Obility

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are an electronic components manufacturer with an unwavering commitment to design engineers based in Oregon. We specialize in a diverse range of product technologies, including power, interconnect, audio, motion control, and thermal management.

I work as a promotions specialist. I manage day-to-day tasks for the SEM program, email program, co-op marketing programs, and direct advertising program. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Obility?

Prior to hiring Obility, we had been working with Anvil for several years. We became disappointed with the lack of attention we received. They were no longer bringing us solutions to grow or increase the effectiveness of the program. We attributed the decreased mindshare to high turnover and client loads per account managers on their end. It became evident that we needed to find a highly collaborative partner who could take our existing program to the next level. We needed a partner who could move past front-line metrics and give us greater insight into conversions to determine the true ROI of our SEM program.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Obility benchmarked our SEO and PPC programs. They completed a competitive market analysis and collaborated with us to create paid search, display, and landing page strategies. They built out all of the new paid search campaigns, expanding and improving upon what we currently had running. They determined and scheduled ongoing meeting dates to ensure we had an effective format for continual communication and discussing key elements of the program.

Now that our program is in place, we have bi-weekly meetings with our Obility partners, which includes a presentation on the performance for the preceding month and discussing action items that need to be addressed. Obility also sends us an SEO report every month, and we just expanded the scope of our partnership with a full SEO audit at the beginning of this year.

How did you come to work with Obility?

After the poor experience we had with Anvil, we began creating a list of potential SEM agencies to work with the beginning of Q2 2016. Obility was at the top of the list. Our VP of marketing, brand director, and myself met with Obility’s president and director of new business. During our meeting, it was very clear that Obility has a unique perspective when it comes to managing SEM programs for B2B. We were also impressed by the client load for each of their account managers, which I believe was about ¼ of what we had previously experienced, making it very clear we would receive the mindshare we were looking for. Once we reached the decision to hire Obility, they were extremely flexible as we negotiated the scope of work (SOW), and the transition into working with their team was seamless.

How much have you invested with Obility?

Sorry, this is confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our ongoing plan with Obility in Q2 2016. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Overall, Obility continues to do a good job at optimizing and improving performance. As one example, in November of 2016, ad group-level metrics were noted as targets to improve upon. From November 2016 to January 2017, we saw:

· 58.83% increase in CTR [click-through rate]

· 26.22% decrease in CPC [cost-per-click]

· 35.97% decrease in cost/goal

· 15.19% increase in goal rate

How did Obility perform in terms of project management?

Our Account Manager, Danielle, does a good job at prioritizing based on our feedback and keeping projects on the radar. She always sends us a summary of what we discuss each meeting, which I find to be very helpful to ensure we are all on the same page.

What did you find most impressive about Obility?

Each account manager has a healthy client load, and management and employees are highly engaging. Turner, our SEM Manager, is willing to walk us through the GA [Google Analytics] editor. At one point, the Obility team was also willing to offer advice on a display campaign for a tradeshow we were exhibiting at before knowing if it fell within our SOW. They bring solutions and new ideas to the table and are approachable and positive. Even when we ask for something to be changed, they always express positive appreciation for our feedback.

Are there any areas where Obility could improve?

Obility provided us with a backend integration plan so we could tie our paid search and remarketing ads to sales further down the funnel. However, we could benefit from further technical assistance in implementing the integration.

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

Be willing to collaborate. I’ve found Obility to be a great partner, and we go to them for advice on a variety of initiatives. My experience is they are open and willing to communicate, and their clients and potential clients will benefit to being open to the same level of communication.

Also, spell out the products, your competitors, main landing pages, base terms, target regions, target industries, etc. earlier in the process of each campaign buildout to minimize the back and forth. Finally, create dedicated landing pages for your SEM program—don’t just link to an organic page on your website. It’s easier if these are already developed before building out PPC [pay-per-click] campaigns.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Healthcare is our industry, but we specifically serve outpatient rehabilitation physical therapy, speech therapy, and occupational therapy markets. We provide an EMR [electronic medical record] and billing software that’s integrated and runs their practice: from the patient intake, recording notes, submitting the billing, and sending it off to insurance for payment. I’m in charge of demand generation, managing our digital channels, tracking the performance and efficacy of the channels, and allocating budget towards ones that are more successful such as PPC [pay-per-click], SEO [search engine optimization], email marketing, marketing automation, and lead scoring.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Obility?

When I started here in the company, there wasn’t a strategy around SEO. That was one of the early things that I identified as a key area that we weren’t spending any time or focus on. At the time, we had a PPC vendor different from Obility. We initially signed up with them, and they provided us with priorities and technical expertise to help with our SEO efforts and make sure that we were focusing on the right areas. Obility did a great job with our SEO, so we have since then switched for them to manage both our SEO and paid search efforts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

One of the reasons we signed up with them for SEO was that we were in the process of relaunching and overhauling our site from Joomla to WordPress. It was also important for us to make sure that we were going to try to rebound as quickly as possible. There tends to be a dip in rankings if you try to switch and redo your site. It initially was a project-based contract and they did a really good job with that, so we signed up for the monthly SEO work as well. In terms of paid search, we completely redid all of our ads, landing pages, ad groups, and keywords.

How did you come to work with Obility?

They reached out to me on LinkedIn and said that they were hosting this conference in San Francisco. Our offices are also a block away from each other, so it’s nice that we can have meetings in-person. That’s probably not the case for most people that are looking at them. I went to the conference and got to know them on a personal level. We didn’t evaluate other vendors, but we had a vendor already in place, so we were essentially evaluating Obility versus do-it-ourselves versus the vendor that we were using at the time before Obility.

How much have you invested with Obility?

Sorry, this is confidential, but it's in the $50,000-$200,000 range.

What is the status of this engagement?

We initially signed the contract in December 2015 or January 2016. We launched our new site June 2016. The work is still ongoing with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since launching, with a large part due to their efforts in helping us with SEO, we have increased our time on site by 229% and our traffic by 134% in the last 7 months. Those are both mainly positive metrics. We increased our search impression share from 18.7% to 89.3% and our click-through rate from 1.96% to 4.18%. Conversions have increased by 33%, which is in the backend of how many actual people end up converting and becoming a MQL [marketing-qualified lead] or SAL [sales-accepted lead] for us.

How did Obility perform from a project management standpoint?

That part is really great. I’m managing a lot of different channels, so I appreciate having somebody staying on top of me, not bugging me constantly, and make sure that I’m at least aware of the things I need to be doing. Whether I always get to those or not is a different story. It’s very helpful that they manage me, and that was something we did not get with our last agency. I felt like the onus was on me to reach out to them to ask what I needed to do. It’s the other way around with Obility where we have a regular cadence, and they’re providing me with recommendations on a regular basis.

They provide us with prioritized reports with things we need to work on, along with secondary things and things that would be great but aren’t quite as important. Since we’re a block away, we meet onsite at our company every month as well as a weekly check-in.

What did you most impressive about Obility?

Their communication and responsiveness. With other agencies, the responsiveness has at times been lacking. If I have an issue, there’s a same-day response. Sometimes, when you work with agencies, you might ask for help in a certain area and they’re going to check the scope of your contract to see if it’s included or if it’s additional. We haven’t got that at all with Obility. Things that may not have even been technically scoped out or a part of our agreement, they tend to just do for us. Obviously, if we had some massive project that wasn’t a part of our agreement, then that might be different. But on a fairly regular basis, there are things in which I ask them for help.

An example would be that we had a PR agency that I felt wasn’t doing a great job in terms of incorporating SEO best practices. They were an old school PR agency—good at the PR part of it but not necessarily thinking of things in terms of how something will impact our SEO. Obility met with them and provided them with recommendations about how to be thinking about things both in terms of PR and how to get the most SEO value out of the things they were producing.

Are there any areas Obility could improve?

I haven’t had any complaints.

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

For us, it was definitely helpful that we started our relationship small and we’ve grown it for additional services. With any agency, I think it’s a good idea to give them a trial and make sure your personalities mesh and that you’re feeling like you’re getting the service that you want.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company is a finance reporting website. We have apps from accounting to professional services to human resources to inventory, all built on the Salesforce.com platform. We serve many different companies. It makes everyone’s job easier, from customers to employees.

What is your position?

I’m the senior marketing manager. I manage a global marketing program for our company, from paid advertising on Google and Bing, to advertising socially on LinkedIn and other social media. I also manage our online presence and social media awareness.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Obility?

We worked with other agencies before Obility, and a lot of them helped us get leads and were able to give us numbers, but that’s not what we were looking for. From a marketing standpoint we obviously care about leads, but one of the things that they focused on was total cost per opportunity - the actual end result. They helped us optimize our business goal instead of just helping us get an arbitrary number of leads. That’s how a lot of companies pitch their services, but Obility really focuses on that. That’s one thing that we like. Mike and his team have a lot of experience. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

The major work that they’re doing with us is paid for Google Adwords and Bing. Then, they also help us from a Search Engine Optimization [SEO] standpoint. In the beginning they worked on the architecture and made sure that the foundation of our site was good. Then, once we set the right foundation we worked on the content and the link building. They suggest content to us and it’s on our team to build it. We do the writing and we create the ads. We know our business but we need their guidance on providing the right channel and the right method. We rely on them for the day to day bidding, strategy, and what’s new on the Adwords side. On our end, we have people that can have landing pages and ads but they take over when we need them to. 

How did you come to work with Obility?

I heard Mike speak at a Marketo summit. He was talking about his strategy and his vision and that was one thing that we lacked. The agency that we worked with in the past didn’t have a vision of where we were trying to go from a business standpoint. The Obility team definitely supports us and we work together to get to that next level, where we’re not just trying to lower our Cost-per-Action [CPA]. We were trying to lower our cost per opportunity and such.

One thing he mentioned was targeting the in-house database and Customer Relationship Management [CRM] remarketing. People have been doing it now, but in the beginning, it was a different way of looking at things. It was a good presentation and I started looking at them. They’re a smaller team, which I like. They’re all Business-to-Business [B2B] which is what we’re focused on. That’s how we started the process of looking at other vendors. Obility was the best team out of all the ones we evaluated.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started around July 2014. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I don’t have an exact number, but I can say from a paid standpoint that we definitely spend more. We increased our budget because of the quality of their work. The overall number of opportunities definitely increased as well. I don’t like measuring traffic because there are a lot of different factors, other than just Obility’s performance. Overall, we’ve definitely gotten more registration since we started working with Obility. That’s one thing they’ve pushed on the SEO side. We’ve also gotten more organic leads with partnering with them.

What distinguishes Obility from other providers?

Their team is really good and they really know their stuff. I’m not saying the other vendors aren’t like that too, but I’ve worked with many vendors in previous jobs and Obility stands out because they really know the search game. They are extremely knowledgeable in their field and that’s key. Then the vision of their company is amazing - they focus on B2B and they really care about their quality. 

Is there anything Obility could have improved or done differently?

Right now we’re pretty happy. There are times that we’ve caught stuff on our end and we alert them. Maybe they could be a little more proactive. Sometimes we see things a little ahead of them because we’re always checking the work, but they’re very proactive in their craft most of the time. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I work for a software company. We make marketing automation software that helps people automate various aspects of marketing, from email marketing campaigns to their digital advertising, to reporting and analytics on those programs and integration with Customer Relations Management [CRM] systems to support sales and give them insights into marketing.

What is your position?

I manage all of our online marketing, which would be paid search, social media, Search Engine Optimization [SEO], and website conversion optimization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Obility?

Obility was brought on by a predecessor of mine. They’ve been with the company for even longer than I have. At the time, we really needed to get some support for the internal teams here, managing and expanding our paid search and display ads online.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Initially, they were helping us out with all of our Pay-per-Click [PPC] which included vendors like Google, Bing, and Yahoo at the time. We also did retargeting through platforms like AdRoll and things like that. In the past 6 months or so, we’ve started leveraging them to help manage our paid social media, as well. The scope of the work has pretty much been confined to the paid search and paid social realms.

How did you come to work with Obility?

As I mentioned earlier, the company brought them onboard before I was working here, so I don’t really know.

What is the status of this engagement?

The relationship began early in 2013. It’s ongoing and their responsibilities are gradually increasing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I don’t really have anything offhand to say about metrics, but I’d say that the quality of the work has been really outstanding. Obility has been a real partner that’s given us good insights. They don’t just report back with numbers, they’ll actually bring back a thoughtful analysis of what’s going on. Our industry especially, has been growing like crazy over the past couple of years. Competition has gotten really fierce. We have competitors with big pockets that are driving up costs, and Obility has really helped us be smart about keeping those costs in line with what our budget is, and they have helped us provide great value. Even as it costs more to play in the space, I think Obility has been able to help make it cost-effective for us to continue increasing our performance along the way.

As one of our marketing channels, it’s where we get very, very highly qualified leads. They’ve helped us not only maintain that quality, but increase it, as well. We have increased the volume that we’ve been able to draw from paid search.

What distinguishes Obility from other providers?

I would say the quality of the people they have working at Obility is very impressive. They are smart, and they go beyond simply reporting back to us; they execute exactly what we tell them to do. They really are partners in the true sense of the word. From looking at our account and analyzing it, to giving us recommendations and digging deeper into areas where they think there’s opportunity, and bringing those findings back to us. Obility does a great job taking care of the things that we asked them to do. They go above and beyond what a lot of other agencies will do.

Is there anything Obility could have improved or done differently?

At this point, no. I think they’re on a great track. They’ve grown along with our company. They had some growing pains every now and then, but they always worked through it and the relationship is still going really well.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Our company provides quote-to-cash software built on the Salesforce platform. We’re strong partners with Salesforce and we make software that helps people sell more, sell faster, and sell bigger.

What is your position?

I am a marketing specialist that handles our global paid digital advertising, as well as our social media.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Obility?

The main business challenge that we were trying to solve was that we had a lot of inexperience within our digital marketing team. Our marketing team is, at least from a digital side, fairly young. Mike [Nierengarten, President] and the Obility team were able to provide that.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

They were offering strategy and execution, both for SEO and all the paid digital advertising. They did a lot of our PPC, especially on the Google side. For SEO they gave us on-site as well as off-site recommendations, especially for back links and people or organization that we should reach out to in order to collaborate with them for content.

How did you come to work with Obility?

Obility was a really strong partner of our Vice President of Marketing while she was at Marketo. She saw really good success with Mike and his team while at Marketo and wanted to bring that over to our team. That’s how I was introduced to Obility.

What is the status of this engagement?

I immediately started working with them when I joined the team here, which was almost a year and a half ago. They’ve helped us grow. We’ve grown to over 1,000 employees and we’re now post series C funding, and they’re helping us spark our growth. We’re happy with the results and so we’re continuing to work with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Obility has done a really good job handling all of our paid sites. They’ve done a fantastic job lessening our costs per lead. That’s one of our key metrics that I’ve focused on since I’ve been here. They’ve cut our cost per lead by more than half, and we’ve been able to drive a lot more numbers and a much higher amount of leads, at that half-rate.

What distinguishes Obility from other providers?

One of the most unique things about Mike and his team is that they’re really willing to partner with us. They have really, really strong communication that I haven’t seen with other vendors. I’m always able to call Jason, who’s our account manager, or Mike, who runs the whole team. At any given point during the day, should there be an emergency or anything that we might have to deal with right on the spot, they’re willing to pick up the phone and talk to us about whatever our needs may be.

Is there anything Obility could have improved or done differently?

The cool thing about Obility is that they have grown to be a bigger agency. When Mike started first working, it was a small team, and now he’s grown the team to a much larger scale. I think the challenge before would have been that they need to scale their team a little bit more to provide more services. But I think Obility now has been able to provide that with their growing team.

Advice for future clients?

My advice would be to have strong communication with them. Definitely take advantage of weekly meetings to understand the strategy they’re trying to drive and then handle any execution that has to happen in house so that they can help us from the agency side. A challenge for us before was that there was only one person handling digital marketing so they got a little bit bogged down with other tasks that they were working on. Now that our team has grown, we’ve been able to implement a lot of the strategies that Obility has helped drive, and we’ve seen great success in doing that. We’ve seen increased web traffic. We’ve seen an increased amount of leads, and we’ve seen our cost-per-lead [CPL] cut by more than half. It’s a really, really strong success there.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We're a national services and facilities management company. We work on large client projects in the aviation space, as well as corporate buildings and large scale manufacturing in industrial facilities, such as automotive companies. We help out with anything from engineering the facility to cleaning it and making sure it's secure. We also help out with energy projects.

What is your position?

When I worked with Obility, I was the manager of lead generation programs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Obility?

Our biggest challenge at the time was that some of our business units were doing their search engine marketing in-house. We had other business units that were doing pay per click with an outsourced provider other than Obility. We reorganized, which involved streamlining some of our business units and consolidating them. We were bringing two processes together. One was in-house, and one was outsourced. We needed a way to bring them together.

At the same time, we were rebranding ourselves. We needed help from someone able to handle a larger volume of our search engine marketing and who had expertise with Marketo; the marketing automation tool which we were implementing at that time. We turned to Obility for help in guiding us through the marketing automation tools that we were going to use, and to get the expertise necessary for running a larger pay-per-click environment.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Primarily, Obility handled our Google AdWords campaigns. We then added Bing, LinkedIn and other product offerings from Google to the portfolio. They have an understanding of Marketo, as Obility has experience working with them. They have the ability to work with each other internally. They have technical people that build reports and understand the specific language of the tool.

We were crossing between Marketo, pay-per-click, and Salesforce.com. I think they did a very good job in understanding all of those systems, and how we were using them. They helped us step them up, and made them work together seamlessly.

How did you come to work with Obility?

We were at the Marketo summit in San Francisco. We sat in on a speaking session from Obility. We liked what they were talking about. At the time, we were leaning towards Marketo, but the idea that a small, private organization could come in and win over someone like Marketo, who are proficient at Business-to-Business [B2B] marketing and keeping their content updated, and doing a great job on search engine marketing, was one of the reasons we thought they would be a good fit. They knew Marketo, and seemed to win over some of the larger firms that were probably in evaluation with Marketo. After meeting with everyone, looking at their statements of work, and hearing some of their suggestions, we decided that Obility matched with where we wanted to go.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It is in the $10,000 to $50,000 range, on a monthly basis.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first began working with them in 2013. The work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I'd have to look at some of the metrics they've generated in the past couple of years. We did see the return on ads purchased, at one point in our first year, to be almost a three thousand percent increase. It's a big number because we had one really large deal that was generated from pay per click. It skews the numbers, but you still have to count it. It was a great way to start, while we were pulling everything together.

How did Obility perform from a project management standpoint?

I think they do a good job of really letting you know about the small changes that they're making on a daily and weekly basis with your account. They make nice reports of improvements they've made along the way. They also do a good job of pointing out suggestions and other things that you can optimize the account with. We have weekly calls, more than weekly at certain points, when we work on getting a new campaign out. They're very responsive. They handle the technical aspects too, especially with Marketo. They were a great help there.

Is there anything Obility could have improved or done differently?

They could be more proactive in helping us with ad copy, suggesting offers, and digging deep into our business, with regards to the trends of that point in time. It would be nice to get ad copy that is more real time, and fitting.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Head of Digital Marketing at a cloud computing company.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Our company is a cloud computing company that provides an "edge cloud platform" that delivers fast, secure, and scalable online experiences.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Obility to accomplish?

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SOLUTION

How did you find Obility?

Referral / RFP

Why did you select Obility over others?

• Great culture fit
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Obility were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Consulting Services

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) performance

Keyword rankings

Marketing Influenced Pipeline (MIP)

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Superb project management, best in class. They don't miss deadlines, they're extremely responsive.

What was your primary form of communication with Obility?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The professionalism and expertise of their team members is unique and impressive. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something Obility could have done differently?

The more we hear from Obility team the better. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Senior Content Marketing Manager of a lead generation company.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Our company empowers sales teams with a suite of tools to prospect, connect with more buyers, and close more deals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Obility to accomplish?

• Keyword Research
• Blog Outline Creation
• SEO Optimizations

SOLUTION

How did you find Obility?

Referral

Why did you select Obility over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Obility were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Obility conducts keyword research, delivers weekly blog outlines, provides optimization recommendations, and delivers monthly SEO reports for visibility.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Obility has:

• Improved our SEO rankings
• Expanded our reach
• Increased organic traffic
• Improved conversions.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Obility delivers items on time and is always very responsive when we need assistance or help with projects.

What was your primary form of communication with Obility?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The people are very personable and easy to get along with. The company is filled with teammates who know what they’re doing, understand SEO, and like to deliver results.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Obility could have done differently?

Nope!