FortyFour

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I worked in e-commerce at an accessory company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with FortyFour?

We used them for digital marketing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I worked with them on managing the content of the ads, targeting them, and budget analysis. Our scope was to position our company on Facebook and Google to have a decent return on ad spend (ROAS), especially when it relates to last-click ROAS.

There was some graphic design as well, and we worked with them on Black Friday preparations and holiday sales.

What is the team composition?

I worked with three people, including one of the founders and a resource who worked with the nuts and bolts on the ad targeting and reporting side — I talked to them on almost a daily basis. The latter person was the main reason FortyFour performed well, in my eyes.

How did you come to work with FortyFour?

FortyFour was already on board when I started with the company. The founder of FortyFour used to work at our company, and that knowledge of the brand proved very helpful. He and their team knew our industry very well.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $100,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June 2018 until April 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I was mostly looking at ROAS, time on site, and bounce rate, and they were all at the industry average. I was particularly pleased with their Facebook work. Social media sometimes lags behind, but FortyFour really knew how to target on Facebook during our busy season.

How did FortyFour perform from a project management standpoint?

They were really good. I believe they used Basecamp, and we had a board that they updated frequently. They were very responsive. While they were a bit slower on the graphic design side, they were pretty much on time. We got great insight into the project on Basecamp.

What did you find most impressive about them?

On the targeting side, their attention to detail stood out. They picked up on the subtleties of things we’d say in meetings, doing their own research without us directing them. They came to us with very succinct suggestions.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had to do some technical work on a few pages while we were still on Magento, and sometimes the scope of the project didn’t make sense compared to the hours they reported. It wasn’t always clear how many hours something was going to take. For example, if we knew a task would take 15 hours, we wouldn’t have necessarily assigned it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be as detailed in the bi-weekly meetings about upcoming dates and why they’re important for your brand. Make sure it’s very clear that they need to allocate the budget around those certain dates.