Thrive Advertising

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner and graphic designer of Amber Design, LLC. We help companies with their brand identities, marketing collateral for all things print to digital. Projects might include print such as logos, flyers, brochures, trade show materials and packaging or digital such as responsive websites, social media, email templates and display ad banners.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Thrive Advertising, and what were your goals?

I won the business with FSA Vision Pro Shop. They needed a responsive Shopify website that hooked into their inventory and sales systems. I worked with their team on their marketing strategy for launch of their website. I employed Robin with Thrive Advertising to help retarget the B2B and B2C display ads we created. We needed to get FSA Pro Shop quick ROI for their global bike parts company before the summer weather turns.

SOLUTION

How did you select Thrive Advertising and what were the deciding factors?

We hired Thrive off of a referral from a mutual colleague. Her firm was local to us, was quick to offer education and resources for me and my client.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and campaigns.

She was flexible with my clients moving "go-live" launch date based on some technical difficulties. Her monthly reports and easy to understand and willing to make adjustments to the campaigns if necessary.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Robin was our point of contact but I presume she has a team she's working with. Very seamless.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We just finished the second month of advertising and are seeing low CPC and lots of impressions. I will need to check in with the client if that means higher conversions and more sales.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

She is quick to respond to email and is always offering more value with education and experience.

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

They were quick, offered a good price, and easy to work with.

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

I would love to design the way they present their monthly reports. There's everything there but would like to see a better presentation.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a digital OOH media network in the Greater Seattle area.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Thrive Advertising?

Thrive was an advisor to our company as we built it. Robin, Thrive's CEO, brought immense expertise to help develop both our offering and our ad platform.

What were your goals for this project?

Build a product that meets the needs of local businesses seeking hyper-local placements, and the needs of media agencies.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Thrive was referred by a friend, and from there we had conversations which very quickly made clear that Thrive is an expert at media planning and buying!

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Media planning and buying. National and local buys.

What was the team composition?

N/A

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

With Thrive's input and partnership, we have been able to work with many strong brands who have been extremely satisfied with our offerings. Many of these areas are based on Thrive's guidance, including pricing, proposal structure, and placement type.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

N/A

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The sheer breadth of their experience and helpfulness stood out. I have worked with many agencies across my time at Google and Microsoft, but few showcased the intelligence and confidence that Thrive has. I have already introduced Thrive to a few strong local brands.

Are there any areas for improvement?

N/A

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of marketing and creative at a real estate company in the pacific northwest. We’re the largest Coldwell Banker franchise in the world by volume. We have 32 branches across the pacific northwest and a little over 1,200 brokers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Thrive Advertising?

We wanted to overcome the stigma that our company was a little bit dated and also create brand awareness.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Thrive Advertising plans out what they feel is a really solid media buy for us based on the advertising concepts that we provide to them and the message we're looking for. They outline different media outlets, give us pricing, and make sure the ad buys are buttoned up, so we're able to get into a lot of different areas of media outside what we would have done, which was just print. They also showed us programmatic advertising on a larger scale than what we were used to and brought us onboard with some digital publications.

What is the team composition?

We work with Robin (President) and Danielle (Senior Project Manager & Business Development Director).

How did you come to work with Thrive Advertising?

Someone from our company found them on Google.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in June 2018 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We’re about four times higher than the industry standard as far as our click-through rates and conversion rates. Our ad buys included about 11 million impressions last year, and we ended up with about 19 million impressions. We have specific success stories with advertising listings and advertising particular programs that have done quite well with them. 

The most interesting part of our success is with the programmatic advertising and understanding what the data is telling us versus what our intuition is telling us. They have a well-planned strategy that allows us to hit several markets and really saturate our market in digital, print, and audio on the radio. We're hitting our clients in every place they go.

How did Thrive Advertising perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great. We communicate through email and phone calls, and we have occasional meetings. We currently use Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to manage our projects, but we might have to graduate to a different management system when we hit the million-dollar mark on ad buys.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re well educated, understand their business, and are very insightful as to what our goals are and what might be the best plan of attack. Robin and Danielle are both very intelligent and understand the industry better than most of the people that I’ve spoken with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing stands out.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Just do yourself a favor and get in touch with them.