Effective Spend

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the global product marketing manager for Veeam Software. We’re an IT firm that provides backup and recovery solutions for over 300,000 customers worldwide. My job focuses specifically on cloud solutions for protecting Microsoft Office 365 data.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Effective Spend?

We wanted to position ourselves to be a market leader for Office 365 backup solutions. We brought in Effective Spend to help us grow our product line and position us at the top of the market.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

To start, they performed a deep audit of our product and our business. One of the most striking parts of this was their analysis of our mobile experience because they discovered that mobile users were being pushed to download incompatible software meant for traditional computers. That analysis led us to optimize the mobile landing page so that visitors can register to receive an email link with their download, allowing them to install it later once they are back at the office.

In terms of the marketing itself, they help us with everything from a paid digital marketing perspective including PPC search advertising, banner retargeting, social media promotion as well as landing page and funnel conversion optimization. 

What is the team composition?

We have direct contact with everyone from the CEO down to the team in the trenches.

How did you come to work with Effective Spend?

We received a substantial budget for digital marketing on this product but our internal marketing team was stretched thin, so we wanted to augment them. Effective Spend was referred to us by one of our partners who’d had a lot of success with them. We were very impressed by their business acumen, dedication, and professionalism during the interview process — their CEO even took a break from his vacation to speak with us before we signed our contract.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend about $125,000 per quarter.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in April 2018 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Within the first two and a half months of using Effective Spend, they drove 58 million impressions, 443,000 clicks, and over 3,500 product downloads, which was 41% over our already excessively high goals for the quarter.

How did Effective Spend perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve done a great job of managing the project overall. We meet weekly to optimize our advertising efforts in the market and their CEO attends a high percentage of those meetings to help us with our strategy. Their whole team is extremely easy to work with and they always respond positively to changes that come their way.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They don’t feel like a separate contractor. I feel like they’re part of our business and they share our goals. They consistently come up with new, creative ideas that match with the direction we want to move in.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Look at your strategy as a three-phased approach: a few weeks to ramp up, four to six weeks of aggressively driving up the number of your advertising efforts, and then optimizing your strategy to drive the highest quality of results. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the owner of Woom Bikes USA. We offer high-quality, lightweight bikes for children of all ages.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Effective Spend?

We wanted to hire an agency that had expertise in Google ads and AdWords. We’d tried to do digital advertising on our own. As a direct to consumer brand selling bikes on our website, we needed to be more visible to customers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They started by preparing a proposal on the scope of the project. They initially focused on Google AdWords so that we show up when people search for our products and brand. It’s a really structured program for digital ads tied to Google searches. They also created Google Shopping ads. The idea is to get more click-throughs and drive traffic to our online web shop. The overall goal is to drive conversions.

They were so successful with the Google ad strategy that we asked them to expand it to other search engines and social media. Effective Spend now manages a PPC strategy for ads on Google, Bing, Facebook, and Instagram.

What is the team composition?

Our primary contact is our account manager. We also work with a campaign manager.

How did you come to work with Effective Spend?

They were recommend to me by a friend.

How much have you invested with them?

Including advertising spend, I’ve invested between $100,000–$150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2017 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They've done a really great job so far. We previously didn’t have the ability to track our statistics and the metrics, so just getting insights into our performance is a huge achievement. The metrics are great. They’re driving traffic to our website. The number of conversions are going up as the cost per conversion is going down, so we’re pleased with the return on investment.

How did Effective Spend perform from a project management standpoint?

The team is excellent. Their communication has been tremendous from onboarding through our ongoing biweekly meetings. Sometimes we meet in person but mostly we talk over the phone. They have a dashboard of metrics where we can immediately see impressions, click-throughs, cost convergence, and sales. They break it down to day-over-day, week-over-week, and month-over-month performance. The dashboard shows all the key statistics in one view, which helps us make good decisions.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Effective Spend is very easy to work with. It's not a typical customer/agency relationship. We work together as one team to meet our objectives. They offer excellent insight into digital advertising. They’ve done a great job understanding our business and translating that into effective strategies.

Any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you understand what services they provide. For example, don’t expect them to do your digital art or creative design. There's a clear delineation of what they do—digital marketing—and what you need to bring to the table.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of AlternaScript, a health and wellness company with a vitamin supplement line.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Effective Spend?

The goal was to acquire more customers online at a lower cost.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Effective Spend manages an omni channel marketing campaign that covers most of the major ad trading platforms: Google AdWords, Bing, Yahoo Gemini, YouTube, Facebook and Snapchat. They run all bidding and ad placement optimizations, and monitor millions of dollars a year in spend for us. We had an existing keyword list but they regularly help us update it. They're constantly re-evaluating bidding, placement, and ad creative strategies.

What is the team composition?

I'm regularly in communication with their media director, senior campaign manager, and CEO.

How did you come to work with Effective Spend?

We interviewed 25 companies and they were the best. We liked that they take into account that the dollars that they're spending are real and that they need to deliver ROI.

How much have you invested with them?

I spend just under $10,000 a month in fees.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2016 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They deliver positive ROAS (return on ad spend) and maintained really high ROI for years. We’ve been very happy. We’ve been very successful online thanks to Effective Spend. For example, managing Facebook is difficult because the platform is inherently volatile. They’ve helped us work through problems with compliance, algorithmic bidding, and getting placements. They’re incredibly diligent about making sure that we don’t waste our money on bad ad spends.

How did Effective Spend perform from a project management standpoint?

I have a standing weekly call with their team. They’ve done an excellent job of running concurrent projects across multiple campaigns and platforms.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're extremely reliable. It's really easy to lose money when it comes to advertising, so you need a partner who really cares. They have an amazing ability to leverage algorithms to look at the data on a daily basis in order to monitor ad spend.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I worked with Effective Spend while I was the program manager of digital advertising with Pushpay, which is a software company that builds apps for nonprofits and religious organizations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Effective Spend?

We had a niche market and we weren’t able to effectively track or target leads, which raised our cost per lead. We needed better information on the kinds of organizations and job titles we should target.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were interested in targeting nonprofits of all sizes and we needed to understand how to do so more efficiently. Effective Spend helped us revamp how we were capturing those customers. They built out our AdWord groups and used that data to help us analyze our target markets, as well as the effectiveness of our ad campaigns. They provided improved reporting on how well our ads were working and performed thorough A/B testing on everything we did. When they came on board, we’d just begun implementing proper targeting and tracking through Salesforce, and they cross-referenced that information with additional data from Kenshoo in order to better track our leads. In addition, they helped us implement new strategies for generating leads, which included establishing Facebook groups and becoming more active with our social media presence in general.

How did you come to work with Effective Spend?

They came recommended by a former boss, so they’re the first company I consider when I need something that suits their skills. Even though I’ve changed jobs since wrapping up this project, I still call on Effective Spend because they deliver such success and I love working with their team.

What is the status of this engagement?

I worked with them from January 2016 to January 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve effectively retargeted our content, which included e-books, seminar topics, white papers, and ads. Before we made that change, we were finding 80 to 90% unqualified leads, but now that we’ve honed in on the right market, we’ve seen a significant increase in high-quality leads. We also have better data on which ads are affecting those decisions and how well they’re working. Overall, we’ve managed to reduce our cost per lead from $53 to $28, which is a significant improvement.

How did Effective Spend perform from a project management standpoint?

We met once a week during crucial periods and every other week during lighter months. They always came to the table with detailed reports based on our KPIs in addition to offering suggestions on where they thought we should go. They were also very accommodating when it came to digital communication and quickly transferred between email or Google Drive whenever we needed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were quick to get back to me with thorough answers to any questions I had or solutions to problems that came up. They also offered excellent reporting and delivered strong forecasts to our team. It always felt like they were looking out for our best interests.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and CFO of Fat Tire Tours. We’re a tour and activities provider, serving six cities across North America and Europe. We offer guided tours on foot, bike, and Segway around neighborhoods and major attractions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Effective Spend?

A big part of our marketing is through Google AdWords and SEM. When people search for tours in our cities, we want to be visible in the paid search area to attract prospective clients. Initially, we brought on Effective Spend as a partner to help us manage our paid advertising. We’ve since expanded their role to include SEO.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Over the years, they’ve managed our PPC campaigns for AdWords, through the Google Display Network as well as our other channels, including Yahoo and Bing Search. They also oversee our paid advertising through social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. They write the ads, publish them, and then manage the day-to-day bidding process.

From a strategic standpoint, they’ve helped us refine our customer segmentation, focusing on local campaigns for in-destination searches. We’re able to target people who are already at their destinations and suggest activities that they can do the next day. This allows us to improve the efficiency of our ad spend. Currently, we’re working with their SEO team to enhance our website and manage our blog in addition to maintaining our paid search campaign.

What is the team composition?

We primarily work with their senior campaign manager on a daily basis but also collaborate closely with the founder, the business development manager, and the media director who handles our account. Beyond that, they’ve assigned an SEO team to our account. 

How did you come to work with Effective Spend?

At the time, our previous marketing partner was shifting their focus from PPC advertising management to online gaming advertising. Before they terminated their services, they introduced us to Effective Spend. We met with them and noticed that they already had some clients in our industry. From that point on, they’ve proven themselves to be a great partner.

What is the status of this engagement?

Their work started in October 2016 and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Compared to our previous partners, they’ve substantially improved our return on ad spend (ROAS). We have a seasonal business, so all of our quarters look drastically different; there are new advertisers and our click volume changes week to week. This was a significant adjustment for them in the beginning, but, they’ve learned from their experiences and have adapted well. Year after year, they continue to get better despite the growing competition.

How did Effective Spend perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re clear communicators and always deliver on time. The senior campaign manager calls every week or so, and the media director also participates in those meetings. Additionally, when adding new services such as SEO, they take the time to establish the scope of work and set up milestones.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve worked with small firms that consist of a single lead and large ones where we felt like just another client. Compared to those, they’re just the right size for us. They have multiple creative minds working on our behalf, yet are small enough to make us feel important.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind. It took a bit of time for them to get used to our seasonal changes, but they’ve adapted well and have improved every year.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the former director of paid media and SEO for a sports media platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Effective Spend?

The platform conducts live-streaming of sporting events, mostly on the weekend, and we relied on search engine marketing to draw a viewership. With Effective Spend, we asked them to create advertisements for major search engines and optimize our return from those ads.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The sports platform would usually have 30–60 sporting events per weekend across 25 or so different sports. To watch most of them, viewers have to pay to sign up. If somebody were to search for a sporting event, we wanted our ad to be at the top of the page and direct them to a subscription page.

We asked Effective Spend to design ads, write ad copy, determine the best search words to bid on, and coordinate the optimization of those ads for each of those 30–60 sporting events each weekend. Those ads would be displayed on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and YouTube. We needed a scalable solution for those platforms, and Effective Spend provided us with that.

How did you come to work with Effective Spend?

My supervisor found them prior to my hiring. Effective Spend was brought on in March 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m told that prior to Effective Spend being hired, our business had hired another agency, and they underperformed. They didn’t get the results they were looking for.

We did some research and flipped to Effective Spend, and the results were immensely better. And during my entire time there, the results were very positive. We kept moving in the right direction.

How did Effective Spend perform from a project management standpoint?

Doing this project internally would have been nearly impossible. There is a ton of work and management involved, and they capably handled all of our concerns. We had to coordinate with them extensively throughout the week, and they did a great job of being organized. Most of our events were on weekends, and we sometimes needed last-minute changes on a Saturday, and they always met those requests.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I sometimes find most vendors to be of the cookie-cutter variety, and they boast about a skillset that isn’t well-defined, and they simply try to take your money. Effective Spend, however, were complete experts in their space. They truly understand paid media. They were very aware of the best practices and technology to make a successful project. They looked at what our business was and looked at our analytics, and they made decisions based off of that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They delivered everything we asked for.