Adster Creative

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner and operations manager of Park Muffler Radiator Brakes & Tires, an automotive repair shop.

What challenge were you trying to address with Adster Creative?

My father-in-law, who ran the business for 43 years, was reluctant to change anything about the company, but we had to make a push to increase our online presence.

After leaving a previous vendor, we needed help with SEO and digital marketing.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Adster Creative developed our new website from scratch. They also deliver SEO and Google AdWords services.

The previous person we used for SEO couldn’t keep up with the changes Google requires. We had to rebuild our reputation with Google. My father-in-law cared about seeing his store at the top of the rankings. We lost some of our rankings because we had to rebuild closed sites, and Adster Creative helped us with that.

We do our reputation monitoring on our website and blog posts. We’re a seasonal service business, and their team will work with us to boost ads or work on campaigns based on that. Adster Creative also provides a customer service component by responding to our Google reviews.

Adster Creative provides services to our other shops. They help with Adwords and those websites.

What is the team composition?

My main point of contact is Libriel (PPC Specialist, Adster Creative).

How did you come to work with Adster Creative?

They were recommended to us by someone locally before I was in my current role.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent approximately $108,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2015, and the work is ongoing.

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

It has taken time to build our campaign with Adster Creative, but we’ve seen huge gains regarding traffic through AdWords and SEO. Their team has done great, and we’ve been pleased with them.

A lot of people come to us because of our Google reviews, and their team has helped with that.

How did Adster Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

If Adster Creative can break it down to my father-in-law in his 70s in a way he feels comfortable, that’s a huge win. Their team is excellent with project management. Anytime I have an issue; I’ll send Libriel an email. If she can’t help, she sends it to someone who can handle the situation.

She visits at least once a year and meets with our staff to understand how we do business and what our values are. Libriel works hard to translate any difficult digital aspects for us.

We’ve had times where we had issues with phishing on our form submissions, and Adster Creative will fix it the same day. Their team constantly makes sure our website was updated.

Adster Creative is exceptionally responsive. We meet with their team at least once a month using GoToMeeting.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Adster Creative cares about getting to know our business to serve us better.

Are there any areas they could improve?

From a cost standpoint, we’d like to see our monthly costs decrease since our website is complete and we’ve referred them to others.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Finding the right fit with the person you work with is crucial. Getting to know the owner and their standards will translate into work. The personal touch is essential, and Adster Creative does a great job of that.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the operations manager of a custom suits retailer.

What challenge were you trying to address with Adster Creative?

We engaged Adster Creative to provide digital marketing services to improve our traffic and organic search rankings.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Adster Creative provides digital marketing services, including keyword research, content creation for blogs and social media posts, and analytics reporting. They've helped us discover where our traffic is coming from and how many appointments are being booked through different sources. They also oversee customer ratings, allowing us the opportunity to respond to any negative reviews or comments.

What is the team composition?

I mostly work with Jillian (Digital Marketing Strategist, Adster Creative).

How did you come to work with Adster Creative?

I believe someone on our staff either reached out to them, or they reached out to us, but I wasn't involved in the process.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working together since April 2018.

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

Adster Creative has helped us significantly improve our online presence overall. We're now more aware of where our traffic is coming from, engaging with more customers, and ranking higher on Google.

How did Adster Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

I have no complaints at all. We have regular meetings over the phone with their team, and they're pretty good at being responsive to our needs overall.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I don't really have anything to compare their work to since this is our first time dealing with a digital marketing vendor. But we've been happy with their services thus far.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They're doing a good job.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the owner of a commercial painting business.

What challenge were you trying to address with Adster Creative?

Much of my business is based on referral marketing or some small print campaigns, but I previously didn’t have any kind of online presence. I hired Adster Creative to assist with my digital marketing efforts.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Adster Creative set up a landing page and currently manages our PPC campaigns. Together, we identified keywords that we wanted to optimize, and through some trial and error, we settled on a combination that works well for our goals.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with two digital marketing specialists over the course of the engagement.

How did you come to work with Adster Creative?

I met one of their employees through a networking group, and, from that, I attended a couple of information sessions to learn more about the company. When I decided to expand my business, I knew they’d be the right fit. It was a costly investment, but it’s been well worth it.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $15,000 a year, so close to $50,000 total.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement began in September 2015 and remains ongoing.

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

The $50,000 or so that we’ve spent with Adster Creative represents about 1% of our sales over the course of three years, so the return on investment has been incredible.

How did Adster Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

I’ve watched them grow over the last three years, as well, and their customer service has remained a strength. They track our results well and make it easy for me to understand where my dollars are going.

What did you find most impressive about them?

A lot of SEO companies try to sell you on how much money they can make you or what kind of views they can get you. Adster Creative educates you about the impressions you get and how to better generate your organic presence. They teach you about the process, and not all companies do that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. I think they do a good job of addressing any gaps in their services.

Any advice for potential customers?

Be comfortable making a commitment longer than three months. Some people will want to see a quick return on investment, but it takes time to understand your target audience and learn what time of day is best for ads to be posted.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the owner of Edmonton's International Beerfest.

What challenge were you trying to address with Adster Creative?

We wanted to improve our ability to reach a targeted audience online through a variety of digital marketing campaigns.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Adster created a targeted PPC campaign to attract people actively searching for our event; a Facebook campaign targeting people most likely to be interested in the event; and display and Youtube campaigns targeting our target demographic. They also created key links and citations, including a Google My Business and Wikipedia page.

What is the team composition?

I work with Jillian (Digital Account Manager, Adster Creative) regularly, especially when we're starting new projects or making a lot of changes.

How did you come to work with Adster Creative?

They were referred to us and I liked their team after meeting with them. They were very focused on online presence and digital marketing, as opposed to other vendors who try to do too much at once. I liked that they just focused on providing two main services well.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent a little less than $10,000 thus far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around October 2017 and the relationship is ongoing.

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

Adster's digital marketing services allowed us to cut our marketing spend in half with significantly better results. Their services resulted in over 2,500 e-commerce transactions and helped achieve 4% year-over-year growth in traffic. Our bounce rate decreased by 67%; average sessions duration increased by 39%; and average lead acquisition cost increased by 39% with an average cost of $5.44. Their work has accounted for a 13% increase in traffic to the site and a 20% increase in transactions.

How did Adster Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

They manage projects very well; they're very responsive, organized, and concerned about customer satisfaction. We mainly stay in touch through email and phone.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their approach makes the whole relationship very easy. I have a lot of confidence in their team's ability to deliver results through their proven experience and expertise. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Try not to micromanage their team, because they're very good at figuring out the best approach—trust in their abilities to deliver results.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-owner of The Lawnmower Hospital, a lawnmower repair center. Our parents started the business over forty years ago.

What challenge were you trying to address with Adster Creative?

We’re working from before the store open until well after it closes. Our business has picked up significantly since we bought the business from our parents. Because of this, it’s hard to do everything so we outsource parts of our business to external agencies like Adster Creative, who help us with marketing.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Adster ensures that we stay busy. We use Adster to get our information out, keep the shop busy at different times and seasons, focusing on higher ticket prices or higher volume services so that we are maintaining our business year-round.

They work on drawing people to the website, building links to improve our SEO for parts, services, and sales. They help with PPC too. They’re helping us with everything online, like Instagram. I ask them for details of what the services are and they explain the lingo before we begin.

What is the team composition?

I’m mainly working with a project manager. Our interactions are one-on-one, but they have a team behind them supporting our project manager.

How did you come to work with Adster Creative?

We wanted to ensure we were working with somebody local. Somebody I knew worked with them and liked them, and I got the referral. We knew they were there to help our business and not to take the cash.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $11,000—$12,000 at this point.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in March 2020, and the work is ongoing.

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

This year is unique because we have Analytics set up so we know who’s coming and where they’re coming from. We’ve had an increase in sales. We’re doing well — we’re always busy and there’s never anybody in our competitors' parking lots.

How did Adster Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great at that. They give us structured dates, and they’re always ready at the time they say they will. We’ve never had a delay on their end, it’s always on ours. Whenever I have a question, they’re always quick with a response. I’ve never been steered the wrong way by them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re incredibly knowledgeable about what they do. We’re not just another shop to them, they did their research going into our partnership knowing how we’re different.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t know — everything they’ve done for us is exactly what we needed. We’ve never had a problem.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be more prepared than we are. Know more about online tools yourself and you’ll likely have an easier process. Knowing that they were always there to answer our questions was a great relief throughout the partnership.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a co-owner of Modric Inc and I moderate sales and marketing, and business development. We are a laneway home and custom home builder. Our company builds accessory dwellings to primary dwellings, usually along a lane or in someone’s backyard. We try to accommodate multigenerational living or developers looking at a rental product.

What challenge were you trying to address with Adster Creative?

We hired Adster Creative because we needed to get some Google AdWords presence right away. We worked with Michael (Account Manager) and the team to develop some campaigns and get some kind of presence on the first Google results page through paid efforts.
 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We asked Adster Creative to develop specific campaigns, some AB testings, PPC management, and provide us with data as it became available. Their deliverable involved co-developing several ads with us. They also conducted a forensic audit on our website and came up with several kinds of insightful recommendations.

We also hired Adster Creative to help us with the technical side to optimize the site for the Google ranking process.

What is the team composition?

Our main contact is the account manager, which is Michael, and then there is a project manager as well as a technical writer. So we have regular contact or semi-regular contact with three different individuals. I assume that within Adster Creative, they have technical people that develop and work on the backend of our website.

How did you come to work with Adster Creative?

I originally worked with Adster Creative about three years ago with a different company and then we came back to them when we first started our new company. I’ve had positive experiences with Adster Creative before and I was happy to come back and try another campaign with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $3,000 with Adster Creative per month, so probably around $36,000 a year, with a fair amount of that going toward ad spend. I’d say Facebook and Google get $2,250 and Adster Creative gets $750, as a ballpark.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in May 2020 and we are still working with them.

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

We went from literally crickets and tumbleweeds, maybe one inquiry via our website once every couple of weeks. We are starting to see an inquiry of 3–5 solid leads per week now. This is huge for us because these are qualified leads. They also increased our Instagram and Facebook followers.

How did Adster Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re right on top of things and have great communication. I’m the bottleneck usually. They are very organized and they have a rigorous process that keeps me accountable and I like that.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I haven’t worked with a lot of other providers so I can’t speak to that direct experience. What I can tell you is that they are a small organization, they’re very hands-on, and they’re constantly monitoring our social media channels and our website performance. I think they do those things really well. They don’t just spit back data, they actually interpret the data for you and see opportunities that maybe others don’t see.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be organized, be prepared, and be ready to develop content in order for Adster Creative, Google, or Facebook to do their job or get the results that you want. You as a client have to do a whole bunch of work upfront in order to enable Adster Creative to leverage your assets, your website, your newsletter, or whatever it is.

Don’t expect Adster Creative to just step in and magically make everything happen. You as a client have to go do a lot of legwork upfront. They will guide you through the process. There’s a longer onboarding process than I expected, and I understand why.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of Heritage Law Offices.

What challenge were you trying to address with Adster Creative?

The firm has been around for about 30 years, and we were running traditional ads in phonebooks. We had a lot of referrals, but not much of a digital presence.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They do search engine optimization (SEO), looking for dead links and things of that nature. Whenever we had AdWords, they did the organic leads. They also monitor our reputation and write topical blog posts that we approve.

What is the team composition?

Their SEO specialist is our lead, and we’ve also worked with the owner.

How did you come to work with Adster Creative?

The firm met them before I took over it over. They met one of the lawyers for another purpose, they got to talking, and they tried them out. It’s been wildly successful for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We had an AdWords budget and also paid them a couple thousand per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2016 and the work is ongoing.

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

They always do an incredible job, and we’ve been busier than ever because of them. When you Google the areas of law that we provide, we’re typically at the top of the paid ads. We were the only business in our province to be featured on one of Google's articles about using SEO to improve your business. We’re always the first or second organic ad. They do a great job.

How did Adster Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re always responsive and personal when we need anything. They give us a monthly report about our lead acquisition cost.

We’ve had in-person and Skype meetings. Now that we have a more mature campaign, we mainly communicate by email, but the other options are always available.

They’re all good at what they do. They teach us how to do things and offer valuable feedback to many of our ideas.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I know business owners who’ve run SEO campaigns. Everyone said they were good, but no one had anywhere near the success we’ve had. They make sure that everything works well and that we pop up first in Google. Other businesses have used our advertising as a template.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could be cheaper, but we get what we pay for. We get multiple times back what we pay to them. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Follow their lead because they’re experts in this area. You can hand it over to them without worrying. The results will speak for themselves.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a chartered public accountant firm. I am one of our tax accountants on staff and also look after administration.

What challenge were you trying to address with Adster Creative?

We wanted to spread information about the firm and grow our client base.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our mandate to them was to reach more clients, specifically corporate accounts. They helped us fix our website on both the front- and backend. They also help with our AdWords and other links to improve our online search rankings. They manage site performance, blogs, and incoming calls.

What is the team composition?

I regularly speak with Michael (Digital Account Manager, Adster Creative) about our accounts. We usually communicate on a monthly basis, depending on my schedule.

How did you come to work with Adster Creative?

They started as clients of ours. We wanted to work with a client, so the relationship works well.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $90,000 or so.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in about September 2013. We still work with them regularly.

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

We rank high in searches for accountants in our area and we can reach more clients than ever before. Traditionally, we relied heavily on word of mouth referrals. The clients we get through our website more than cover the cost of our investment with Adster. We’ve seen positive gains and are very happy with their work.

How did Adster Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re excellent communicators by phone or email and we meet regularly in person.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very responsive, positive, and quick. I never have to hound them. If anything, they keep the process moving more than I do. They understand what we like and they focus on our needs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any complaints.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Listen to the reports they present and ask questions. Make sure you understand the analytics they provide and communicate your goals. Be an active participant.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of Elite Dance Studio. We offer dance classes in a fun, non-competitive environment for all ages, specializing in ballet, hip-hop, and ballroom dancing. We also work with high-level competitive dancers.

What challenge were you trying to address with Adster Creative?

We wanted to grow our business but had no experience with marketing. We realized that we didn’t understand how to expand nor had the tools we needed to grow. As a result, Adster Creative offered resources to redesign our website and manage our social media channels.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They redesigned our website to be mobile-friendly and worked to increase our search rankings. To help identify our position in the market, they provided a dashboard and educated us about various analytics. This included engagement and bounce rate, site traffic, and customer acquisition costs. Additionally, they’ve helped curate our social media, creating Facebook ads as well as generating SEO-compliant content.

Although we’ve currently decided to take a strategic break from expanding to focus on managing our studios, they continue to track our analytics, generating monthly plans and materials as needed.

What is the team composition?

Initially, we worked with Dave (Owner, Adster Creative) and Andrew (Partner, Adster Creative). But as their company grew, they assigned numerous account managers for our projects. I was apprehensive at first because we had built a business relationship with Dave. However, we’ve only had great experiences with them.

We’re currently working with our fourth account manager who serves as our main point of contact, and the transition between members have been seamless. From what I understand, even though we have a manager, the whole team works on our project.

How did you come to work with Adster Creative?

My business partner knew the owners personally, so he organized a meeting with Dave and Andrew. To be honest, I didn’t have a high opinion of marketing agencies because I’d always felt that they didn’t have my best intentions at heart. However, within 15 minutes of our first meeting, they understood our business concerns as a small company with a limited budget. They talked to us like they were part of our company and, more importantly, got us excited about our growth prospects. We trusted them immediately and have been with them ever since.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend $1,000 CAD ($777 USD) per month on their base services in addition to our advertising fees. However, the price fluctuates depending on the season. If we want to focus more on summer wedding dances or open a new location, we’ll spend more to be more competitive.

What is the status of this engagement?

Their work began in January 2007 and is ongoing.

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

Our business grew by 42% in 2016 and has continued to grow ever since, which we attribute to their guidance and efforts. Since then, we’ve retained the top positions for our relevant search results, including a highly-ranked Facebook post. We’ve also grown must larger and faster than we anticipated. Over the course of the engagement, we went from one studio to four studios.

Their dashboard, in particular, has been crucial to providing statistical insights and helping us grow. Looking at the dashboard’s numbers, we were able to realize that one of our locations wasn’t profitable. The traffic was low, and the area simply wasn’t a good fit for us. So we closed the studio and reopened somewhere else within a year, which is now doing great. The dashboard gave us information that we would’ve missed if we only monitored our profits.

More than providing a service, they’ve really taken the time to answer our questions, listen to our ideas, and really help us with their expertise. We never feel like just a number to them. Their friendly yet professional approach reminds us of doing business with family. I appreciate their values and feel like it aligns with my own. They’ve helped us understand our market and have given us the confidence to move forward and expand.

How did Adster Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

They've complete everything in a timely, comprehensible manner. We communicate mainly by email because it’s my preferred method. We also have meetings every month or so to review our analytics, but I personally choose not to have them; I’m comfortable with them sending the report by email. This helps keep everyone informed.

They always check in with us to see if we’re doing a new service or trying anything new so that they can help us market it. If I have questions or need to change anything, then everyone needs to understand where we are and what we’re doing. At this point, we’ll meet with our account manager at their office.

In terms of the budget, they never assume they know how much we want to spend, so we always have control over our expenses. Their estimates are remarkably accurate. For a given project, they might predict how much our traffic would increase if we invest a certain amount more. Despite how unpredictable this can be, I trust their judgment.

What did you find most impressive about them?

As I’ve mentioned before, beyond their all-inclusive digital marketing package, they’ve really given us a comprehensive understanding of our market and our position within it. Their dashboard allows us to see all of our statistics (e.g., traffic, customer acquisition spending, projected profits) in a clear, easy-to-understand way. It provides a greater perspective of our business. If anything, I don’t use the dashboard enough because there’s so much more that I could do with it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

While they do help us manage our Facebook account, we would appreciate it if they could help us with other channels such as Instagram and Twitter. They currently don’t offer this option, but it would be helpful. Honestly, I would be interested to buy any additional services they offer.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Leverage the resources to their fullest potential; the team is much more than just the account manager. Additionally, don’t hesitate to reach out when you don’t understand something or when the results don’t match your expectations because you will become frustrated, and it’ll be too late. Their team is more than happy to explain everything to you and make sure that you understand.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a registered psychologist and CEO of Insight Psychological Inc. We are a psychological practice that offers counseling and psychological assessment services.

What challenge were you trying to address with Adster Creative?

I was originally doing my own marketing and management of my website but wasn’t seeing the results I wanted. So, I reached out to Adster to help me increase marketing and SEO.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Adster took a look at my site and found a lot of areas I could improve to help Google recognize the website in a more effective manner. They initially made a few recommendations and that made a significant difference in just a few months. Based off of their initial work I had them take over everything having to do with SEO, SEM, AdWords, and our social media presence.

What is the team composition?

I have worked most closely with their president and CEO, but in the last year, I have begun interfacing with more members of their team, particularly their senior software architect.

How did you come to work with Adster Creative?

My brother was actually in a band with their CEO and we began working together before he founded Adster.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent around $250,000 CAD ($196,493 USD)

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working together since January 2009.

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

In the first few years I worked with Adster we saw close to a 20%­–30% increase in business. In 2012 we had 58% growth and were featured on Google and Google Canada. Since then we have seen an average of 15% growth depending on the year. I don’t think I could have gotten my company where it is today without them.

How did Adster Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

I have been very happy with their project management style and responsiveness. They have a platform that tracks all of the analytics within their system that gives you a really nice picture of where things stand.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The personal relationship and attention I have received has been great. Before Adster I had worked with another SEO company that was very restrictive about what they would let me see and the information I was allowed to handle and modify. Adster, on the other hand, has been open and collaborative.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think it is something they can improve, but I would like a better handle on the social media aspect of our marketing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I was a very cautious investor at first, but building that trust with them has definitely been worth it. So I would say that this is not a fast process, but if you keep at it and trust them it will pay off.