The Problem
As a leading provider of search, social, and digital display advertising, Driven Local manages multi-channel campaigns for clients in a variety of disciplines. “Because our focus is on local businesses, many of our clients are service providers in a particular area – we’re talking about the plumbers, locksmiths, and professionals such as dentists and law firms,” said Kevin Szypula, CEO and co-founder of Driven Local. “With these smaller, local, clients, we quickly realized the importance of continually proving the value of our services, and showing how our activities were having an impact on their results.”
“Developing the reports to share with our clients took weeks, and ensuring that the reports were accurate, consistent, and looked sharp, was a constant struggle,” Szypula asserted. “Most of our clients are on a month-to-month contract, which meant that they could opt out of working with us at any time, so we knew that a single late or confusing report could have a serious impact on our relationship with the client and our bottom line.”
The Path to Growth Remained Unclear
The company also had concerns about its ability to effectively scale. “We knew that there was a huge market for the services we were providing, but it wasn’t immediately clear exactly how we would be able to grow the business in a way that allowed us to take on more customers while remaining profitable. Manually managing accounts was driving up our labor costs, and as a result, scaling our business model didn’t seem like a viable option.”
The Solution
At one point, Kevin and his team considered creating their own platform to help track and manage their clients’ accounts and data, but before doing so, they decided to review existing campaign management solutions on the market and found Acquisio. “When we saw Acquisio, we immediately realized that they were so far ahead in the game that it wouldn’t make sense to create our own platform. Finding a platform that specializes in campaign management for agencies, and that focuses solely on continuing to refine that platform as the industry evolves, makes far more sense for us and our clients.”
“Since implementing Acquisio, our client renewal rate has easily topped 85%, and I believe that Acquisio’s reporting has been a big part of that”
The Results
Since moving their clients to the Acquisio platform, monthly report time goes much more smoothly. “With Acquisio, we know that our reports are waiting for us to review after each month ends (or whenever we decide), so getting reports out in a timely manner is no longer a concern,” Szypula said. “And our clients appreciate the fact that Acquisio’s reports are customized to their particular needs, and that they can easily see what it is that they’re buying. Since implementing Acquisio, our client renewal rate has easily topped 85%, and I believe that Acquisio’s reporting has been a big part of that. We are known as having the lowest client churn rate in the space.”
Triple-Digit Growth, Year over Year
According to Szypula, Acquisio has also helped the company to effectively and efficiently scale and as a result, Driven Local has enjoyed triple-digit growth over each of the past two years. “Acquisio has allowed us to triple the number of accounts that each person can manage, and our client base has expanded. In fact, we’re one of less than a handful of Google AdWords authorized resellers – we have the account base and quality product to warrant such a distinction.“
Labor Costs are 1/10 of Previous Labor Costs
In addition to boosting client renewal rates and contributing to explosive growth within the company, Acquisio has also helped Szypula and his team better manage labor costs. “There’s no doubt that labor costs are a huge part of the equation, and with Acquisio, we’ve been able to keep labor costs down while continuing to grow,” he said. “Since we starting using Acquisio, we’ve expanded our New York operations to now include offices in Florida, Texas, and Chicago. With Acquisio, our labor costs are 1/10 of what they would be if we were to revert to an all manual approach to managing and optimizing client campaigns’ and that savings has had a direct impact on our business’ growth and success.”
Reducing Cost Per Click by 40% While Increasing Click Through Rate
Driven Local uses Acquisio to manage all of its clients’ campaigns, including those that go beyond a local area. For example, Driven Local manages PPC advertising for Aruba’s Department of Tourism. “When the client came to us, they had been managing their PPC campaigns themselves and were frustrated with rising costs and lackluster results,” said Szypula. “Thanks to the insights we were able to gain from Acquisio and the bidding strategies we implemented, we were able to lower their average cost per click by 40% while simultaneously increasing their clickthrough rate from 2% to 7%.“ With results like that, it’s easy to see why Driven Local is enjoying continued growth and success!
About Driven Local
Established in 2006, Driven Local is a leading provider of Search, Social and Digital Display advertising. Our proven management team has extensive experience with Local Digital Advertising.
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