BubbleUp

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of marketing, for IMCMV Holdings LLC. We operate Margaritaville restaurants and Landshark Bar & Grill in the United States.

What challenge were you trying to address with BubbleUp?

I needed help with digital marketing and driving traffic.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve done SEO, SEM, geo-targeting, and backlinking. Our objective is to show up at the top of search engine results. For markets where we can’t get up in the rankings with general SEO, we’ve paid for search engine marketing where we have ads to give us a top placement.

The biggest projects have been social geo-targeting ones where BubbleUp got innovative and dialed down to exact zip codes and blocks that are near us. The goal was to drive the most traffic and reach people when they’re close in proximity. BubbleUp gets data on the devices that are pinged and successfully garner interest. These customers show up in my venue within 24 hours.

What is the team composition?

I have one contact who’s our account director.

How did you come to work with BubbleUp?

They had partnered with Margaritaville the brand, and they also manage our website. I had worked with them on those projects. They talked about additional opportunities they were willing to test for me. I didn’t have anything to lose, we saw strong results, and that sold me to dive into a much deeper relationship with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested over $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started in May 2016.

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

I get weekly campaign feedback that shows the number of visitors that came in. They provide good tracking and the ability to get a strong feel of what my ROI looks like. Over the course of the last four months, they’ve driven over 25,000 guests into my restaurant through the geo-program we have in place.  They’ve delivered a very strong ROI that I can’t find elsewhere with other marketing or advertising agencies.

How did BubbleUp perform from a project management standpoint?

This is their one deficiency, and I’ve addressed that with them several times. They put an account coordinator on our account to help manage deadlines and ensure they’re met; so that has helped. For the most part, they do well at meeting my deadlines and getting me the information I need.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a true partner. Currently, I’ve had to cut my services back because of COIVD-19, and they've continued to go ahead and maintain the SEO to ensure that when I do come back in 2021 and have a budget for them to work with that we’re not starting from square one. They’re maintaining our momentum so we can pick up where we left off.

They’ve been great partners. They keep bringing ideas to the table and offering to try new things and waive fees in order to let us test it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Apart from what I’ve already mentioned, no. They’re a great thought partner. They get the job done and bring ideas to the table.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Set up regular communication to review and identify areas of opportunity. Talk through your objectives so they can come up with creative solutions. They have a strong team there.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

KP Entertainment is an artist management company. I oversee all the marketing for our clients and assist with their dealings with partners such as the record labels, publishing companies, and booking agencies. I also help maintain our digital strategies.

What challenge were you trying to address with BubbleUp?

E-commerce continues to change. We wanted to provide a good experience to our customers through our website and be competitive in the marketplace. We also needed help with SEO and getting everyone up to speed with privacy policies. We needed to be flexible with what’s happening in the marketplace.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed the front- and backend of our website. They oversee our stores for our artists and our fan club. They field everything from a customer service level. They provide site management and address the designs, needs, updates, and changes. They also provide customer service for questions regarding a show, merchandise, or the fan club.

What is the team composition?

We work with their CMO, VP of marketing, and director of account services.

How did you come to work with BubbleUp?

It was a decision that was made prior to my employment here. The owner of KP Entertainment has a relationship with them. They offer a service that wasn’t being provided to artists at the time, so it presented an opportunity.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2014 and the work is ongoing.

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

In the last year, the store has grown by over 75%. The fan club has maintained its numbers and continues to grow on an average of 15%–20% in the last four years.

How did BubbleUp perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re amazing. Our product manager is there for us 24/7. We don’t have that personal touch from other partners.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team is very much an extension of what we do with Luke Bryan. The way we do business means a lot. We’re constantly impressed that, no matter the time of day, they’re available and handle the customer support with a personal touch. Our fans are being extremely well served.

BubbleUp has grown with us. They guide us on what’s happening in the marketplace.They bring shared learnings to our partnership.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company owns a minor league baseball team, and I help oversee the finances and operations of the team.

What challenge were you trying to address with BubbleUp?

We needed help with marketing issues that we were having. We are in a competitive market for entertainment. We don’t have the highest budget for marketing, and we felt that we needed to move into a more digital direction.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We turned over all of our digital marketing as well as our new website to them.

What is the team composition?

I mainly work with the chief marketing officer. I was also in contact with the director of digital marketing services as well as the website developer.

How did you come to work with BubbleUp?

We have a special events division and BubbleUp was recommended to the head of special events. He had some success with them, and we decided to try them out for baseball. We tried them out for a portion of last year and have gone full-time with them for this season.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent between $100,000–$250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in September 2016 and the work is ongoing.

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

The new website is great. I see all of their creative ads on Facebook and Google, and they are delivering revenue through the ads they produce, which have been successful so far. They provide click-through rates, and revenue is generated through their leads.

All the feedback we’ve received has been extremely positive. Fans really enjoy our new website. Positive comments have been left on our digital ads on Facebook.

How did BubbleUp perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform more than adequately. They are very easy to work with. They have a lot of clients, but they are generally prompt with meetings and calls. They delivered the website within the deadline.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The people set them apart. The passion they show for our project sets them apart from others.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would be great if we were their only client, but that is not a realistic situation. If we wanted to bring a team of digital marketing people in-house, it would cost a lot more.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a pricing strategy manager at a death services company.

What challenge were you trying to address with BubbleUp?

We used manual price lists at 450 of our locations and the process wasn’t scalable. We needed an outside vendor automate the price lists because our internal systems didn’t have the capacity to execute the project.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did full-stack development for a price list web application that’s hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS). We started working together in late 2014 and had a lot of back and forth in an intermittent process during the following year. We then did another application project with them between 2016–2017. Currently, BubbleUp does minor updates on an ongoing basis.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked directly with two people including the CMO.

How did you come to work with BubbleUp?

They already a good reputation in-house as an easy firm to work with; we also liked their iterative approach. We had worked with other vendors that were more structured than BubbleUp, but they didn’t fit our needs because the end-result was still an open-ended question. After we met BubbleUp and received quotes from the team, they became our preferred vendor, even over our internal IT team.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $80,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in October 2014 and the relationship is ongoing.

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

The original price list application paid for itself in less than a year with the time it saved. That app also works better than some of our internal corporate applications.

How did BubbleUp perform from a project management standpoint?

Given the narrow scope, we keep interactions local and tactical. Neither side wants an overcomplicated engagement and BubbleUp doesn’t use a project management office. Instead, they have an unstructured and flexible approach that can adapt to changing needs. The team is also consistently available for quick fixes.

What did you find most impressive about them?

BubbleUp isn’t arrogant. The team listens to our ideas and is willing to incorporate them. For example, they were very appreciative when one of our internal IT resources generated some ideas for different ways to approach the project. Most of all, they don’t try to fit us in a box or provide a template solution. The team is always straightforward and to the point.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything because they met all our expectations. At first, their backend software prevented them from completing a few tasks, but they eventually delivered after a series of upgrades. The team found great workarounds for issues when we pushed them to find a solution.

Could you give a brief description of your company?

I work for Memorial Hermann Health System. We are the ninth largest hospital system in the country, IDN [integrated delivery network] in the country. We serve the southeast area of Texas. We have nine hospitals, two heart hospitals, a cancer hospital, and other facilities. 

What is your role and your responsibilities in the company?

I’m the director of professional services, which includes contracting, vendor management, and physician management.   

What was the business challenge that you were trying to address when you went to BubbleUp?

We wanted to redesign the site and make it more user friendly and flexible.  

In terms of scope of the project, did they include design, development, training, support?

They went through all of it: The design work, the development, and testing. They actually helped us evaluate and work on the hardware piece because there’s a kiosk component to this as well. It was a very smooth process.

What was your process for selecting BubbleUp to work with this?

We were looking for somebody that had a solid background in the industry as well as somebody who could be nimble enough and quick enough to make sure that they get things done in a timely manner.

Can you give a sense of the size of the project in dollar terms?

It’s probably in the neighborhood of $350,000 to $400,000. 

When was the project started and when was it completed?

It started in 2011, and we finished it six months after the beginning of the project. So, it was completed July 1, 2011. 

In terms of the results from the project completion, can you give specific improvements that happened on your website, such as how it’s better overall because of the project?

Internally, it’s much cleaner and easier for our employees to do their jobs, and so they’re much more efficient.

For our customers, every time a vendor comes in, they have to interact with our software. I’ve had multiple people, multiple vendors of ours come up and tell me that ours is by far the easiest to use. It’s gotten a lot of very good reviews.

How well do you think BubbleUp performed?

I think they did great. They did everything we asked them to do. They were very flexible. I think that was one of the keys. We absolutely continue to use them this day. In fact, they’re doing a fourth project for us now.

Can you note something unique about them in comparison to other companies?

I think the key with them is the people they have. They understand things from a business perspective and take the time to understand everything. BubbleUp understands the importance of the projects prior to actually executing them.  

Could you give a brief description of your company?

We are a company that owns funeral homes and cemeteries across North America. We’re the industry leader in that space. 

What’s your role and your responsibilities in your company?

I’m a digital manager.

What was the business challenge that you were trying to address before you found BubbleUp?

The business challenge that we were addressing is how to get people to pre-plan their funerals online through an application that we wanted to build. As the industry leader, we wanted to own that specific space in the market.

What were your business goals?

The business goal was to own the so-called pre-planning space online, and to use it as a mechanism for dropping self leads because when somebody makes a plan, then they have the option of sharing it with people at other locations, at which point it becomes a lead that’s followed up on. 

Can you talk more about the scope of the project and what it included, such as design, development, training, and support?

The elements of the project included research, design, development, usability, internal communications, external communication, marketing, traffic, project management, and the content. So, anything you could imagine with a large scale of Web presence, it was a part of this project.

What was the process you took for selecting BubbleUp with which to work?

We had been working with BubbleUp in the past and decided to increase their role because of their reliability, so they went from being advisors to actually designing and developing the project. 

Can you give us a little size of the initiative in dollar terms?

Between $500,000 and $1 million.

What was the date that the project started and was when it completed?

The project was started in January of 2014 and was completed in May of 2014.

In terms of the results from the project completion, can you give us specific improvements that happened on your website, such as how it’s better overall because of the project?

It’s been positive. If you compare them to the larger digital agencies that put in their bid, BubbleUp came in substantially more competitive. They did the work in a shorter timeframe than the other agencies could. Everybody from our company has been very positive about their technical skills, customer service skills, turnaround time, flexibility, and knowledge. Overall, it’s been a very favorable experience.

Is there anything unique about what BubbleUp that differentiates them from other companies?

Even though they’re small, they’re very established. They have a lot of big projects that they have in the books. They weren’t a high risk for us in that regard. They have done a lot of deep developmental work. Additionally, unlike big agencies, they didn’t just make us give them a set of requirements. They allowed us to be flexible and bob and weave a little bit on the requirements. They were really good about adjusting on the fly. We also had direct access to the CEO and the other managers, so the communication was excellent.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Director, Tour Marketing for UMG Nashville, a group of record labels

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

We enlisted BubbleUp for fan club launches and ongoing maintenance. The goal was to cater to our artists' super fans.

How did you select BubbleUp and what were the deciding factors?

Technical expertise weighed heavily and reputation in the Nashville market.

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

Build and launch several fan clubs with various features as specified within a month and a half time frame. This included wire framed mock ups, test sites and layout approvals.

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

There were 3-4 main players involved from the BubbleUp side. A couple developers, an account manager and a customer service representative, for which the relationship is ongoing.

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

Both label and artist are happy and continue to enjoy the relationship built.

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

They were super communicative and frequently gave guidance on layouts and features native to their systems, all to maximize the fan experience.

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

What's most impressive is their consistent dedication to customer service. If I need them, one phone call and an issue is resolved.

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

One item to improve would be by offering the same consistent fan club build for all artists. I am currently working with three different builds on the backend.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a traveling event geared towards family entertainment and education. We have multiple shows in different cities and as head of marketing, we wanted to partner with a company that had experience in event marketing and location targeting.

For what projects/services did your company hire BubbleUp?

We hired BubbleUp to run our digital advertising campaigns. They have focused mostly on our social media advertising, but have also helped us expand into ConnectedTV, influencer marketing, digital billboards, and display. They also have an amazing creative team that has designed gorgeous ads for us, along with print materials (tents, signage) that really make our brand shine.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals are to drive sales at a low CPA and with every new campaign, BubbleUp has helped us refine our targeting and hit our sales goals for each event.

How did you select BubbleUp?

BubbleUp was actually selected before I joined the company.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

BubbleUp works with us daily to monitor our ad performance, create new ads, strategize to increase reach, and lower CPA.

What was the team composition?

BubbleUp has a strong team that works on our creative and ad management. We meet twice a week to discuss strategy and performance.

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

BubbleUp has helped us sell out many shows and has worked hard to keep our CPAs low and stick to our budgets. Their innovative thinking has definitely helped us increase reach and maximize ticket sales.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow is very effective as we have multiple check-ins a week and they are very responsive to emails.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

BubbleUp is just a very positive and fun company to work with. I enjoy our meetings and they have been very flexible in terms of turnaround times and deadlines as we navigate the event world in these new times.

Please describe your company and your position there.

The Franklin Theatre is a 300-seat performing arts venue in Downtown Franklin, TN. I am the Executive Director

For what projects/services did your company hire BubbleUp?

Digital Marketing services for all Franklin Theatre Activates

What were your goals for this project?

To promote concerts for our existing audience and to promote new shows programmed to reach a broader audience.

How did you select BubbleUp?

We sent RFPs to several agencies, narrowed it down to finalists, which we interviewed, from which we made our final selection. We felt BubbleUp was the best fit based on capabilities, experience and their understanding of our business.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Working with our marketing manager to develop a digital marketing strategy and budget, design and place digital ads, and provide and interpret the appropriate analytics. They also supported the theater's fundraising campaign

What was the team composition?

Scott Heuerman with Bubble up and Becky Bauer the theater's marketing manager

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

Our desired results were compromised by the pandemic.BubbleUp has helped the theater maintain public awareness while being closed. Also, with BubbleUp's assistance the theater has maintained a steady flow of ticket sales for future events in spite of the theater being closed. They support has also helped generate significant fundraising for the theater.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Scott is a very capable communicator and helps us clarify where best to focus our resources making for a very effective workflow.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their openness in our discussions and ease of communication. Also their ability to empathize with the state of our business and flex accordingly.

Are there any areas for improvement?

In all fairness, before considering areas of improvement, i would love to have them be able to support the theater in a non-pandemic year in order to make a proper determination regarding areas of improvement.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are an insurance brokerage and I am the owner.

What challenge were you trying to address with BubbleUp?

website

What was the scope of their involvement?

Develop website

How did you come to work with BubbleUp?

Google

How much have you invested with them?

$6,500

What is the status of this engagement?

Completed

How did your relationship with the vendor evolve?

Emails

How did BubbleUp address the challenges that arose?

They did the website.

This review was published on November 17, 2021.

Ryan Crawford

Owner, Crawford Agencies

Business Services

1-10 Employees

Ponoka, Canada

Less than $10,000

Jan 2018 - Jul 2021

Project summary

BubbleUp was hired to develop a one-page website for an insurance brokerage. They were selected for this project based on the quality of their work.

Feedback summary

The BubbleUp team failed to meet the client's needs — they did not deliver any outputs at all, even after collecting payment from the client. In the end surprise, the client spent a lot of money for nothing.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are an insurance brokerage and I am the owner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

They were to develop our website.

SOLUTION

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

Overall quality of work.

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

1 page website.

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

1

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They were paid in full in June of 2021, and still no website.

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

None

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

They took our money and delivered nothing to us.

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

Avoid them at all costs.

Star Ratings

Overall rating: 0.5 – Terrible company.

Quality: 0.5 – No work done.

Cost: 5 – A lot of money for no work.

Schedule: 0.5 – Still no work done.

Willing to refer: 0.5