Perfect Search Media

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a cocktail mix-manufacturing company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Perfect Search Media?

We needed help optimizing our SEO.

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, they did a full assessment of our systems and products. Then, they went through our website and the way that we arrive through our online presence. Once they got started, the team submitted monthly reviews with full metrics on performance increases and decreases. The team also provides backlinking, and they collaborate with our social marketing team to ensure our marketing is as effective as possible. 

What is the team composition?

We work with Erik (SEO & Content Analyst).

How did you come to work with Perfect Search Media?

I met their founder through a business owner’s mentorship group.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $25,000–$28,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2019, and our work is ongoing.

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

The team is super attentive. The team doesn’t try to sugarcoat missed opportunities, and they’re able to detail why certain numbers have gone up or down. We tailor our responses based on the metrics we need to optimize or change.

How did Perfect Search Media perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great at scheduling our monthly follow-ups on Zoom. Each meeting is comprehensive and detailed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

In the past, I’ve had to chase providers down to make sure that they’re doing what they promised. I don’t do this for a living, so I don’t know which questions to ask. Perfect Search Media uses metrics to show us what’s working and what’s not.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’re doing a great job.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to develop and build your relationship with your account manager. Make sure there’s a point person that you can always reach. When incidents occur, they’ll know the context and why you’re asking certain questions.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a corporate editor at a sustainability company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Perfect Search Media, and what were your goals?

Multiple, though I focus on working with them in terms of content creation, copywriting, and SEO. The overarching goals are to increase traffic and conversions.

How did you select Perfect Search Media and what were the deciding factors?

They were the agency in place before my arrival at the company.

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

Content creation for blog posts, resources, white papers... copywriting website pages to improve them, and SEO fixes across our website.

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

I work with 2-3 people on their team, but in all I believe our company works with 6-7.

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

In terms of content creation, they were quick to understand the style I was looking for and to produce pieces that (aside from some light editing) were essentially what I would have produced myself. I appreciate this, as it's what I asked for from them on day one.

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

Extremely proactive, and from memory they have never missed a deadline.

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

How proactive they are. They don't sit back trying to run out the clock each month. They're always working on something for us!

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

None that I can think of.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the content marketing coordinator for a government contractor that directly works with suppliers to connect our end-user customers with industry-leading products.

What challenge were you trying to address with Perfect Search Media?

There wasn’t a great overall knowledge of our company in its unique industry. We wanted to drive better awareness and traffic to our live events.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Perfect Search Media primarily manages our SEO and PPC efforts. They manage the entire SEO process all the way down to metadata optimization. Their team also creates biweekly keyword reports, optimizes on-page content, and works on link-building. They dove deep into our SEO initiatives to place us in front of the right people at the right time.

They also developed full PPC campaigns for several platforms that we hadn’t previously used including Google, Bing, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Their team set up all of the audience targeting for those campaigns too. We provided them with our brand book, so they also write all of the copy for our PPC ads.

What is the team composition?

We work with about 10 people from Perfect Search Media. They have different teams that work on all of the different deliverables. We also work with a project lead.

How did you come to work with Perfect Search Media?

Our director of marketing previously worked with Perfect Search Media. He had a great experience with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Perfect Search Media in October 2019, and our partnership’s ongoing.

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

We enjoy working with them. Their team created a full roadmap campaign from start to finish. We continue to add to that roadmap. We always have an ongoing project with them.

We're blown away by their performance. Their SEO efforts increased website traffic by at least 150%. We also brought in an additional 750 registrants to our last in-person event, which was earlier in the year. We typically had about two dozen people there, so that was big.

How did Perfect Search Media perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team laid out their plan from the beginning, which allows us to know what’s coming up. We have a biweekly call when they run through projects’ statuses. Their communication’s open unlike my experiences with other agencies.

They’re on top of all their projects, thinking about everything before we us. We’ve been impressed by their project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team always thinks five steps ahead. When we have a new challenge, they think through how to get the results that we want from start to finish. Their team has proven that that thought process makes a difference in the long-term.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have anything negative to say.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Know your company and its goals. Perfect Search Media’s great about coming up with solutions.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a director of a technology company that’s based in the sustainability and recycling industry.

What challenge were you trying to address with Perfect Search Media?

We’re an upstart company in our industry and had significant digital footprint challenges against the incumbents. We had a unique challenge in that our principal competitor has the best possible name in the market.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Perfect Search Media helps run digital marketing programs that include display ads, paid search, paid social, and other channels. Their team manages marketing campaigns that drive leads to our website for prospective customers to sign up.

The other piece of their work is all around SEO. They map out keywords and target audiences. Their team researches keywords for paid search campaigns and for seeding into our content to improve our organic search rankings. They also changed the way we use our blog content and changed our lead forms for when users visit our site.

What is the team composition?

We work with about 6–7 people from Perfect Search Media including a project manager.

How did you come to work with Perfect Search Media?

The relationship's inception was before my arrival at the company.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2018 and our work’s ongoing.

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

Their team’s incredibly dedicated. Perfect Search Media thinks deeply about our audiences and develops campaigns that reach those different audiences. Their team has helped us grow.

They go to great lengths to understand the nuances of our business, which is complicated in that we have four main audiences. Each audience is served by a different part of our business. It’s a complex landscape in terms of the peculiarities of each audience, the messaging for each audience, and the channels through which they’re consuming content.  

How did Perfect Search Media perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a weekly meeting when their team gives us updates on performance. They’re exceptional and consistent with their reports. Their team works with us closely.

One of their strengths is translating our nebulous requests into what we actually need. We can be vague with what we’re trying to accomplish because we’re not always sure how to get there. They do a great job of getting us from our initial ask to the end product.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I can’t overstate the importance of their effort in understanding their customers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Our team is small so there are lots of projects we’d like to do if we had the bandwidth and budget for them. They give great suggestions, but we often don’t have the internal ability to execute on those suggestions.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be as open as you can be with them about your goals. You never have to be concerned about their technical skills or ability to execute. But they can only be as successful as you enable them to be.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the program manager of membership and marketing strategies for a nonprofit professional association. Under the umbrella of my responsibilities falls PPC initiatives.

What challenge were you trying to address with Perfect Search Media?

We worked with another company but reached a point where we needed a fresh perspective. We wanted a company to dig into what we were already doing with fresh eyes to see where we could make tweaks to level up.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Perfect Search Media evaluated our keywords and overhauled all of our campaigns. They restructured our campaigns and keyword strategy. Their team also rebuilt how we reach our audience on different platforms. They reevaluated certain portions of our audience and looked into how our messages fit with particular audiences.

Perfect Search Media also looked into our paid social media efforts. They looked at how we used social to see where we could maximize our efforts. Their team also assessed if we needed to pull back on certain efforts.

What is the team composition?

On their side, we work with approximately four people regularly including a main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Perfect Search Media?

I used Clutch as a resource to find our new partner agency. The site broke down what companies brought to the table in a way that other resources didn’t. It really allowed us to zero in on companies that would address our concerns. For example, we’re an association, so our needs are dramatically different from other companies. Perfect Search Media had already worked with associations and nonprofits. That was a big motivator in our decision. It was also their heavy work in keyword issues. They were able to bring to the table what we were looking for.

What is the status of this engagement?

Perfect Search Media started working with us in January 2020 and our partnership’s ongoing.

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

We’ve seen a 12% increase in our year over year purchases and a 51% in our website year over year conversion rate. Our experience with them has been fantastic. They put a lot of effort into looking at our needs. Their team structured a campaign that was truly effective at getting what we were trying to achieve.

They took on a program that was created by someone else. Their team didn’t get to create it from the ground up even though they did rebuild some of our campaigns. They’ve been deferential to our expertise. Their team works with us on how to best approach our audiences.

How did Perfect Search Media perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via email and through bi-weekly check-ins that are typically held via Google Hangouts. Perfect Search Media was receptive to the format that worked best for us because we have a lot of people on these calls. We also tweak as we go and they’re good at incorporating our requests.

Their team’s been on top of their communication. We speak frequently and they’re responsive when I need a report. If I need anything under the sun, it happens efficiently. Their team’s also available to discuss particular findings.

With everything that’s happened with Covid-19, it’s impressive that their team’s been able to turn on a dime. I don’t feel that the attention paid to us has suffered at all. I don’t ever worry about being able to get in touch with someone from Perfect Search Media, which has been absolutely fantastic and necessary right now.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their collaborative style and accessibility set them apart. I don’t worry about whether or not I’ll receive a response the same day. We don’t find out that our main point of contact is out of the office through an automatic email. We know ahead of time and have a temporary primary contact.

Their clear and concise communication is my favorite part of working with them. They’ve adapted to challenges quickly and make sure that we’re with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have anything to provide.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Know what you want to achieve. Ask them about it directly. Ask them to provide you with examples of how they’ve worked with companies in the past. They were wonderful about providing real examples of how they worked with other companies. Their team will make sure that they can do what you want.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the digital strategist at TCS Education System. We operate a partnership between five nonprofit universities across the U.S. In my role, I handle our internal SEO and our digital strategy for capturing prospective students for our universities.

What challenge were you trying to address with Perfect Search?

At the time of this project, our team was small, so we needed to outsource some of our digital marketing needs. We were looking for an agency to provide digital strategy and SEO services to improve our website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Perfect Search advises us on what we should be focusing on from an SEO perspective. So far, they’ve optimized the text on various pages of our website, and they continue to conduct industry research, determining the topics we should include in our web content and blog posts and then writing them. The Perfect Search team has also done a bit of design work that involved creating mockups and landing pages for our sites.

What is the team composition?

Their team is composed of four people: Justin (Director of SEO & Content), Stephanie (SEO & Content Analyst), Kayla (Senior Manager, Copywriting and Content Strategy), and Anna (Senior Designer). Justin and Stephanie have worked closely with us in terms of writing blog and web content.

How did you come to work with Perfect Search?

By the time I came onboard, Perfect Search was already in place as one of our partners. A few other people in my office had worked with them previously and knew of the quality of their work. They were confident in the team’s ability to deliver, and chose them for that reason.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent between $25,000 –$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in 2016 and is ongoing.

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

The Perfect Search team’s insight has helped us increase our organic search rankings and attract a larger volume of high-quality prospective students. We’ve also been able to publish more blog posts and boost audience engagement.

One of our campuses, in particular, was struggling with their organic search rankings. Soon after implementing Perfect Search’s strategies, we experienced a drastic improvement in the rankings of multiple keywords.

How did Perfect Search perform from a project management standpoint?

The Perfect Search team has been very communicative, giving us the impression that we are a valued client. They are very organized and detailed in creating project roadmaps. They also provide high-quality reporting and analytics for each of our accounts.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I am impressed by their responsiveness and insight, which has allowed us to plan our SEO and content strategies very far in advance. Working with Perfect Search has made my job less stressful because they are able to catch things I may not typically see.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I am not sure that there is anything that they could change or improve right now. I have been very satisfied with our relationship so far.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of an online retailer that sells arts and crafts supplies directly to consumers in over 100 countries.

What challenge were you trying to address with Perfect Search Media?

We’ve worked with a number of digital marketing agencies but were unhappy with the results, so we reached out to Perfect Search Media.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired them to assist with our paid marketing deployment, specifically AdWords and Google Shopping campaigns. They optimized our existing strategies and helped us scale our spend in Google, Bing, and Facebook.

We were under a major recategorization effort, so they worked with us closely to restructure our campaigns. They provide frequent updates and take a hands-on approach to bid optimization, manually adjusting bids based on performance.

What is the team composition?

We have two account managers, one for PPC and one for SEO, though additional team members take part in our weekly phone calls.

How did you come to work with Perfect Search Media?

We’re both based in Chicago. I’ve known their management team for years, but we were always engaged with other agencies. Still, they stayed in touch and seemed to understand our goals. Unsatisfied with our previous agency, I decided to finally give Perfect Search a chance.

In my experience, most marketing agencies do a good job during the onboarding process. They introduce you to senior personnel, but then pass your project to a less experienced associate. Perfect Search assured me this wouldn’t be the case with their company, and knowing them for years, I knew they had an experienced team.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend around $10,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2017 and our relationship is ongoing.

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

We've seen improvements in cost per acquisition, return on investment, and sessions, including organic reach.

Digital marketing results are tough to measure and it’s difficult to scale the spend based on payback analysis. But Perfect Search’s team clearly puts in the effort and we’re comfortable with their output.

How did Perfect Search Media perform from a project management standpoint?

We generally communicate through phone and email and they're extremely responsive, typically getting back to me within the day. I’m consistently impressed by our weekly phone calls. They clearly articulate their strategies so I understand what steps are being taken.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re a results-driven business and Perfect Search continues to meet our expectations. We continue to work with them because they’re successful and give us the right amount of attention, which is all I can really ask for.

In the past, we continued to pass them over because their business wasn’t as flashy or attention-grabbing as their competitors. Ultimately, of course, those are hollow gimmicks, and I wish we’d worked with Perfect Search sooner.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO and founder of a coding academy, which teaches people to code so that they can find jobs in tech.

What challenge were you trying to address with Perfect Search Media?

As a young startup, we were looking to market our business and build our brand. We had worked with another provider prior to Perfect Search Media but we were not pleased with their performance.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We engaged Perfect Search Media for help with SEM [search engine marketing] and SEO [search engine optimization] for the site.

As a school which teaches people to code, we have a number of developers on staff; they guard our website closely, being very protective of it. In the beginning, when Perfect Search started to recommend changes to our metatags, descriptions, and all best practices associated with SEO, our team was initially reluctant to adopt them. However, after a series of calls and meetings between my tech team and the Perfect Search SEO team, we became comfortable with their approach and methods. They were able to understand the needs of our team and navigate them. This is no small feat, especially when it came to our developers and how protective they were of the site. It was ultimately a much-needed correction to the site, which helped drive the business.

The keyword management was a collaborative process. We know our business better than anyone else, and we will know what keywords our potential audience is searching for. Perfect Search Media brought their expertise with the different Google analytical tools and market understanding. In the past, I found that digital marketing companies rarely take the advice of the client on what the best keyword is, and I have been burned not only here but also during my roles at other companies, spending ridiculous amounts of money on keywords which were only tangentially relevant or not at all to the business at hand. Just because someone is searching for “JavaScript”, for example, doesn’t mean that they want to learn the language.

We can spend an inordinate amount of money generating leads from clicks which aren’t going to convert. The collaborative process between Perfect Search Media’s expertise and our own knowledge of the business allowed us to create a targeted keyword list which kept our CPL [cost per lead] and CPA [cost per acquisition] down.

How did you come to work with Perfect Search Media?

We found them through my third employee in the company. I was expressing displeasure with our current search program, and my employee mentioned a new company which was starting up, which she knew from a friend of a friend. I told her to get them in here. Ajay [CEO & Founder, Perfect Search Media] came to visit me personally at our offices in New York, we had a great conversation about his philosophy and approach to SEM and SEO, and I appreciated how he was able to communicate complex strategies in a very simplistic way.

Soon after that, I got to know the young engineers and digital marketing strategists working at Perfect Search Media. I was very impressed with the level of talent there and decided to hire them as a trial in order to have them help us build our business. Perfect Search Media quickly became one of our most valuable partners and took over our entire marketing strategy.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Perfect Search Media in June or July of 2014. I sold the business in January of 2016. The company that bought it had a preexisting relationship with another marketing firm. We stopped the collaboration with Perfect Search in August 2016.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Perfect Search Media was able to get us to the first page for all of our most relevant keywords in the targeted markets. They were able to drive a 25% decrease in CPL in a quick amount of time.

They were one of our key partners in growing the business from zero to the point of acquisition. I couldn’t have done it without Perfect Search Media, and to this day, I still recommend their company when anyone asks me for and SEM or SEO referral.

How did Perfect Search Media perform from a project management standpoint?

They have a good, young team which works its tail off. My team enjoyed working with Perfect Search Media. Ajay and I communicated over phone and text message. It always annoys me when people don’t give out their phone numbers and restrict communication to emails. I had his phone number from day one, and it was known that I could call him at any time of day, any day of the week if I had an issue. He would pick up, and also stop by when he was in New York. I sent text messages if I needed something done quickly. I appreciated having this open channel of communication, from CEO to CEO.

What did you find most impressive about Perfect Search Media?

They have very smart people working on things like SEO and keyword searches. The approach is more scientific than pure marketing. Perfect Search also has awesome customer service.

Are there any areas Perfect Search Media could improve?

No. It’s easy to be critical of a marketing agency, especially a digital one. I would have liked to have seen lower CPLs and CPAs, and overall higher rankings, but I would say this about any agency. You can never be 100% satisfied with a marketing agency, otherwise, you’re not doing your job as the CEO of a company. I was always pushing Perfect Search Media, and it was rare for me to tell them they were doing a great job. They always responded to the challenge.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Dylan’s Candy Bar is a specialty retail and e-commerce company. I’m president and COO.

What challenge were you trying to address with Perfect Search Media?

We wanted to expand our e-commerce business particularly as it pertains to paid search and AdWords. We had used another firm but they weren’t doing a good job.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did a thorough assessment of where we were, free of charge, and came back to us with suggestions of what needs to change to accelerate our performance and our e-commerce revenue. They’ve made recommendations of where we should be investing for branded versus non-branded products and more. They’ve also taken over our entire account on PPC [pay-per-click] and SEO [search engine optimization]. As part of the initial assessment, they also recommended that we make certain changes to our website including certain landing pages for parts of the business we were trying to grow.

How did you come to work with Perfect Search Media?

I met the founder of Perfect Search Media through a common contact. We found the team to be very collaborative and really current in what’s happening in e-commerce. We felt like they were really engaged in the business and wanted to help. That’s why we chose them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in October 2016, and the work is ongoing.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

They helped us identify all the gaps in the website as well as more effective ways to use our money. I asked them the amount of revenue they could project from paid advertising and SEO, and they did a good job of giving us logic behind their estimate. We do that over the year; we measure our total revenue growth both from an SEO and paid ads perspective. That’s definitely moving in the right direction.

We’re not focused as much on PPC; the focus now is to build a bigger pipeline so that we have a bigger full year. We have a seasonal business, so a lot of the work is on investments now. More than 50% of our business happens at the end of the year, so we need to make sure we’re set up for that.

How did Perfect Search Media perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very client service focused. We have weekly calls with them and they come very prepared to every conversation. They send the documents in advance and there’s always an agenda for the meetings. The team has been very approachable when we have questions or feedback. We communicate mostly by phone and email, and I have met them in person as well.

What did you find most impressive about Perfect Search Media?

They really invest in helping you meet your goals and it feels like they’re working as an extension of your own team. I have found that other firms are not as involved. Perfect Search Media provides a custom approach, is excited to work on our project, and is invested in our success.

Are there any areas Perfect Search Media could improve?

No.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Gage Diamonds, a jewelry store with an e-commerce platform. We sell engagement rings, wedding bands, and other jewelry.

What challenge were you trying to address with Perfect Search Media?

We hired Perfect Search to drive more traffic to our website and get a higher conversion rate. We wanted to build a marketing campaign using Google AdWords and specifically targeting our niche. We knew who our customers would be; we just didn't know how to get to them. We used another service before with little success.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our goal was to tap more into the engagement ring market. We went to Perfect Search to take what we started with the other service and make it better, or scrap it and start an entirely new campaign. The project started with a small budget and slowly grew as we started to see success. Perfect Search built a profile that gives us conversion and the sales we need while staying within the budget that we set.

Through collaboration and Perfect Search’s suggestions and test trials, we were able to get to a conversion rate that we needed for our business to be successful. The campaign included keywords, negative keywords, and different searches that would drive the right demographic to our website. Perfect Search also made recommendations on how to modify our landing pages and calls to action.

How did you come to work with Perfect Search Media?

R.J., the founder of Perfect Search, was referred to me from an investment banker I’d used for advisory services. He had seen them have some success with other companies he’d worked with. I didn't vet any other companies before hiring Perfect Search, and I thought we had good synergy after meeting with them. They gave me an out clause: if I was ever unhappy with their work, I could give them notice and cancel services. It was less risky than getting into a long-term contract.

​​​​​​How much have you invested with Perfect Search Media?

I would say we’ve spent about $36,000 with Perfect Search.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around May 2016, and our collaboration is ongoing.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We’ve been using Perfect Search for a year now, and we’re super happy with them. From a return standpoint, we’ve seen conversions on specific campaigns as high as 2%. In the jewelry and engagement ring space, that’s actually very good. We’ve steadily been getting 2- or 3-to-1 on sales vs. cost, so it’s been successful.

​​​​​​How did Perfect Search Media perform from a project management standpoint?

Perfect Search assigned a project manager to our account. We have biweekly conference calls to go over what’s working and what’s not working, then adjust as needed. They’ll beta test those campaigns on small budgets and if they’re successful, we continue and keep them and add to them. If they’re unsuccessful, we’ll scrap them. We’re continually testing out new products and marketing campaigns. We’re using ideas that we suggest and also ones they suggest. R.J., the founder, has visited the location just to follow up and see how we’re doing.

​​​​​​What did you find most impressive about Perfect Search Media?

They’re a boutique agency and a smaller operation, so you get fast responses and personal service whenever you call or email them. When you make suggestions, they act upon them relatively quickly.

Are there any areas Perfect Search Media could improve?

The only thing I can think of is that since they do such high-quality work now, they could expand their offerings to provide additional advertising services.