Disruptive Advertising

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a continuing education company for physical therapists (and assistants), athletic trainers and occupational therapists. We specialize in live, in person courses but also offer live webinars and live virtual courses. We have been in business since 1998 and have helped more than 80,000 clinicians.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Disruptive Advertising?

We hired Disruptive Advertising to run our Social Media marketing, along with some Google Advertising (primarily targeting visitors to our website instead of Search). We are a small group in the office and the increasing complexity of social media marketing made it prohibitive to do much in that area.

When we did do Facebook marketing, we were not confident we were doing it well, nor of our ROI.

What were your goals for this project?

1. Increase our overall revenue through Social Media marketing.
2. Hit specific benchmarks for the average number of live webinar registrants per course.
3. Target cart abandoners and frequent visitors to our website via FB and Google.
4. Reduce our postage budget due to success in social media marketing.

SOLUTION

How did you select Disruptive Advertising?

We found them via a Google search. We had an introductory Zoom call with them and immediately liked their straight forward approach - down to earth, very up front about pricing, not trying to oversell us and that they setup work for the work they would be doing would be included in the cost, along with their reporting and bi-weekly calls.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

They run our FB and Google targeting. We only have a few people in the office and we wanted a place to really run our FB marketing, not just help with it. Carlos (our guy) creates the actual ad copy, develops strategy, offers suggestions, provides reporting, discusses what is going well and what is not - they do it all.

What was the team composition?

Although they have a large and capable team, Carlos Lorio is our Marketing Strategist, and we are sooooo grateful that he is. Carlos truly feels like a valued member of our team.

He does so much more than just posting ads and reporting, he truly wants us to be successful. We pride ourselves in hiring rockstars are our company and Carlos (although not an employee of ours) is an absolute rockstar and fits right in.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Although I do not have the exact metrics in front of me, we have seen:

• A great job getting everything set up - far beyond what we could have done.
• A continual decrease in our cost per conversion and Carlos is all over this.
• An uptick in our webinar registrations.
• A steady increase in the number of conversions from the ads that Disruptive is running.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

I had high expectations and they, primarily Carlos, have exceeded it. You often hear someone say they want to be like a team member, but they rarely are. The workflow with Carlos has absolutely been like he is a part time employee. It is seamless.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

In no particular order:

• Their straight forward approach and pricing.
• That all of the set up on the back end of things was included in the regular costs.
• The way Carlos fits into our team.
• The amount of attention we get from Carlos. Although I know he gives all of his clients this much attentions, it feels like he gives us extra attention (which what every client wants).
• The reporting on the results and Carlos' constant work toward getting more exact reporting and results.
• Overall knowledge of FB and Google.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We have only been with them for a few months, but nothing as of right now.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a global B2B career transition provider that helps people who’ve been laid off to find new jobs. Our company follows a bespoke methodology that combines coaching, CV writing, and job search assistance to support our clients. As the marketing director, I’m responsible for international marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive Advertising?

They manage our social media and PPC campaigns.  

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Disruptive Advertising manages our social media ads for YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn. They also handle our Bing and Google Ads. Usually, they propose content for our ads and send them to us for our approval. We’re in more than 30 markets and advertise in several languages, so we provide the context and the text, but they come up with the creative that aligns with our brand.

What is the team composition?

I still work directly with Christine (Marketing Consultant).

How much have you invested with them?

We spend about $100,000 a year (approximately $200,000 in total).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2018 and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve been a fantastic strategic partner. Over the last two years, our leads have steadily increased. Before this project, we had almost no brand awareness, but with Disruptive Advertising, we generate about 2,000 leads a month. About 200 of those leads are high-quality.

How did Disruptive Advertising perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re always responsive. We generally communicate over email and have a weekly call.

They have great ideas. Even if things don’t work out, Christine maintains her enthusiasm, which I really appreciate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate their flexibility. There’s no perfect formula for digital advertising, but they provide expert advice that helps us meet our goals.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not at all. They’ve been fantastic.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Keep an open mind. They’re so happy to help their clients. Clients just need a general idea of what their goals are.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was published on May 7, 2019. 

Marketing Director, Hiring Service

Human Resources

201–500 Employees

San Jose, California

$50,000–$200,000

Sept. 2018 – Ongoing

Project summary: 

Disruptive Advertising oversees social media and paid search ads to support demand generation efforts. They’ve repurposed ad copy that they’ve written for a US-clientele to meet an international audience.

Feedback summary: 

By tailoring their messaging to better suit an Indian market, Disruptive Advertising homed in on the right target audience, generating more click-throughs and leads. The team pivots quickly to optimize campaign performance, and they’re not afraid of exploring new opportunities to drive results.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a global B2B career transition provider that helps people who’ve been laid off to find new jobs. Our company follows a bespoke methodology that combines coaching, CV writing, and job search assistance to support our clients. As the marketing director, I’m responsible for international marketing.

SOLUTION

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive Advertising?

We needed a partner that could help us with our demand generation efforts in different countries, including India. Because Disruptive Advertising was already working with our US branch, our goal was to tailor their advertising assets to better reach local audiences.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Disruptive Advertising manages our social media advertising and our paid search on Google to better promote our services. To make our lives a bit easier, we’ve reformatted content that they’ve produced for our US offices to meet an international market.

It was a copy-and-paste exercise. They adapted the US ad copy in different ways to cater to various local audiences and ensured that our language was culturally sensitive.

We’ve been particularly pleased with the team’s work in India because they’ve been able to target our ads to the right audience. Before, we’d have a lot of job seekers who would click on our ads, which helped with our click volume but not our conversion rate. Disruptive Advertising shifted our focus toward HR managers who could more effectively leverage our services to help job seekers.

What is the team composition? 

I’ve worked with several team members across various services but mostly interact with Christine (Marketing Consultant, Disruptive Advertising). 

How did you come to work with Disruptive Advertising?

We already knew about Disruptive Advertising from their work with our US branch. I looked over the services that they’d provided and decided from there. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $100,000–$250,000 on their services so far, which includes ad spend.

What is the status of this engagement?

Their work on our project started in September 2018 and is ongoing, but they’ve been working with our US branch since before then.

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

We’ve seen improvement across all of the metrics we’re measuring, including site traffic, click-through rates, number of leads, and more. This is especially noticeable in India because they’ve been adaptive enough to quickly adjust their approach depending on campaign performance. 

How did Disruptive Advertising perform from a project management standpoint?

Disruptive Advertising’s project management is excellent. They’re responsive, open to communication, and always on time. We have quarterly reviews to go over their reports, which they prepare and send in advance, as well as weekly calls with the entire team. This allows us to modify our campaign strategy if needed. They’re also happy to look into other concerns we may have and answer questions via email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They really think alongside us and aren’t shy about convincing us on a particular course of action. I appreciate that they aren’t just doing as they’re told. Rather, they challenge us to see where we could do more.

I also like that they can quickly adjust their approach based on whatever budget we set. And, if we should be investing more in a certain area, they’re bold enough to tell us. That honesty is really valuable because it allows us both to learn over time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing at the moment.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give them enough time to learn about your market and ask them many questions.

Star Ratings

Overall rating: 5 

Quality: 5

Schedule: 5

Cost: 4

Willing to refer: 5

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Social Media Content Manager at Brightview Senior Living. I manage all of our social media presences as well as our paid social media spend. We are a continuum of care senior living organization offering Independent, Assisted Living, and Memory care for seniors along the east coast.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Disruptive Advertising?

We have been working with Disruptive for several years, but over the course of 2020 we worked very closely with Christine and Shannon on the optimization, management, and growth of our paid media efforts in an unstable environment.

We needed their help as we are a lean team and were looking for some creative minds to help us find new ways to use targeting, creative, and campaign construction to reach our audiences during the pandemic.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals were to maintain (to our best ability) our lead pipeline and customer journey during the pandemic. The closer we could get to our pre-pandemic KPI goals, the better. This was going to be a key part in our organization weathering this storm.

SOLUTION

How did you select Disruptive Advertising?

We had been working with them for several years and when our team of Shannon and Christine came on our account it was a no brainier. They knew our brand and were familiar with our advertising efforts already.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Their scope was comprehensive and collaborative. We worked closely with them on weekly calls (and many emails) on strategy, creative development, buying, and tracking. Our holistic scope allowed for us to act as a cohesive team and bounce ideas and strategies off of each other.

They did an excellent job as an extension of our internal team, we couldn't have accomplished what we did in 2020 without them!

What was the team composition?

We worked closely with Shannon and Christine on strategy and planning each week, but our efforts included their creative team as well who churned out excellent pieces that lifted our response rates and got us the results we needed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

At the end of the day any goals we had at the beginning of 2020 went out the window. That being said, we were able to help mitigate the impact of the pandemic and quarantine on our overall lead volume and ended the year in a place that we wouldn't have thought possible in March.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They did an excellent job supporting our efforts and providing creative recommendations and strategies during our meetings. They communicated clearly and consistently, their work was completed right on schedule with what we needed, and they did a great job helping us manage expectations (and talking us off the ledge a few times).

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are willing to be flexible to their clients. They are very open and transparent about their work and pricing. They also are able to accept ideas from our internal teams and not only roll with them, but come up with tweaks to help optimize them. I never felt frustrated with their work or methodology like I have with other similar agencies in the past.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Honestly everything was great, I look forward to working together with Disruptive in 2021 and beyond!

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the digital marketing manager at Colonial Van Lines, a long-distance moving company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive Advertising?

We’d previously worked with a company that had tried some strategies that went really south. When Disruptive inherited our Google Ads account, we were at a high cost per lead (CPL), and we weren’t getting the type of volume that we were looking for.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Disruptive Advertising helps us with our Google Ads campaign. They’re responsible for our PPC strategy. They referred us to a partner agency for SEO.

What is the team composition?

Our primary contact is Tim (Marketing Consultant). Then, our account manager is Chad (Marketing Consultant Director). We occasionally work with Taylor (Data Insights Consultant), who works with the optimization and on-site conversion metrics. He’s been really integral in helping connect the data to optimize our campaign.

How did you come to work with Disruptive Advertising?

I did a lot of research and read reviews about the best PPC companies across the US. I talked to 10 companies and really got a strategy from five of them. Then, my direct boss talked to three more companies.

Disruptive came up on several sites. I wanted to work with a company that had a sound, logical strategy from the beginning; I didn’t want them to just say they’d fix it. They took a look at our account and told us tangible things that they could do to improve it. The team laid out the path they’d take to make those changes.

Additionally, I didn’t want to work with a company that works with everybody else out there. I understand that some businesses that are just trying to make a profit will work with anybody, even if they don’t think that they’ll be able to achieve the client’s goals. Disruptive was very transparent about what they thought they could do for us. They let us know that they wouldn’t have agreed to the project if they didn’t think it was something they could handle.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Disruptive in October 2019, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

At one time, we’d been able to achieve a much lower CPL, at a higher volume. That was clearly a very large difference from what Disruptive inherited. Their challenge was to get our CPL down to that much lower amount. By July 2020, when we were in-season, they achieved that goal. They continued to achieve that goal for a couple of months.

They work very hard for us. Although we sometimes go beyond our CPL goal, we do everything we can to keep it within an acceptable level, and they’ve been very responsive to that. I think it’s going really well.

All of the metrics that matter to us have improved since we started working with Disruptive, including the quality of the leads, the number of leads, and the CPL. They’re amazing. They guide us in determining the best strategy to get us to the next level, and they consistently come through.

How did Disruptive Advertising perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very organized and use different tools. They send us a monthly PDF that lays out our 30-day strategy as well as everything from the month before. We have access to an analytics dashboard.

I have phone calls with them once a week that last at least an hour, and they continue to walk me through this process. I ask them a lot of questions, but they’ve been so patient and responsive. Besides the weekly call, we also email back-and-forth. If we need them, they make time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Disruptive’s dedication distinguishes them from other providers. They’re always on top of it, and that’s hard to find. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think so.

Any advice for potential customers?

Be interactive with your campaign and understand what’s going on. They’re very responsive and are a great resource, so be involved.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner of Escapes in Time, live adventure escape room. We have about 15 employees and market to the local area.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Disruptive Advertising?

We wanted help with attracting the local community to find and try our escape room.

What were your goals for this project?

Increase bookings and sales revenue.

SOLUTION

How did you select Disruptive Advertising?

Referral from prior marketing manager

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Manage Google ads, remarking and digital presence

What was the team composition?

We have an account manager who handles our account. He has a Director who is also involved in oversight. Initial setup involved a couple of others, but now that we are ongoing, strategy changes, performance, etc is reviewed and adjusted with account manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have had great success with increased sales. They set up a call tracking system through Google ads and we have been able to track ad calls that result in bookings. They have been willing to work with our limited budget to achieve optimal results. Have also shown our placement in search results compared to our competitors which is helpful to know.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We have a monthly strategy call to review goals and performance. Communication and response is excellent.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Support from upper management. Excellent communication

Are there any areas for improvement?

We are very happy. We do not have the expertise within the company to do this digital marketing. They have been fantastic and provide a great service to a small company!

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of marketing and PR at a company that does automated window coverings.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive Advertising?

I work closely with Disruptive to make sure our organic and paid social is cohesive.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Disruptive handles our Facebook, YouTube, and Google Ads. They do everything from design to execution. We have an in-house photographer and videographer, but they will at times put together videos from our raw footage and static ads from our photos. 

What is the team composition?

We’re currently working with three people. 

How did you come to work with Disruptive Advertising?

Our former CEO found them through their CEO and brought them on board.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since September 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since partnering with Disruptive, our return on ad spend is pretty consistently 1.3x month over month. We also consistently see a 3–4x return on our ads. 

Anecdotally, something I really like about the Disruptive team is that any time there’s a challenge, they come back with a creative solution. I appreciate that.

How did Disruptive Advertising perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great. We work closely with both Caitlin (Marketing Consultant) and Jacob (Founder & CEO), collaborating on a weekly basis. We have a project management board and give them tasks, and they work in lockstep with our in-house team to complete them. We like that Disruptive is like an extension of our team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re most impressed with their ability to adapt. We had some concerns early on about the rate of growth, and Disruptive was able to reset and bring in someone else to figure out what wasn’t working. After that, we saw a change really quickly. It was great.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would recommend working with Caitlin for Facebook; she’s been a great help to our company. Other than that, hop in feet first with them and let them take the reins. We’ve seen our ads really grow from letting Disruptive take over.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of a company involved in the outdoor power equipment industry. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive Advertising?

We hired them to stabilize our digital advertising platforms and generate growth through advertising.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started working with them with a thorough review and audit of our online portfolio. After they reviewed our digital presence, they provided directional guidance and execution of our digital advertising platform. They’re specifically focused on paid search and social media, creating and strategizing around our content.  

What is the team composition?

There are four main participants on their end: one account manager, two advertising specialists, and one technical specialist.  

How did you come to work with Disruptive Advertising?

We did a thorough review of available organizations out there and went through a proposal process with their firm and two others. Ultimately, we selected them. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them since February 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re evaluating the performance of their deliverables on a weekly basis, looking at our business performance as well as digital marketing metrics. We’re happy with everything from site visits, bounce rate, and other engagement metrics. 

How did Disruptive Advertising perform from a project management standpoint?

We couldn’t be happier with their communication. Our weekly call helps us cover a number of issues on a regular basis. We’ve also engaged them in off-cycle communications, and they’ve been incredibly responsive to our needs. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication is excellent, and we’re very happy with how they’ve delivered against our performance metrics. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s always room for improvement, but we’ve been incredibly happy with what they’ve done for us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’m a fan of their proposal process because they take a thoughtful, deep approach to try to understand the business. Their process has worked exceedingly well in our situation.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of MegaChess. We make and distribute giant chess sets.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive Advertising?

We hired them to support us with our PPC campaigns, specifically on Google.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Disruptive provided us with PPC advice. They also helped us set up some shopping campaigns.

What is the team composition?

I worked with two people, Jenae (Marketing Consultant) and Court (Tam Lead).

How did you come to work with Disruptive Advertising?

I had evaluated a couple of different organizations for PPC. I interviewed two other firms along with Disruptive, and ended up selecting them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since March 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve been excellent.  There’s a lot of people out there in this industry, and it can be difficult to know who really knows what they’re talking about. Disruptive has a great team, and they’ve been able to make suggestions along the way. I like the fact that they’re on top of what we need. 

How did Disruptive Advertising perform from a project management standpoint?

We have conference calls every other week, where we get a summary of what they’ve done, what the effect of their actions were, and what the new plan is for the subsequent two weeks. Disruptive has been excellent with scheduling and deadlines. In seven months, we’ve only ever canceled one meeting. We use Google Calendar to schedule. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Disruptive produces results.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not really. We’re not an easy account to understand. Our primary customers aren’t chess players, but resorts, campgrounds, elderly care facilities, and shopping malls, who use our product for customer engagement. It took a while to get into that mindset, and along with the pandemic, it took some time to start up. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Hire Disruptive. They’re good at what they do. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the VP of marketing for a national healthcare services company with 1,400 employees. Our marketing organization is primarily engaged in b2b marketing supporting our organization's growth and business development efforts.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Disruptive Advertising?

We hired Disruptive to manage our paid digital marketing efforts, specifically PPC (Google and Bing), social media advertising (LinkedIn and Facebook), and display/retargeting. Additionally, we engaged Disruptive in a consulting contract to help us work through some marketing ecosystem optimizations including documenting our customer journey and marketing to sales transition processes.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to develop and manage a lead generation engine that would deliver a sustainable and predictable sales pipeline.

SOLUTION

How did you select Disruptive Advertising?

We did an online search of agencies specializing in PPC and then conducted interviews with our top selections. We considered a half-dozen agencies and interviewed a small subset of that group, eventually selecting Disruptive.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

See SOW and previous comments

What was the team composition?

We have worked directly with Jake, Disruptive's founder and CEO, as well as a talented team of digital specialist. We initially started with a smaller team and as the project grew so did the team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have greatly improved all metrics as well as the transparency into those metrics-- most importantly number of leads per month, the cost per lead and the lead quality scores.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We established a cadence of weekly status meetings to review key metrics and progress on assignments. We used monday.com to track and manage our projects, which was hugely helpful.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their willingness to learn about our industry and process as well as their flexibility as things changed impressed us

Are there any areas for improvement?

Like all relationships, there is always room for both parties to improve. It took us a while to got our team dynamics and our account in the right group, but once we sorted that out things vastly improved.

Beyond that, the team did not always have the level of urgency and accountability I am accustomed to, but like everything else, we were always able to work through any of those challenges.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My role is VP of marketing at SAE Institute. SAE Institute is a creative media school. We have six campuses throughout the US and have been around since the 19070s. We mostly focus on audio production courses, but we also offer digital film, game development, and entertainment business courses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Disruptive Advertising?

We were looking to find a new agency to generate leads for our programs. The agency that we previously worked with was no longer providing the results that we needed. We were struggling with lead flow at our six campuses. Another struggle was that costs were rising, and we couldn’t increase our budget to accommodate that. I was being told to do more with less, but the old agency wasn’t really able to do that.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Disruptive Advertising to rebuild our lead generation campaigns. The campaigns are on Google, Facebook, and Instagram, as well as a little bit of Bing and Yahoo. We found the most success with our lead generation from Google, Facebook, and Instagram. Disruptive does all of our paid digital.

They also help us with landing page design. They work more on the testing side.

What is the team composition?

We work with media buyers and strategists. We met with their owner and founder. A few times It was great that the owner of this large agency flew out to meet with us. I thought that said a lot about the integrity of the company. 

There might be an account director leading the strategy, and then there are account managers for Google and social. We also work with a creative strategist who works hand-in-hand with our creative teams to develop the ads.

How did you come to work with Disruptive Advertising?

We shopped around and found Disruptive through another technical college. They had worked with Disruptive in the past, so they recommended that we have a chat with them. We gave them the parameters of what we were looking for as far as our budget and what we were looking for from a cost-per-lead efficiency. We went from there.

What is the status of this engagement?

We tried to coincide it with the way that our financial year runs, which is from July 1st to June 30th. That’s how we run most of our vendor contracts, since it makes it easy for budgeting. 

We contracted with Disruptive to start July 2019, and I think they actually started on June 1st just so that we had a transition period with the old agency. We are still working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We set a goal back in June 2019 to achieve a 30% reduction in cost-per-lead, and they have been able to do that, which was huge for us. We had a year-over-year flat budget, yet costs were rising, so we needed to maximize our budget. A 30% reduction obviously allowed us to extend that budget further than we had in the prior year, which led to more cost-effective leads.

How did Disruptive Advertising perform from a project management standpoint?

They have performed very well. We have a weekly call between their team and mine. It is a great collaboration between our two organizations. We have had face-to-face meetings with them in different markets that we operate in, and we really appreciate them coming out. Communication has been fantastic. The deadlines are met, and attention to detail is great.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I have only worked with a couple of different providers in the higher education industry, so my frame of reference is small. I think what separates them from the rest just goes back to their attention to detail and the small team atmosphere that they bring. I have worked with larger agencies before, and I’ve found that you can get lost in the shuffle. 

When they saw us coming on, they actually verticalized their business units a little bit more. They do work with other industries, but I thought it was great that when they saw us coming on board as a decent-sized client, they verticalized and made some changes to their organization. I have a team now that is very dedicated to the higher-ed vertical. That really made them stand out from some of the other agencies.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We always want the cost-per-lead to continue dropping, but there isn’t really anything that I can think of. We have been really happy. I think it was initially a bit of trial-and-error for them to bring on a client of our size with six separate schools. However, we’re now pretty streamlined with them, and things are going really well. I really can’t think of anything that I can highlight that they need to do better. Of course, there will always be challenges at periods of time, but they are very understanding of our business. It has been a great experience.

I think consistency is the one thing that I go back to with them every week. If the leads flow up and down, I tell them that we really need a consistent lead delivery, because the campuses and the admissions teams rely on consistent lead flow. There are tons of market factors that dictate why that happens. For instance, there is a huge election coming up, and that is affecting our spend right now because the political ads are eating up inventory. We knew that was going to happen. It is very cyclical with the seasonality of the holidays as well.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Meet with them face-to-face. They are in Salt Lake City and I am in New York City, and they flew out and met with me and my team. We spent 2–3 days together. They flew to our school in Miami, and I met them there. We walked through the campus. 

They’ll offer to meet in person, and you should take advantage of it. They build it into the fee structure, and I didn’t get that attention from my last agency that was in Vancouver, British Columbia. It just wasn’t the same. You can do a ton on Zoom, but meeting face-to-face once or twice a year and getting more personalized has been fantastic. I would absolutely recommend that to anyone.