Advertas

Please describe your company and your position there.

The Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) is a nonprofit professional society dedicated to advancing the science of geophysics, supporting humanitarian efforts, and accelerating technology innovation.

Most of its 13,000 global members come from the oil and gas industry. In 2018 and 2019, when working with Advertas on a first of its kind inaugural Oil and Gas Machine Learning Symposium, I was Director of Geophysics, where I "closed" a strategic partnership positioning SEG with a global market "breakout" leader in Artificial Intelligence - Oil and Gas Machine Learning.

For what projects/services did your company hire Advertas?

Advertas was retained to plan and execute this first strategic event of its kind in the oil and gas industry -- the Oil & Gas Machine Learning Symposium (www.upstreamML.com). Laura and her able team were responsible for all branding, promotion, speaker and sponsor recruitment, ticket sales, event logistics, and managed event P&L.

I worked with them during the first two years of the event - 2018 and 2019 before leaving the SEG in 2020. SEG looked to Advertas for their internal capabilities to execute this event annually for three years (2018-2021).

What were your goals for this project?

Advertas, through the Symposium, provided the SEG a considerable amount of public relations exposure, global branding, email marketing, social media promotion, and networking with key global contacts and thought leaders in the arena of Artificial Intelligence - Oil & Gas Machine Learning. SEG wanted to "scale" up its exposure and prestige in AI and Machine Learning to its global 13,000 membership.

How did you select Advertas?

SEG had been monitoring the innovative technology sector of Oil & Gas Machine Learning when through our business intelligence we learned of Advertas and its impeccable reputation of trustworthiness and execution in large technology events and marketing.

We immediately approached Advertas with a proposal for a strategic partnership to reach our 13,000+ global membership and networks for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. This was a unique and extraordinary market opportunity under the most rigorous of time demands for execution.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Advertas, through the Symposium, provided a considerable amount of public relations exposure, branding, email marketing, social media promotion, and networking with key global contacts and thought leaders.

SEG knew what its goal was, Advertas, through its outstanding execution history and present-day talents were able to navigate successfully the how of implementation and successful execution.

What was the team composition?

The Advertas execution team included their project manager, digital marketing specialist, graphic designer, web developer, and event coordinator. SEG supported a project liaison for needed SEG resource input and inter-team communications.

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

Advertas excelled in their delivery of projects on-time. With the hard deadline of a live even, there wasn't room for slippage. Advertas executed with a spirit of excellence and when the speakers, sponsors, and attendees showed up, everything was delivered as expected and an "electricity" of success. Advertas managed the P&L very well -- actual costs and revenues lined up with projects.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was "one" and a single "workflow" experience ... a testament to Advertas's capabilities and talents of its employees !

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Advertas is unique in fulfilling its promise of delivery. Their trustworthiness is awesome. They have a "can-do" attitude and zeal for getting the job done, quickly, effectively, professionally, and on budget.

Their communications are "top drawer" with integrity behind every answer. Their primary method of communications were emails, text messages, and phone calls, backed up by Advertas internal project management tools.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Advertas post-event learnings could include virtual summations. To see it is to even further believe the outstanding results. Advertas relies on excellent metrics for evaluating project success.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the SVP of business development at a geoscience software company called Geophysical Insights. I’ve been collaborating with Advertas since I joined my position over four years ago.

What challenge were you trying to address with Advertas?

We’ve been working with Advertas since 2010. Our initial challenge was to raise brand awareness.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Advertas helps us communicate our company to the oil and gas industry and supports some of our sales. One of the main deliverables has been a corporate website. Their team has designed, developed, and managed it. They’ve assisted in building out help files and documentation that are directly related to our software solution, too.

What’s also unique to our engagement is that Hal (Managing Director) serves as a marketing and sales consultant for our management team. He advises on our marketing and sales campaigns as well as the strategy behind them. 

One of the proprietary lists that we’ve built with him is a list of customers within the global oil and gas industry. The industry itself is big, but the number of people who will actually use our product in the US is fairly small. Over the years, their team has helped maintain that list of contacts on our behalf, and we now have between 8,000¬–10,000 contacts in that database — all up to date.

Finally, they coordinate any shows that we go to. Before the pandemic, we’d typically go to three shows per year: one in Europe and two in the US. They’ve also orchestrated our own oil and gas machine learning symposium, paying third-party vendors to build our booths on site and more. 

What is the team composition? 

We tend to have anywhere between 2–5 individuals. Hal and Laura (CMO) are the main two people we deal with.

How much have you invested with them?

In the last few years, we’ve spent $1 million–$1.5 million per year. Hal also maintains a small piece of equity interest, which was put in place when our company started.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since 2010, and the partnership has grown a lot since then. It used to be a part-time venture, but now it’s full-time.

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

Thanks to their marketing and sales strategy, we saw a really good increase in revenue from 2016–2019. As you can probably imagine, 2020 wasn’t a great year for us due to the global pandemic, but 2021 is already looking better. We’ll just have to see how the second half of the year plays out.

How did Advertas perform from a project management standpoint?

Advertas doesn’t just manage their own projects, but they’ll also help organize some of our internal service projects. The team sometimes acts as an interface to specific clients. That’s not a skill that we’ve necessarily looked for in a marketing company, but we’ve been able to develop an intimacy business model, given how involved Hal is with our strategy. At this point, he knows enough about what we do that he can give a high-level technical presentation of our services, which is pretty unique.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re pretty much always on call. If I need something on Saturday night, I can reach out and get someone from Advertas then and there rather than having to wait until Monday morning. That speaks to the relationship that we have with them. Now, I should add that we’re their number one customer by far, so we have a lot more weight with them.

I’m also impressed by how well they’ve handled the different aspects of their company, from trade shows to digital/paper publications. They work smoothly and economically and can even navigate any necessary interactions with specific customers on our behalf. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There are probably other marketing and sales aspects they could explore to help out with our business. The team can get used to doing things a certain way with specific vendors, so they tend to lock into a routine. I don’t blame them for that, but there are likely more tactics we could try out.

To be clear, this is a very minor issue that I’d point out if I were to sit down and give them a performance evaluation. They’re probably interested in trying out most of those strategies but haven’t had the time to check into them. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d recommend sitting down with them to make sure you understand their pricing model. A lot of times people don’t realize that advertising fees are different from agency fees. For example, if the cost to advertise in a journal is $5,000, you still need to find out how much you need to pay the agency. From there, you have to find out how much time they have to make sure the deliverables meet your standards and do what you need them to do. 

This information can be easily tracked, and they can even give you an estimate upfront. Costs can be big, especially when they’re managing a lot of things, so you need to have a good grasp on their pricing structure.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and president of Piper Morgan Associates, a professional and technical search firm. I also have a website, JobSearchPower.com, dedicated to helping job seekers in their job search.

What challenge were you trying to address with Advertas?

Advertas has been helping me with my job searching website. The site was built about six years ago, and it needed a major overhaul.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, I brought in Advertas to give me their assessment of the website. As their work progressed, I was pleased with their services and extended the scope to include the entire website. 

The team developed a storyboard, provided UX design, and art design. The core features of the website were kept — Advertas’ responsibility was to make it user friendly. The goal of the project was to not only attract new users, but to have them come back and use the site as their go-to for job searching.

Advertas also brought a lot of WordPress elements into the site.

What is the team composition?

The project was done in conjunction with my primary contact, Laura (CMO), as well as Hal (Director), who worked very closely with the project manager. I also worked with a junior UX designer. 

How did you come to work with Advertas?

I selected them based on my happiness working with them previously in 2008. I originally found out about them through some clients, who’d worked with Advertas in the past.

I liked what they brought to the table in terms of their ability to help with the website project and also go to market. 

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost was between $10,000–$25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August 2020–January 2021.

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

There are two main metrics: budget and timeline — both of which Advertas met. 

There were also some more minor metrics. The team collaborated well, and their grasp of the concept and understanding of our website was great.

How did Advertas perform from a project management standpoint?

Advertas was excellent. They gave me access to see their work in progress through another site, which they’d designed for that purpose. I was able to see what they were doing at any time, which helped me, because I could give them feedback as they went along. It was very collaborative.

In terms of communication, we kept in touch through phone calls and emails. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Advertas has a combination of great marketing skills and an excellent understanding of what makes a user-friendly site. That combination is really important. They also understood the market potential for our platform. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything right now. The team was always responsive, always engaging, and always receptive to input. Advertas was great about sharing their ideas and suggestions in a way that was very customer-service oriented.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’m overall very pleased. I wouldn’t hesitate to refer anyone to Advertas.

Please describe your company and your position there.

The company is created and sold security software providing two-factor identity management solutions. As a co-founder and CTO, my role was to launch and grow the business while developing innovative security solutions.

For what projects/services did your company hire Advertas?

We retained Advertas to help launch the business. The work spanned tradeshow support, website development, and development of sales tools. It grew to involve global tradeshow guidance and international support, press releases, and developing additional sales tools, including videos and printed/digital collateral to equip partners to sell our software.

What were your goals for this project?

Establish name recognition within the industry and start the funnel for both partners and inside sales.

How did you select Advertas?

We selected Advertas because of their depth of experience and clear communication practices.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

As mentioned previously, the scope of work spanned multiple years and grew to accommodate our growing business and growing market, both domestically and abroad.

The work grew to involve global tradeshow guidance and international support, press releases, and developing additional sales tools, including videos and printed/digital collateral to equip partners to sell our software. We also engaged Advertas on several point solutions/requests for individual specific customer demands.

What was the team composition?

The benefit of working with an outside agency is that the team can expand and contract with the phase of the business. Laura was consistently the project manager, but was supported by her team of specialists at each phase. These included graphic design and video editing, digital specialists for SEO & PPC, content writers, and web development.

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

The company went from startup to a 75% market share in target verticals during the engagement and was successfully acquired a short time later. During the due diligence process, the feedback we received from acquiring investors was a criticism that we hadn’t spent more on marketing.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Project management was second to none. All projects were on time, in budget, and communication was crystal clear at every phase. The team did a good job of communicating potential areas of scope expansion and setting our expectations. They did an excellent job with being "professional communicators".

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Advertas has a holistic view of the business and saw their success through the lens of our success. They were able to advise on effective go-to-market strategies, while understanding the nuances common to our industry.

In addition, they worked very well within our budget - both as a startup in advising less-expensive solutions that were still effective, and as we grew - advising where we could get the most out of our marketing budget without spending unnecessarily.

I felt their advice helped us avoid many of the pitfalls of others in our industry, allowing our business to remain profitable, even when our competition was taking significant losses.

Are there any areas for improvement?

At the start, their graphic artist was good, but his style didn’t align with our preferences. They solved it by hiring a new one that was much more adaptable to our preferences and we ended up quite happy with the work.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Solid is a Modern FinTech Platform that powers many leading FinTechs and is embedded in SaaS unicorns. Solid lets you instantly create bank accounts, send payments and issue cards, powered by the Solid Platform. I am the head of revenue growth.

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

We hired Advertas for SEO and marketing. Our goals were to build a list of target keywords to go after and move up the rankings on Google for those keywords.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I have worked with Advertas at another company successfully and executed on Marketing efforts at that company.

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

Our engagement included studying the landscape and doing a study on SEO terms that were achievable in the short and long term. We then also created content in the relevant areas to boost our visibility in those areas.

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

Laura the CMO, and 2 SEO specialists.

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

Since implementing the SEO efforts, our rankings on target keywords have improved, and inbound traffic has also improved.

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

They were strong communicators. They set and managed expectations well. This is very important especially in SEO. We had a weekly meeting and a slack channel for instant communication when needed.

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

Very professional outfit, with strong communicators and a can-do attitude. Especially Laura.

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

Advertas is a really good agency at a reasonable price.

Please describe your company and your position there.

eSimulation is a software and engineering company providing advanced solutions for the midstream natural gas sector. I was president of the company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Advertas?

Advertas was retained to provide an outsourced marketing function for eSimulation. Over the years of our engagement, they were tasked with developing the company logo and branding, designing and implementing the website, conducting our editorial outreach campaigns for press coverage, designing and executing advertising campaigns, and providing lead generation services by way of email marketing and white paper development. Most importantly, Advertas does an excellent job of developing the strategy for a technology rollout and development of the supporting marketing message.

What were your goals for this project?

Improve the company's profile within the midstream natural gas industry to support the company's direct sales efforts.

How did you select Advertas?

I was friends with Advertas' founder. I had worked with him previously at Aspen Technology.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Advertas collaborated with the management team on strategies to achieve objectives, and then was wholly responsible for execution of approved initiatives.

What was the team composition?

Advertas has people that develop the strategy / messaging, architect websites, and develop collatoral marketing materials. They include project management, their lead strategiest, a technical copywriter, graphic designer, artists, digital marketing specialist, and web developers.

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

Advertas did an excellent job of supporting us over the years. We always had first class martketing materials for conferences and to hand out to clients. Thier ability to develop sales presentations was excellent and this helped us present a compelling and cohesive message during sales presentations.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was usually one of working together, me in their offices, to develop the messaging. Then, periodic meetings to check the status of deliverables. We sometimes did real time editing of websites together to minimize back and forth communications.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Developing marketing strategy and then following up with all marketing/sales materials required to take that strategy to market.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Sometimes it was difficult to get a realistic estimate for what a project would cost. However, we were also at fault becuase we always wanted more to be done, so scope creeped.