SEM Nexus

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of original programming for a tech company that acts as an incubator for developing apps.

What challenge were you trying to address with SEM Nexus?

We launched a new trivia app and we brought on SEM Nexus to market the app and grow its user base.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We came up with a digital marketing strategy to attract users. SEM Nexus is in charge of placing Google Ads, Apple Search Ads, Facebook Ads, and Snapchat Ads. We usually provide them with ad content, but they also created some ads for us. They also create content and run our social media accounts.

What is the team composition?

So far, I’ve worked with four people. One person manages social media, another manages ad accounts, and Michael (Founder & CEO) oversees everything.

How did you come to work with SEM Nexus?

Our developer worked with SEM Nexus before and recommended them. We interviewed Michael and he seemed to have a sound strategy, so we hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $80,000–$100,000 including ad spend.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in September 2020 and our partnership is ongoing.

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

I’m happy with their work so far. They’re very diligent in their execution and are always looking for ways to pivot if our strategies aren’t working.  

How did SEM Nexus perform from a project management standpoint?

They provide regular updates on user growth during our weekly Zoom call. Otherwise, they manage the project using Trello. So far, they’ve met nearly all of their deadlines unless something happened that was out of their control.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Michael is a really good leader and manages the team well. He’s very intelligent and knows what’s going on in the digital marketing space.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

There could be more diversify their social media campaigns by using different platforms.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Listen to their plan and stay on top of it. Communicate with them often about their progress and new strategies.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of dreamOway. It’s an app where people can post videos about their dreams, from wanting to be an artist, musician, dancer, social media influencer, and more. We connect them with a mentor to help them make it a reality.

What challenge were you trying to address with SEM Nexus?

Our app launched in 2018 and since then marketing has been a big challenge. It took us some time to realize that app marketing is totally different from online sales marketing. Social media marketing in particular was a challenge for us, and we needed some help.

What was the scope of their involvement?

SEM Nexus helped identify our target audience and which platforms to focus on with app marketing. Their team helped me recognize that my target audience is not on Facebook. I want to reach people who are between the ages of 15–25. Because of that, SEM Nexus has done our campaigns on TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram.

What is the team composition?

We work with Michael (CEO), Kasey (Digital Marketing Campaign Manager), Halle (Head of Social), and one other person.

How did you come to work with SEM Nexus?

I did a lot of research to find a company that was within my budget and had good experience. SEM Nexus was recommended by another company. When I first met them, I was hesitant that Michael and his team members were so young. However, after interviewing them, I was impressed by Michael’s confidence.

I really liked his approach and realized that although they are young, they know exactly how to execute marketing practices step by step. I decided we should engage in this journey together.

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve invested roughly $12,000 so far. I pay about $3,000 a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2020, and our engagement is ongoing.

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

We've seen a 10x increase in downloads. Before engaging with SEM Nexus, there were less than 100 downloads of my app. Right now, we have about 1,600 downloads. We’re quite pleased with these results. They know exactly how to deliver and execute.

How did SEM Nexus perform from a project management standpoint?

They communicate well, give weekly updates, and deliver on time. I’m very punctual and organized, so I make sure to remind them the day before a deadline is due. Michael always communicates with me whenever I need. He walks me through status updates on a weekly basis. Casey corresponds with me on a daily basis.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They know what they’re doing and execute in a timely manner. Additionally, they understand technology well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’d like things to move a little faster, but they have their own plan and way of working.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re a young team who understands new technology and how to reach the right audiences. What’s more, it's very easy to work with them. SEM Nexus is the best investment I’ve made so far to improve my marketing efforts.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a Mobile development agency that also builds and operates our own companies. I am Ivan, the CEO and Co-Founder

For what projects/services did your company hire SEM Nexus?

We worked early on with SEM Nexus on a delivery company to help with the launch and overall marketing strategy.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to launch locally in Detroit and then expand across the US using the guidance and feedback from SEM Nexus in order to expand strategically.

How did you select SEM Nexus?

They were recommended to us from a trusted partner that we have worked with for years.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Our platform is a gig economy platform and required us to onboard service providers then users. We asked them to digitally market for service providers initially. As they began onbaording service providers rapidly, they then took over the entire marketing strategy and expansion strategy as they grew our company.

What was the team composition?

We worked closely with Michael and several other of his employees throughout the project, and we continue to expand with his team in house.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

SEM Nexus continues to grow our company and advise on all of the marketing and expansion for the company. We basically gave them the keys and let them continue to run with the company. Our delivery company continues to grow rapidly thanks to the SEM Nexus team.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow has been great. We get weekly reports on the results, and several unscheduled calls when the team has new ideas on how to continue to move forward.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They have taken ownership of our platform and continue to help us build out the company, which we appreciate.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The only thing I would like to see is SEM Nexus grow faster as they have taken over several of our companies and continue to build them. We have a lot more on the plate for them as they expand with us.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of Jenny Life Inc. We provide life insurance nationwide.

What challenge were you trying to address with SEM Nexus?

We needed to establish digital marketing campaigns but didn’t have the resources or expertise internally. We also didn’t feel that our existing vendors had the necessary expertise to meet our needs. In particular, we needed help with app store marketing.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Since coming onboard, SEM Nexus has worked on multiple projects. Our team creates native mobile applications for services that help our life insurance customers. SEM Nexus helps us with ASO (app store optimization), which includes designing listings for our apps. Their team supports product launches and then markets them. In terms of technologies, their work touches on Apple search ads, Google Play, the Google Play App Store, and the Apple App Store.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with at least four people from SEM Nexus.

How did you come to work with SEM Nexus?

We talked with different companies in the marketplace to gather recommendations. Two different companies suggested SEM Nexus, so we reached out to them. They then took us on as a client.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $25,000–$50,000 on the project so far. Their price to value ratio is off the charts.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began the engagement in February 2020, and it’s ongoing.

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

SEM Nexus helped to increase our app store performance by several hundred percent. They also increased the overall quality of our listings. We have better optimization techniques too. We improved customers’ ability to find our apps, which was completely led by SEM Nexus. Their team does extremely high-quality work.

How did SEM Nexus perform from a project management standpoint?

We have weekly web conferences and communicate by email. Their team’s never late. They always meet our expectations. In fact, their team exceeds our expectations for communication and turnaround time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

SEM Nexus fit the culture of our business well. They have a great sense of humor. Their team’s not only professional and reliable but also fun. We all work long hours, so it's valuable to have positive interactions with vendors that make the days feel less long. All of our interactions with SEM Nexus are great.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, absolutely not. I don’t have any constructive feedback.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t think about it. Just do it. That’s what we were told by two other companies before we went into our relationship with them. They’re a great vendor, particularly for mobile and app store optimization projects.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president and CEO of a software consulting company. 

What challenge were you trying to address with SEM Nexus?

I engaged some of SEM Nexus’s team to provide marketing support for an app that I was released. Then, I engaged them again for a separate app for one of my clients.

What was the scope of their involvement?

SEM Nexus provided marketing and advertising services on the Google Play Store and App Store, as well as Facebook and Instagram ads. This included App Store Optimization (ASO), listing review, and writing and optimization for keywords.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Mike (Founder & CEO) and his team. 

How did you come to work with SEM Nexus?

About a year-and-a-half ago, I researched companies that were leading the digital advertising space, specifically for mobile apps. SEM Nexus continually came out on top, so I figured that a company that had great SEO for themselves could do something good for my digital products as well.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our work together began in March 2019, and it’s ongoing. Our work on that initial product was on and off, but now we’re working on another product that we just kicked off about two months ago.

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

Their most recent work is a very nice example of the quality of work that they do. We targeted app installs in the various app stores for around $3 for the App Store and $2 for the Google Play Store. We continuously exceed that mark by a significant margin; I think we’re sub $1 on both platforms right now. All of that is a testament to the work that they do, not just with keyword optimization and tuning the advertising algorithm so that we get the most out of our dollar, but also keeping us in the loop and engaged. 

The experience has been really positive. They make sure that they understand the theme and sentiment that we want to share through our app and use to attract people. They’re all very technical and are always iterating on the tools that they have for us to see the reporting, know what’s going on, and know where our money is going. All of that has been really beneficial to the relationship.

How did SEM Nexus perform from a project management standpoint?

They have very good communication. I have access to both Mike and another team member who leads all of the efforts on our project. We have weekly meetings for status updates. We’re always in communication; they’re really reachable and easily accessible. Whenever I reach out to them, they respond in a timely fashion. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The thing about advertising is that you can do it yourself through trial and error, but the expertise that SEM Nexus brings to the table from having done it so many times is invaluable. I can’t tell you how much money we would’ve thrown away had we tried to do it ourselves. Because they partnered with us and got us going on the right foot, we’ve seen significant ROI in the advertising space.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’d like to see some even more advanced tooling that streamlines the work that they’re doing for us across the various platforms. I think that’s a component of their offering that they can spend a little bit more of their time on. From an execution perspective, everything’s going great, and we do get all of the information that we need. It would just be cool to have one dashboard, instead of having to click to different places. If they could somehow aggregate that for us and really own all of the reporting instead of us having to tie things together, that would be really helpful.

Any advice for potential customers?

Anyone interested in working with SEM Nexus should be aware of what their goals are. SEM Nexus is very goals-driven; they love helping you figure things out, but when you go in with a plan as to what you’d like to see accomplished, that’s where they really shine. That’s how I found the relationship to work out the most. You don’t need to come with the ideas – you just need to come with the vision of what you’d like to see happen, and they can fill in the rest.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior marketing manager of a jewelry brand.

What challenge were you trying to address with SEM Nexus?

We own a very high search trademark, and we had some negative, false information articles that were out there. Our challenge was to get our relevant content to be on the first page and on a higher rank and to get the false information on the second.

We had worked with big firms before who had charged us a lot of money without producing results, so we needed a new partner.

What was the scope of their involvement?

SEM Nexus does SEO, and they’ve also developed a content strategy. They’ve written different blog content and have made structural changes to our website. The team also provided our developers with recommendations for the website.

What is the team composition?

Michael (Founder & CEO) is my main point of contact

How did you come to work with SEM Nexus?

Michael was recommended to us by someone who had worked with him.  

How much have you invested with them?

We spend about $3,000–$4,000 per month, which comes up to about $40,000–$50,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in 2018. We had to pause the work because of Coronavirus, but we plan to reengage with SEM Nexus.

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

We’re very happy with SEM Nexus’ work. Michael came up with a lot of good strategies and helped us achieve the goals we wanted to achieve. The team was able to take some of the false information articles off the first page, and their content strategy got us on the first page. 

The strategy also helped us and our retail partners. We’ve made a lot of good progress, and we’ve been able to clean up our Google search results. We’ve identified the next steps that we can focus on.

How did SEM Nexus perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve performed well. Michael was willing to come into our office as needed. He was also easy to work with and easy to get a hold of. SEM Nexus also used Google tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are a team of unorthodox thinkers, and they came up with non-traditional strategies to achieve our goals. SEM Nexus is an entrepreneurial company that doesn’t just follow the playbook.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I have no suggestions.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and co-owner of a software company.

What challenge were you trying to address with SEM Nexus?

As we approached our initial product launch, I contacted SEM Nexus to handle all of our marketing responsibilities related to that event. The primary goal was to drive downloads for the sake of gathering analytics. The secondary goal was to target certain market segments.

What was the scope of their involvement?

SEM Nexus manages our marketing efforts end-to-end. Their team initially performed research into keywords to understand which words were important in our market space. They wrote the description of our platform for the App Store.

Their team works to drive downloads and then analyzes the app’s performance and user activity. Rather than driving downloads from random people, they direct their efforts towards people who are interested in our product.

What is the team composition?

I have one point of contact, but two people work on the project.

How did you come to work with SEM Nexus?

I found them through a Google search for the best iOS app marketing firms. I initially contacted SEM Nexus to gather insight. We discussed what our team should think about and the most effective analytics to gather. I described what I needed, and they took the project from there.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $5,000–$10,000 in this collaboration so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started talking in May 2019, and their work’s ongoing.

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

Anecdotally, they nailed it. It’s helpful to have a company that solves the problems I asked them to solve as well as those that I hadn't considered. SEM Nexus looks at a project from all ends.

The conversion rate for our platform’s very high, so we experience a notable number of downloads. That’s partially attributed to how we’ve marketed the project, but also how well their team targeted our market segment.

They’re also a much-needed interpreter of our analytics. While I look at the product from an engineer’s perspective, I can’t look at it from a marketer’s point of view.

How did SEM Nexus perform from a project management standpoint?

After our initial phone call, we’ve communicated by e-mail. We use Firebase to review the analytics together. They’re thorough and detailed.

Their team responds right away. Usually, they wait for my response rather than the reverse. Our communication’s great.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their end-to-end services set them apart from the competition. There are companies that push downloads in a set amount of time and have a team that handles the legwork. For us, we don’t even know what we don’t know. It’s incredibly helpful to have a partner that thinks about all ends of the marketing spectrum. I don’t have to worry about our marketing efforts because SEM Nexus handles them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind right off the bat.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Since this is a full-service company, I would have come into the initial conversations with more questions related to projects further down the line. There are many initiatives that we’re discussing now that I wish I’d thought about a few months earlier.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of the Nautical Eye mobile app.

What challenge were you trying to address with SEM Nexus?

I needed to advertise and market my mobile app.

What was the scope of their involvement?

SEM Nexus conducted research, which included keyword research. Their team also optimized our website including landing pages and materials. They also adapted our mobile app to rank higher in app stores.

Their team helped strategize around our advertising campaigns. They consulted on our social media efforts, helping us with messaging and setting us up. Now, they run our campaigns including our Google, Apple, and Facebook marketing initiatives.

What is the team composition?

We work with about three people from SEM Nexus. They’re a small company, so I’ve worked with the CEO and two other marketing experts.

How did you come to work with SEM Nexus?

I went to Clutch actually. I went to recommended companies' websites and held phone interviews. I was told that I didn’t have enough money and one company gave me SEM Nexus’s number.

When we met, they laid out a strategy. I felt that their team could cover my business’s marketing needs. That’s how I found them, and I’m so happy that I did.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $10,000–$30,000 on their services. They don’t charge extreme amounts of money, so it’s great.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in December 2019, and it’s ongoing.

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

They’re great with SEO strategy. We went from zero traction to a well-represented and growing app. When we type our name into Google, we’re actually recognized. On the App Store, we went from not rated to rated 71st the other day. To me, that’s amazing.

How did SEM Nexus perform from a project management standpoint?

We use a Slack channel where I post questions to their team. Our communication’s good. Their team provides weekly reports. If I need support, I request it and then they provide it.

They’re responsive. If there’s a problem, they let me know and we address it. Their team goes above and beyond.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their work has made us more successful. They’ve done a great job with their SEO efforts.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have anything for them to improve. If I have a need, their team tells me whether or not they can meet it. I’ve been very happy.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

For me, one of the hardest tasks was discovering them. The fact that SEM Nexus came on board with a plan comforted me. Mobile app advertising is dynamic, so I felt fortunate to find them.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CEO of 185 GN, LLC. We’re a real estate acquisitions and shared coworking space company.

For what projects/services did your company hire SEMnexus?

We engaged SEMnexus to help develop our website and IT.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to establish an online presence.

How did you select this vendor?

We found SEMnexus online.

Describe the project in detail.

SEMnexus is helping us create a website that allows visitors to contact us about leasing real estate and coworking spaces. The project remains ongoing as we’re still choosing a domain name.

What was the team composition?

Michael (Founder & CEO, SEMnexus) serves as our point of contact. We’ve spoken to a few other team members over the phone.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The project is still underway, but we’re satisfied with SEMnexus’ work so far. We’re considering their team for digital marketing services in the future.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The team keeps in frequent touch with us and excels at collaboration.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

SEMnexus is highly accessible whenever we need to get in touch with them.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The project is taking longer than expected, but we’re otherwise happy with the collaboration.

Please describe your company and your position there.

My company specializes in commercial leasing for retail, office, and restaurant spaces in the New York City area. We have a focus on dual representation of both the landlord and the tenant.  

As the leasing director, I manage all the leasing agents in our company and handle the logistics of day-to-day operations within the team.

For what projects/services did your company hire SEMnexus?

We hired SEMnexus to provide digital marketing for our website.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to improve traffic to our website.

How did you select this vendor?

We were referred to SEMnexus by a colleague.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

SEMnexus set up a Google Ads campaign for our target keywords. They build out a strategy to improve our SEO.

What was the team composition?

We worked with the founder of SEMnexus directly.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We had great success with SEMnexus.  The Google Ads campaign they ran brought a lot of traffic to our website.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The team from SEMnexus was always just an email away. They got back to us within 24 hours every time.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

SEMnexus was very quick to respond to any of our questions. They provided highly knowledgeable answers that produced results.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Their reporting could have been more transparent.