Exclusive Concepts, Inc.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Co-Owner of an online furniture retailer

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Exclusive Concepts, Inc., and what were your goals?

We've developed our own Google Ads scripting system for managing Google Shopping bids. As the pandemic wound down, we wondered if our system was performing as well as it could be. We hired EXCLUSIVE Concepts because they claimed they could maintain our ROI while scaling up spend and revenue.

SOLUTION

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

We often talk to new paid search companies, and had several conversations with Liam at EXCLUSIVE over the course of 18 months. His pitch was that our automated system was missing the benefits of manual review and bidding, so EXCLUSIVE could maintain our existing ROI while focusing on high performance products to increase revenue.

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

Our engagement began with an in-depth review of our Googlee Ads account by EXCLUSIVE. Their team came back with several recommendations/improvements they would make to enhance the account performance, enabling them to scale up spending without sacrificing efficiency. From there, we began the process of turning management of our account over to EXCLUSIVE, including submitting our shopping feed to them instead of directly to Google.

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

Once we got started, we primarily worked with an account rep, and a paid marketing coordinator.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We worked with EXCLUSIVE for one quarter. During that time our ad spend roughly doubled (NOT including EXCLUSIVE's fees), and our ROAS or ROI dropped by 40%.

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

Their team was very professional and timely, including monthly performance meetings.

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

Our account rep was very personable

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

Absolutely! Although their team was professional and kind, their performance in managing our Google Ads account was extremely poor. EXCLUSIVE's plan was to increase ad spend, maintain ROI and boost revenue. Instead they increased ad spend, decreased ROI substantially, while revenue increased only slightly. The net result of this was our first quarter ever (in more than a decade of business) of net negative return on ad spend, once you factor in their management fees. Furthermore, instead of building their own campaigns to manage, their re-worked our existing campaigns. That meant that, when we began to disconnect from them, we had to rebuild our campaign structures from the ground up (instead of pausing their campaigns and reactivating ours).