Thrive Internet Marketing Agency

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a charter boat company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Thrive Internet Marketing Agency, and what were your goals?

We hired Thrive to help with SEO and PPC. We wanted to increase or SERP while maintaining all of her current top ten key words. Additionally, we wanted our PPC campaigns to earn a minimum of 50% ROI.

SOLUTION

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

We interviewed 4 companies that were ranked in the top 10 at the time for SEO and PPC. Thrive's proposal and strategy seemed to be the best. Even though the costs were at the higher end.

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

In the beginning they requested all of the key words that we determined that were important, some what important and lease important. Our website was optimized and there were Google Ad campaigns built. After 6 months, Thrive determined that they couldn't fully optimize my website. I tried to integrated my booking service provider and Thrive to build a website that would work for both agencies. All seemed well, until Thrive stated that Google Algorithms were affecting my SERP, while my competitors SERP remained consistent.

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

They had an account manager, an SEO specialist and a PPC specialist I worked with regularly.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• We’ve lost all of our top 10 key words that we deemed important and did not want to lose.
• Zero (0) top ten priority key words were gained.
• Our visibility score has dropped more than 50% from its peak.
• After of year with Thrive our SEO performance was significantly worse that when we started.
• Of the six months of PPC services only two months did we reach our targeted ROI of 50%.

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

Monthly meetings were held, but the SEO manager microphone rarely worked. It was consistently the same story monthly, Google algorithm is preventing growth, the new website was consistently blamed, but the only solution was give it time. Six months after the launch of the new website, we should have seen an upward trend, but we continued to freefall. I struggled every month to get access to blogs for review.

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

I found that the reviews don't support reality.

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

Lots of bait and switch. Never once did they take accountability for their poor performance.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of a tree services company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Thrive Internet Marketing Agency?

Our company’s SEO results were tanking, and we were looking to hire an agency to turn that around. Our company needed someone to change things quickly, so we hired Thrive for SEO and PPC services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were supposed to perform SEO and PPC services. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with Claire (Account Manager), Steven (SEO Specialist), Matt (President & Founder), Gavin (PPC Strategist), and another sales representative. There were also a few other people that were in the initial meeting. 

How did you come to work with Thrive Internet Marketing Agency?

We did due diligence and looked at a lot of companies. After talking to the sales representative at Thrive, we were comfortable with how their pricing and hours were set up. We also decided to move forward with them because they told us they could front-load all of the work and put in more hours upfront to rework our website and internal linking structure. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $24,500.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them between February–August 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did your relationship with the vendor evolve?

Our first Zoom call had between 6–8 people, which was worrisome on our end because of the pricing structure. We believed we were paying for all of their time and knew we would never see half of them again, but we decided to move forward because we wanted to solve our problems. We had a few calls with Claire and Steven and started to get a bad feeling about the engagement.

We asked a few questions about what was happening on their end, and they seemed not to have any accurate information, which was another sign that something was wrong. We had monthly meetings with Steven and Claire, and every single month, it seemed like no progress was made even though they were telling us that things were being done.

By roughly the fourth month, we only had one blog post, and we had spent around $20,000 at that point. We offered to buy more time and raise the price, and they said that wasn’t what they needed from us. Our business is very seasonal, and the employees at Thrive were trying to convince us that an uptick in business during our traditionally busier months was from their work, which we knew wasn’t right. There was no difference in business from year to year, just from month to month, because it was the season that people needed us.

Because of the confusion of deliverables for blog posts, we emailed Matt, who’s  assistant called us and offered us 50% off for a month.  We accepted it but still header extremely uneasy feeling.

Thrive wouldn’t listen to our input and what we were trying to tell them. They also made promises listing our company in full on Yext, which they never did. We had to spend money to restart our Yext account when that should have been included in their services, because they said they were doing it.

When we finally went to them and asked for hard metrics and how many links they had garnered for the money we’d spent, they sent us a spreadsheet which perhaps inadvertently contained the “first seen” column indicating that roughly  95% of the +/- 225 links had been established before we signed up to work with Thrive.  In other words they were trying to take credit for links that were in existence before we started working with them.

Our prior concerns over 5 months were finally confirmed, and we felt so disheartened about the lost time and revenue.  We emailed the CEO Matt at that point, and asked for some money back, and they flat out refused.

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

We were told that at least seven blog posts were being worked on, but we only saw three after five months of working together. The whole experience was so entirely unpleasant that we can’t come up with a single good thing about working with them. It feels like we’ve been stolen from.

We would have been willing to pay twice the amount we paid if they had just given us anything that signified the engagement was working. We expected honesty and technical competency out of the engagement, and we feel like we didn’t get that.

The amount of time lost has been huge and likely cost our company well over $500,000.

How was project management handled?

We communicated via Zoom, phone calls, and Google Meet.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

If you care about the success of your business, don’t hand its online marketing to Thrive. We wouldn’t ever recommend them.

Company Responses

The service provider responded on February 27, 2023.

We apologize that you aren’t completely satisfied with our services and we appreciate your feedback. In late September, we did a thorough review of your account and found that we had executed our strategy as planned and helped improve your site load time, core web vitals and keyword rankings for high-value, non-branded terms related to your industry. We then sent you a 1,400+ word email on Oct. 4 outlining – in detail – all the work we did on your account. In the email, we included four comprehensive reports that outlined our work/time spent on link building, keyword rankings, SEO and Yext. The comprehensive email listed everything we did between May and August and included a combined 56 bullet points that clearly showed we had a plan in place and were executing it. We told you on a call that based on our findings, we would not issue any refund and we stood by our work. We also encouraged you to review the email and reports we sent you and pushed you to set up another call with us to go over it. SEO is a long-term investment. Unfortunately, work today doesn’t always mean results tomorrow. If you have any more questions or concerns, we would be more than happy to discuss your situation further. Feel free to call me at 817-642-9686. – Josh Gazelka, Thrive Director of Account Management

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am an executive of a wildlife removal company in northeast florida. We specialize in humane capture and relocation of nuisance wildlife.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Thrive Internet Marketing Agency, and what were your goals?

We were looking for a company to sssig with SEO and improve our organic web rankings

SOLUTION

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

We found 2 of the best reviewed SEO/marketing companies on Google and set up meetings with both, but after talking with Thrive and seeing their proposal we decided they would be the best to help us with our goals.

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

We began with a discovery phase where we discussed goals. They did a competitor analysis and did a current keyword and ranking analysis and set a meeting to discuss all of their findings and recommendations on what we need to focus on and the timeline of working on these items needing improvement. They also got us set up with a PPC campaign. And they are now working on action items for improving SEO and provide a monthly report.

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

They assigned a project manager and we have 2 SEO specialists.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

When comparing the first 15 days of the month of July to the first 15 days period of the previous month for the same time period we have seen a 5% increase in overall traffic. The “home” page has seen a 26% increase in sessions. While the “snake removal and trapping” page has seen a 160% increase in sessions for the same time period. Locally we have seen a 10,88% increase in Google my business map views and a 10,34% increase in website actions M-o-M

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

We use mostly e-mail to communicate and always quick to respond and take care of any questions/deliverables. But he’s always willing to set up a phone call as well to discuss anything I need more clarification on.

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

I am very impressed with their level of professionalism, quick response time, and genuine willingness to help and want to see us succeed.

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

I cannot think of anything at this time.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner and head coach of a continuing education school for actors. The school has been opened for 21 years.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Thrive Internet Marketing Agency, and what were your goals?

I hired Thrive in 2018 to help with my digital marketing.

SOLUTION

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

I selected Thrive because when I did an online search for "online marketing," they had a number one ranking on Google and great reviews.

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

The focus has been on SEO optimization. The strategies recommended by Thrive include back linking, blogging, uploading of photos and videos and doing all that it takes to keep up with Google's constantly changing metrics and algorithms.

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

I have always had at least one person that I worked with closely and sometime two.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In short, inside of three years, Thrive doubled the gross income of my studio.

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

Everyone I have worked with has been extremely responsive to my needs. I get monthly and mid-month reports and have a virtual meeting with my project manager every two weeks. They are also very kind and knowledgeable.

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

We're impressed with their level of professionalism, and knowledge about what we do, what we need, and how to best serve us. They make everything very easy.

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

I can't think of anything.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CMO-Officer in charge of planning, development, execution and customer experience for Slingshot Companies. Slingshot specializes in Legal Services with focus on business cultivation for the legal industry by way of digital marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Thrive Internet Marketing Agency, and what were your goals?

Create visibility online in a space in which our main competition has deep pockets and venture capital at their disposal.

SOLUTION

How did you select Thrive Internet Marketing Agency and what were the deciding factors?

After literally wasting time and money for years with local firms, I set about searching outside of our state. I selected Thrive based on compatibility with our business, online reviews and after talking with Ashton D. - Thrive's Senior Marketing Consultant

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

Thrive is in charge of our SEO (Greg) and our Ad Words (Igor), They came up with a plan, managed our expectations, provided detailed reporting and measurable results

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

Greg (SEO) , Igor (Ad Words), Ashton (Initial point of contact/Consulting) Joe (Team Lead)

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our revenue has increased. Our website has a much better conversion ratio. Our Ad spend is better utilized. We have been able to gain traction in desired markets.

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

First and foremost they listen. They fully understand our business and where we want to go. They provide us with detailed reports and work logs. I have no questions as to what they are doing or charging me for. The entire team is literally a phone call or email away. They are very responsive in a timely manner.

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

The measurable results, accountability and superior customer service

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

not right now

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief of operations for a nonprofit organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Thrive Internet Marketing Agency?

We wanted to create an online presence and do some rebranding.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Thrive Internet Marketing Agency set up our website and tweaked it. They also trained our staff in managing standard changes. It’s built on WordPress. 

They provided constructive criticism regarding the image and message we portrayed, how it was perceived, and its consistency. They also did some rebranding, helping us get our name known more internationally. 

What is the team composition?

Peter (Web Support Manager) is my main point of contact while Cody (Finance Manager) is our go-to person on the business side. We have interacted with several people throughout our engagement.

How did you come to work with Thrive Internet Marketing Agency?

We had offices in the same building.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent $50,000–$199,999.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around January 2008, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was quite helpful for us to get feedback and advice on our presentation and perception. Our director is satisfied with the feedback she’s received from donors and partners, and we are quite happy with the quality of their work. 

How did Thrive Internet Marketing Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

Their organizational skills, including planning, communication, transparency, and deliverables, are impressive. It is easy to see who is responsible for which tasks and to track progress. We have used some project management tools throughout our engagement. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Thrive Internet Marketing Agency is attentive to our needs as a client and seems to genuinely care about our business. They’re all quite positive from the top down. We appreciate the way they give back, not only to their community but also to those in need internationally. They have contributed to one of our projects overseas.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing I can think of is some technical problems during a recent phone call. The lady I was speaking to had her phone cutting out repeatedly, making it difficult to communicate and understand her.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be direct with them, and listen to their advice.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My organization, Jones Jones LLC, is a law firm, and I am the executive partner who is responsible for overseeing and managing the entire law firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Thrive Internet Marketing Agency?

I wanted to find an all in one internet marketing company to refresh a couple of things for us. We wanted to refresh our website and roll out marketing for the first time. Prior to this, we had never done any kind of social media marketing. We are a defense firm, so our potential client base is companies and organizations. 

I thought there was a good opportunity to start marketing and get the word out there about the services that we provide. I knew that if we picked the right channels with the right people, and the right followers, we would be able to reach people and notify them of our service but also keep our brand in the back of their mind.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Thrive Internet Marketing Agency does marketing on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. They also did some SEO work, getting our firm higher up in Google searches when people are looking for the type of law that we do. 

They had suggested PPC, but I wanted to launch some of the more organic social media marketing first. They also designed and built a new website on WordPress. It’s a social media marketing platform with a newsletter powered by MailChimp.

Amy (Web Project Manager) helped me with the design of the website and her other colleagues did a lot of the programming

What is the team composition?

First, I worked with Craig (Marketing Consultant), who onboarded me. I then worked with Amy and Allison (Account Manager). Kayla (Social Media Strategist) also helped with SEO.

How did you come to work with Thrive Internet Marketing Agency?

I think I did a Google search and read Google reviews. Thrive Internet Marketing Agency was really well-reviewed, and I interviewed them. One of the reasons I decided to go with them was because I really hit it off with Craig.

I also chose to go with them as opposed to other organizations that market themselves as law firm marketing places because I felt that Thrive Internet Marketing Agency really tried to get to know my business. 

With the law firm specific marketing companies, I felt like I was maybe going to get a cookie-cutter version. I didn’t think they cared as much about learning about what I did and what our organization did. 

How much have you invested in them?

The website was in the $15,000–$20,000 range. For all of the other services, we spent about $4,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

I partnered with Thrive Internet Marketing Agency about a year and a half ago, around May 2019, and my website launched maybe two to three months ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We actually got one client that saw a social media post we had and realized that we provided a service that they didn’t think we provided, so that was an additional line of business for our company. 

It hasn’t been very profitable yet, which speaks to the underlying issue that we do a couple of different types of law, and I thought it was so obvious to anyone that worked with us that we do multiple types of law, but apparently to our clients, it wasn’t communicated as well as it could have been.

One of our other clients saw a post on LinkedIn that we did this type of work and wanted to use us. That is how I envisioned one of the metrics for social media. That has happened on two separate occasions, so I consider that to be a great success. The website was impressive. 

How did Thrive Internet Marketing Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

Overall, I would recommend them to pretty much anyone that is looking for what I was looking for. The communication was really great. They used some project management tools. For example, I had a login, and I could see reports and metrics and how things were progressing.

I didn’t really leverage it that much, but I could’ve if I wanted to. It was available but I didn’t really use it so it’s hard for me to evaluate that. 

As the site was being designed and as the content was being created and copywriting was going on, we saw the site in a piecemeal format, and I was looking at it in this piecemeal format. When it all came together, I looked at it and it wasn’t what I wanted. 

It wasn’t because they didn’t deliver what I wanted, it’s just that I wasn’t communicative enough about what it was supposed to look like visually. When we saw a draft of what it looked like visually, I felt it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. 

I called up Craig and explained everything to him. I was pretty nervous when I did that because I was basically eliminating the month of work that had been done up to that point. I spoke with Craig and Amy and outlined every issue I had.

They said they knew exactly what I was looking for and they completely redesigned the site from the ground up visually so that it was consistent with what I was looking for. They built a website that I felt really proud of and didn’t even charge me a penny more. That was something I didn’t think most companies would’ve done

What did you find most impressive about them?

Thrive Internet Marketing Agency really wanted to get to know my business. I didn’t want the website to be a law firm website, and they understood that better than the other marketing companies that create law firm websites.

I completely derailed the program, but the team was so focused on my satisfaction that they basically recreated the website. They took customer satisfaction very seriously. They were willing to allocate more resources to making sure that it was executed. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

When we were going back with the copywriting of the website, being a law firm, it was really important that every single word was deliberately chosen because people might go to our website for legal advice. 

In the multiple rounds of content that I provided, some parts were updated on the site and some parts had older content. I am not sure if it was because there were too many revisions going back and forth, which resulted in some mistakes. 

Every time they got a new turn of content, they would almost start from scratch in putting in the information and not try to see what was different and only changing the things that were different.

Additionally, in making sure that headers and footers were consistent on pages, there were a couple of issues. It’s about attention to detail, but they fixed it immediately after I brought it to their attention.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the operations coordinator for AvodahMed, which is an AI technology company that deals with language translation and telehealth services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Thrive Internet Marketing Agency?

We hired Thrive to create a website for our telehealth services market.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Thrive built a completely new website on WordPress. Their team also designed the platform. We also used their writing services. They wrote a script for an animated video that we created for the website.

What is the team composition?

I initially spoke with a salesperson and then worked with Melanie (Web Project Manager) who was our project manager. I also spoke with two other people.

How did you come to work with Thrive Internet Marketing Agency?

I googled web design companies and looked through reviews. I then sent out RFPs to multiple companies. After I received proposals, I spoke with a few different agencies and then narrowed our options to Thrive.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent roughly $15,000 on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our collaboration started in March and then the website launched in November 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We measured the success of our collaboration by their ability to deliver in a timely manner. We also ensured that the website was up to the standards of the technology and medical industries. We’re very satisfied with the quality of their design and development services.

How did Thrive Internet Marketing Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team did a great job communicating and meeting deadlines. There was a time difference between our project manager, located in South Africa, and us. However, she was efficient and ensured the collaboration was smooth. Their team quickly delivered results.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was most impressed by their response time and how personable their team was. Their salesperson and their project manager were kind, helpful, and accommodating.

Are there any areas they could improve?

After we finished the project, we discussed a plug-in that helped the website become ADA compliant. It would’ve been helpful if we had that discussion at the beginning of the project. However, that’s a new service for them.

We also asked them to help with an integration between WordPress and HubSpot, which we use as a CRM. Unfortunately, they didn’t have anyone on their development team who was familiar with the HubSpot plug-in.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My recommendation would be to utilize their writers for website content. I would also recommend them as a web agency because they did a fantastic job.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of CP Networks. We build and manage computer networks for small and medium businesses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Thrive Internet Marketing Agency?

We weren’t happy with our website. I wanted to find somebody who was a professional at building websites.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had an existing website before we started working with Thrive, but once we brought them on board, we trashed it. The team built the new one completely from scratch, implementing new content as well. The goal was to talk about and advertise our services. They built it on WordPress and optimized it for SEO. 

Currently, we’re getting started with SEO and PPC.

What is the team composition?

We’ve probably worked talked to eight or 10 different people. We mainly worked with Charissa (Web Project Manager).

How did you come to work with Thrive Internet Marketing Agency?

I’ve known of Thrive for a few years. We’ve actually done a little bit of work for them as clients. I knew of them and liked their website, so I went straight to them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started talking in May of 2020, and began development in around September. The website was launched in November, and we’re currently working on SEO and PPC.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The new site looks great. Thrive did a good job of making it look really professional. The new content is a major improvement. 

We just launched the site, so I don’t have any metrics, but we’re really happy with how it turned out and had a great experience working with them. We got exactly what we wanted.

How did Thrive Internet Marketing Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

I really enjoyed working with Charissa. She made the whole experience flow really easily, and had lots of good advice and good ideas. The communication was really amazing, and they did a great job of keeping us on task with deadlines. We mostly kept in touch over emails, but we had Zoom meetings once or twice a week.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most impressive aspect of the project was working with Charissa. Her attitude and her communication were stellar; it made the whole experience. I expected to have a good website at the end, but working with her made it fun.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As far as the website build, everything went well. I can’t think of any areas for improvement. We’ve just started with PPC and SEO, so it’s hard to say, but it feels like maybe the communication hasn’t been quite what I got from the web build.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you need a website, I highly recommend Thrive. They build beautiful, one-of-a-kind sites. Also, if you’re going to make that investment, you have to be prepared to get a bunch of content ready, because it’s a lot of work and you don’t want to squander the opportunity.