Granular

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief product officer of Saeidan. We have a Medicare education and plan finder application called Ask Claire, which helps people make better-informed decisions about their Medicare options.

What challenge were you trying to address with Granular?

We target a fairly specific audience: people who are in Medicare or shopping for Medicare. That demographic has some very clear patterns in terms of social media usage. For example, a lot of them are on Facebook. We’d been on Facebook for about a year and had seen a lot of traffic being generated, but not a lot of conversions in terms of actions we’d been hoping to see, such as finishing our plan finder. We’d also added Google Search around the beginning of Q3 2020, when the big annual enrollment period for Medicare started.

We wanted to find someone who could help us determine whether we were taking the right approach to advertising based on a number of factors, such as where we were advertising and whether our keywords worked. We also needed to find out whether we were thinking of our funnel in the right way. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Granular supports our PPC efforts top to bottom. They help with our strategy and how we allocate our spend. We have a design partner who we’ve worked with for years, and they create the aesthetic of the ads. Granular helps create the ad copy and then places the ads.

They’ve helped us determine whether we’re investing wisely in our PPC efforts. Since working with Granular, we’ve moved into YouTube, Bing, and Google Display. 

What is the team composition?

We work with Justin (VP of Digital Media) and Dee (Paid Media Manager). Justin oversees strategy and directs the team, while Dee acts as our day-to-day contact. We also spoke to Steve (President) about our challenge early on.

How did you come to work with Granular?

My company had worked with other agencies on this work, but a lot of those folks had been focused on the retail shopping experience as opposed to service. We’re not selling anything — rather, we’re providing a service. Our information is free, and we’d like people to learn as much as they can about Medicare. Our goal is to help them find a plan that’s going to work for them.

How much have you invested with them?

I believe my company spends $3,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Granular in November 2020, and it’s ongoing. We have a monthly retainer with them.

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

We’re definitely seeing higher traffic, which is probably the most meaningful goal. We’ve seen a much higher amount of conversion through Bing than we would’ve anticipated, which has led us to rethink our budgeting.

Most importantly for us, Granular has helped us get Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager set up correctly. That allows us to better track what we want to in terms of our various goals and conversions. Our single-page application (SPA) site makes tracking less straightforward than it could be. However, Justin jumped in and strategized about how to get the analytics set up so that we’d know what triggers are happening, such as someone completing our plan finder. They’ve not only helped us get that set up and organized but also made us feel confident that we did so correctly, especially in the context of our SPA site.

How did Granular perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great. Granular is super responsive — when we send an email, they respond very quickly. They also keep us up to date on what’s happening in the PPC world, such as analytic changes to expect with iOS 14’s rollout. The team lets us know why these changes are important to us and what we should be thinking about now and moving forward. It’s been outstanding.

We have meetings every other week, and they don’t hesitate to get in contact with us between those meetings if necessary.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Granular’s team is comprised of specialists. Their focus is on PPC, and that’s where their expertise is. It’s refreshing to talk to an agency that’s not trying to sell you services that they don’t specialize in — rather, they know what they do, and they do what they know very well. That makes you feel much more confident. I don’t get the sense that they’re trying to overstate. For instance, in the context of the SPA, they’ve let us know that this isn’t an area they normally work in, but they are committed to understanding it and finding the right answers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s too early to tell in terms of metrics. However, I assume that what they’re telling us is working because we’ve already seen positive direction. In terms of the working relationship, they’ve been great. They’ve been timely and really clear. They take the time to explain things, which is extremely helpful. Coming from a health policy background, more information is always better, so working with someone who takes the time to work through things is great. They don’t just tell us what to do but also explain why, which has been great.

Any advice for potential customers?

Know that their focus is on PPC. If you’re looking for a partner that knows PPC very deeply, I couldn’t recommend Granular more highly.