set a whole new standard for us.

What did you find most impressive about Disruptive?

They optimized the campaign to showcase where our opportunity is coming from, but the best thing is the feedback they give as to the opportunities and the best tactics to approach the campaign. It’s pretty incredible, especially given that our industry is very restricted as far as how we can advertise. We need to make consistent adjustments and we’re very seasonal, so the research that they’ve done has been fantastic. Plus, the resources that they’ve made available to help us perform at a different level have been great as well.

Are there any areas Disruptive could improve?

If they could get a point of contact at Facebook that was a little more responsive, that would be fantastic, but that’s the only thing I could say that I wish was different.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Disruptive?

Come in with realistic goals. Don’t expect them to produce the 10x for you across the board; just come in with realistic expectations on where you would like to be with your advertising. And communicate effectively. Put them in the position where they can succeed.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for an education company that manages marketing efforts for a pair of universities that offer both traditional and online programs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive?

Our primary goal was lead acquisition, with a secondary goal of expanding brand recognition. All of this needed to occur at a lower our cost per conversion.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The majority of our efforts with Disruptive has been focused on paid search and display advertising. We were especially focused on improving our conversion rates. They have also been very helpful with assisting in our advertising tracking efforts.

How did you come to work with Disruptive?

We received a sales call from them. We gave them a chance and checked out what they had to offer. They won us over and offered to help us out further. After a trial run, we enjoyed working with them, and we’ve been working with them ever since.

How much have you invested with Disruptive?

That information is private.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began our partnership with them sometime around October 2015, and continue to work with them on our advertising efforts.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We used to manage a lot of this in-house, but it got to be too much with our team. We told them from the start that if we were going to have outside PPC management, we’d need to lower our cost per conversion, and they exceeded our goals in that regard. They also helped to establish better practices with our search engine advertising. Their input and general expertise have been essential in our marketing efforts. They’re really good about following up on any ideas we might have to make sure they’re implemented the best they can be.

What did you find most impressive about Disruptive?

What I enjoyed most about them is their project manager. He has been incredibly helpful and receptive. If we need anything, it’s done within a couple hours, if not a couple of minutes. I have direct access to his cell phone if I need anything done in a hurry. They have gone above and beyond their normal responsibilities. They really seem to have a vested interest in our institutional objectives.

Are there any areas Disruptive could improve?

I’ve had no qualms with them. They have even given us good recommendations for additional contractors outside of their expertise. I have no complaints with them.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Disruptive?

Be clear with your goals and your expectations. It is also imperative to be open to new ideas to expand your marketing efforts.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Director of Marketing for one of Florida’s largest residential drug detox facilities. We have multiple properties under our umbrella, but our bread and butter is helping people who are struggling with addiction and mental health issues. I’m in charge of all of the advertising and marketing, PPC, SEO and all of our social media and our website. Pretty much anything related to marketing or advertising has to come through me in one way or another.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive?

For a good many years, we were doing really well on our own. But recently we were spending the same amount on marketing but the industry had become more competitive. We needed to fine-tune our PPC spend, which is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. We wanted to find a partner to manage our PPC but also to be a strategic partner who could help us make our PPC spend more efficient.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re not doing social media management with them yet, but we probably will go into that. But when I say PPC management, I mean everything from conversion rates to general counsel about a lot of things. They go above and beyond and give us probably more than what’s in our contract, but their main role is to help us with PPC ads, plus retargeting ads and various ads being placed on various websites to help drive momentum.

How did you come to work with Disruptive?

Our former SEO partner actually recommended Disruptive Advertising to us. We’ve since moved on from that SEO partner but we kept Disruptive because they were perfect. We feel that was worth it to have gone through that SEO company just to have found Disruptive.

How much have you invested with Disruptive?

We spend $15,000 per month for management fees. We have $5,000-$10,000 per months spread around for additional advertising efforts, so you can round it out to about $20,000 per month on average.

What is the status of this engagement?

It’s been about since September 2016 and it’s absolutely an ongoing relationship. We are beyond pleased with their results.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

When they came on in September, we’d had kind of a bad breakup with our last advertising agency. When they came on, they had literally no PPC data to work off of whatsoever. We took their recommendations and established that baseline first, rather than jumping in and trying things without being able to measure the results of those efforts. So we really started seeing traction from them in December of 2016. From there, Disruptive went in and really fine-tuned the process in terms of geography, day, time and websites, and they’ve really allowed us to test things we’d never tested before to figure out what’s working and what’s not. Now we’re not just wasting money on things that aren’t getting results. We used to spend $450,000 per month on our PPC budget; we’ve cut that down to $250,000 and our results have stayed the same. Cutting that much money and seeing stable results speaks volumes about Disruptive’s work.

What did you find most impressive about Disruptive?

These guys go above and beyond. They’re real people, not just a business. They care about our business and our bottom line, and they’re not just freelancers or contractors: they’re strategic partners with us. They’re taken the time to learn our industry, learn our business, and they’ve proven themselves in that. They’ve done some things outside of their scope that they don’t have to do, that were not included in their contract but that they’ve done out of goodwill for us. I know that I speak on behalf of my owner and the board when I say that we are very appreciative of what they’ve done to go above and beyond, because they didn’t have to. Whether it’s general counsel or helping us identify new SEO strategies, they really have gone outside of their contract and given us a lot of free time.

Are there any areas Disruptive could improve?

Honestly, I don’t think so. I’m sure they make mistakes like everybody else, but I haven’t seen them. Their communication is flawless; they set expectations but they never mislead us. We see them meet those expectations every time. I’ve never seen them do anything less than a stellar job.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Disruptive?

Just be honest with what you’re looking to do because they’re going to be able to custom tailor a solution to fit your needs. Even if they can’t meet those needs themselves, they’ll suggest to you the right avenues to pursue. Be honest about your expectations and what your spend is going to be. Be honest about what your past performance has been, and if you’re honest with them, they’re going to be able to better fine-tune the solution that will work for you.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We provide seniors with independent living options and dementia care, and I’m the Marketing Director.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive?

We’re working with Disruptive on lead generation. We’re looking for people who are searching for senior living solutions like ours. People typically start by Googling, so we want to capture the people who are looking for those options and have them raise their hand and say, “I’m interested in learning more about your company.” And then that lead goes to our sales people, who will call or email them back and start the conversation.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They primarily pay-per-click management and CRO (conversion rate optimization). Soon they’ll be doing Facebook ads for us as well.

How did you come to work with Disruptive?

I had actually worked with them at a prior company and was really pleased with the work, so we didn’t go through a comparison process at all. I just called them up and we started the conversation about my current company.

How much have you invested with Disruptive?

When it’s all said and done, it will probably be about a $500,000 per year spend.

What is the status of this engagement?

It took us a little while to launch because we here had some internal things that we needed to work through with our CRM system. But in terms of their work, it’s been about two months that we’ve been live with the program. We started the work in September or October of 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

What I like about them is that they’re really honest guys and they’re good problem solvers. I’ve often worked with agencies in the past where they try to be all things to you, and my experience with Disruptive is that they know exactly where their sweet spot is and they get in that lane. That’s the service that they provide to you and to do it extremely well. We’re very pleased with the service.

We don’t have any quantifiable results yet because ours isn’t the kind of product where somebody converts immediately online. A conversion to us is a new lead, but in terms of the quality of the lead, I don’t know that until I see how many of those leads actually result in somebody moving into one of our communities. It hasn’t been long enough to measure that yet.

What did you find most impressive about Disruptive?

Because they’re very clear on their area of expertise, which is PPC and CRO and social media advertising, they’re really good at finding those pockets of opportunity for the client, versus just kind of throwing out a general program that might not work specifically for my market or for the kind of people who are attracted to my product. They do a great job of getting to know my company and what makes my company special versus the competition.

Are there any areas Disruptive could improve?

You know, Jake is really good at asking if there’s anything they could be doing better, and I would be good at giving an honest answer if I could think of something. But they’re giving me what I want. I don’t have those kinds of suggestions, and if I did I would have already told him.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Senior Marketing Manager for a multichannel e-commerce, call center, and marketplace company that sells music instruments and supplies to institutions to consumers, schools and other institutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive?

We brought them on to do a deep dive into our analytics and get that set up, but they’ve branched out into lots of other areas of assistance.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I don’t use them for paid search, but our sister company does, and they’ve very happy with Disruptive. We use a different agency for paid search. But Disruptive helps us in a bunch of different ways. They completely audited our analytics program and created a foundation for us to measure everything we needed to. So they were getting into the weeds to make sure everything worked, but then also giving us analysis to reach our business goals. They are also our partner in testing, optimization, and CRO, so they’ve been super helpful in hundreds of different tests and projects and making our website better. Those learnings are leveraged across all our different channels. They also help with some ad hoc development, which we then hand off to our developers. So that’s been really helpful.

How did you come to work with Disruptive?

We were referred by one of our internal enterprise partners. It just made sense based on personalities and business goals.

How much have you invested with Disruptive?

It’s probably around $300,000 with them over the past few years.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started with them two or three years ago, and we’re still working with them. We continue to find ways to leverage all their resources for our own business.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

It’s been paramount in our growth. I don’t have any stats offhand, but we transitioned to a new e-commerce platform so a lot of the work they had done was changed because we now have a brand new website.

What did you find most impressive about Disruptive?

One of the big selling points for us is their CTO and CEO. Jake is fantastic, but their CTO has so much experience with Adobe Tag Manager that for our business, where we have limited resources, it’s been incredibly helpful for someone to really understands the product to be able to jump in and give guidance. They’re not just doing tests, but they’re also helping with our enterprise development team. I can’t emphasize enough how important their CTO is.

Are there any areas Disruptive could improve?

We use them for so much that sometimes there are opportunities to prioritize better, but that’s not a negative. It’s just a learning process.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Disruptive?

As with any agency, just make sure your goals are absolutely defined. They have the resources to get it done.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re the second largest direct mortgage company behind Quicken Loans, and I oversee most online marketing functions as well as all the websites and app initiatives.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive?

They’re just a good all-around partner. They have expertise in testing, analytics, and ad management. We have a lot of unique code and marketing-related challenges that they’re able to solve for us, in addition to having them as a paid search partner. We historically do everything in-house because we’re regulated by the federal government and everything is a real challenge to do without some external support, so you find one or two good partners and you make do.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Disruptive does PPC management for us. They do paid search, testing, trying to convert more traffic that we bring in with a third-party platform we use, and then mostly analytics.

How did you come to work with Disruptive?

I had worked with them at the world's largest musical instrument retailer prior to coming to my current company a year ago. I’ve got a long history with them. They did most of everything I just described for us at my previous job, so I knew that they’d be a perfect partner after I came here and understood the business climate here.

How much have you invested with Disruptive?

We’re on pace to spend about $60,000-$80,000, but at my previous firm we did around $100,000 per year. But I foresee that continuing to grow.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in early 2012.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Without a doubt, our work has been successful. I’ll continue to be one of their biggest proponents. I’m quoted on their website somewhere, and I only allow that because of the return I get. They’re good people. It’s hard to give solid statistics because of the nature of the work we’re doing now, which is mostly baseline metrics. They’re not really useable to demonstrate Disruptive’s success. But at my last job, there were a number of big wins. We needed a bunch of product recommendation tests and they’re forecasted out to net additional $7 million in revenue if it’s annualized.

What did you find most impressive about Disruptive?

What I’ve always liked about them is that Jacob, their CEO is always accessible. He’s a really good guy. And then also they’re not nickel-and-dimers. They’re kind of cheesy when you talk to them because they’ll tell you exactly how much they want to invest in your success. But that really is 100% true: they genuinely do care about all their clients. You’ll get that kind of lip service from just about every other digital agency, but they’re just good folks from Utah and they just love what they do. All around they’re just a fantastic partner in terms of cost, through-put and talent. Their head analytics guy is one of the four beta testers for Adobe’s tag manager. He basically wrote Adobe’s tag manager program when it got acquired. They have serious expertise on the team. They’ve been a great partner for me.

Are there any areas Disruptive could improve?

Not from my perspective. They’ve always fit our needs. I suppose everybody could do something better, but they’ve always met my needs and been flexible. It’s always been a good partnership.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Disruptive?

Be open and set your expectations with them, what you expect from them. They’re more than happy to comply. If you just let them know what you’re expecting and when you expect it, they won’t fail you.