October 27th, 2017
What an interesting, challenging, exciting, and invaluable year of growth and knowledge it has been. As we celebrate our 3 year anniversary, I’m incredibly proud of what we have accomplished, from the clients we have the pleasure of working with to the positive impact we have on their business goals and the direction that AKvertise is heading in as we continue evolving as a business.
Tackling the Unexpected
Like with anything in life, this past year came with its own business related challenges, learnings, and successes that we’re grateful to have experienced, even as difficult as they were at times. And by times, I mean eight consecutive whole months. The first two years were off to an unimaginably successful start in where we were immediately and consistently capped on bandwidth and quickly hired extra hands. Year three on the other hand, took a different direction in that we experienced a significant amount of turnover due to long time clients getting acquired, changes in boards, client staffing, and investors. Nevertheless, we persisted and gained an extensive amount of knowledge and first hand experience in business development and are breathing easier this second half of the year as we’re seeing the fruits of our labor.
While business and life in general, experiences ebbs and flows, we’ve had quite the year, in that the lows were balanced with some incredible highs.
Making Moves
This year was anything but stagnant! We incorporated, rebranded, and while our services are digitally available all over the globe, we relocated our home base from Southern to Central California. In addition, we also shifted our service offerings this summer from digital advertising as a whole, which encompassed paid search and paid social, we honed in on what we are most passionate about and what we are best at, which is social media advertising. While we do still offer paid search with Google Adwords and Bing Ads for preexisting clients, we have become a specialized social media advertising agency that focuses on Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, Twitter Ads, Pinterest Ads, and LinkedIn Ads. The trajectory to this decision was not an easy one as I wondered if it would negatively impact the business, however, since making the decision to specialize, we’ve brought more clients on board in a shorter amount of time than ever before. Turns out that for us, clients better understand our service offerings now than when they were broader. While this not be the case for all agencies, this was the right move for AKvertise and we couldn’t be more thrilled with the results.
Clients
We’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of incredible clients, from all over the United States, to Canada, and as far from our home base as Australia. From ecommerce companies, we’ve helped drive brand awareness and sales, to mobile app companies boosting installs and engagement, B2B companies acquiring new high quality leads, and events increasing their ticket sales, we’ve had the absolute pleasure of diving into each ones campaigns and showcasing what we’re passionate about to make a positive impact for our clients. One of the most rewarding events we had the pleasure of helping out with this year was when we teamed up with Inspiring Children Foundation and four time Grammy award nominee, Jewel, to help fill the Palazzo Theater for their INSPIRE gala this Spring. The impact this event and the efforts of their non-profit foundation make such a positive impact on the at-risk youth they take under their wing. They equip youth with tools, opportunities, and experiences through education, leadership, mentorship, and athletics programs. Truly remarkable what they are doing and it’s been an amazing year helping them expand their reach and visibility online.
Conferences
We attended Digital Entertainment World in Los Angeles to hear from a variety of talented speakers and story tellers like iJustine, then Sirius Decisions Summit in Las Vegas where we were inspired by Damon John, earlier this month, we traveled to Dallas for State of Search to gain a wealth of knowledge from a variety of search marketing experts, and next month, we’re heading to Pubcon to cap off the year with some invaluable networking and marketing tactics in Las Vegas. On the local level, we’ve been attending monthly Paso Robles Chamber of Commerce and Templeton Chamber of Commerce events such as Wake Up Paso and Women In Business, which we encourage other business owners in the Central Coast to also attend. If you see our team at any of these and other events, say hello!
Publications, Podcasts, and More
We had the pleasure of writing for a number of publications such as SEMrush, KoMarketing, and Verily Magazine, received a shout-out in Travis Wright and Chris J. Snook’s new book, Digital Sense, and had a terrific time being guest on the Art of the Float podcast where we discussed the importance and many uses of the Facebook Pixel.
What’s Next?
You’ll just have to wait and see. We have some very exciting things on the forefront, are enthusiastic about what this next year will bring, and we look forward to sharing it with you.
A huge thank you to our clients, business partners, advisors, friends, and family members who have supported our journey, recommended us, and contributed to our growth. To say that we’re grateful would be a great understatement. Year four, let’s do this!
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