October 28th, 2022
To describe this past year in one word, it would be optimization. Growth occurs in a variety of ways, but during this past year, we honed in on optimizing what we already have by continuing to help our existing clients scale their performance and optimizing how we, at AKvertise operate, which further strengthened relationships, improved efficiency and effectiveness, and increased the bottom line. When our clients win, as do we.
With a number of significant personal and business matters in flux over the last few years, it was optimal for us as a business to take the optimization approach as we relocated back to Southern California after five years away and accomplish our goals that would bring much more fruitful endeavors and opportunities being back in an area that for us, historically better fostered those key components – for the business and my family. I will always be a proponent of trying something new for the sake of learning, curiosity, growing, testing and optimizing in any area of life and if it doesn’t work out as anticipated, there’s no shame in reverting, rebuilding, or you guessed it, further optimizing.
With a number of profound impending life changes, I didn’t want to cause any adverse impacts to the caliber of our services and the success of our client accounts so I focused on maintenance and optimization, rather than growing with staff or on-boarding as many clients as we did in prior years. We were more selective this year, for which I’m extremely grateful we have grown to the point where we can be. While it was an incredibly challenging year behind the scenes, our team and partners handled it with empathy and tenacity. Now that we’re grounded again and in a more suitable place to accomplish our goals, we are working with an elevated and newfound outlook, ideas are forming into tangible offerings, and we look forward to sharing what those things are as we head into this new year of business.
As we celebrate our eighth year, we go into it with immense gratitude to our team, our clients, to our family, friends, and our peers for the continued support and referrals. Here are a few things that we are grateful for and proud to share about this last year in business:
Highlights
- After facing an in-person event hiatus during the first few years of the pandemic, we were thrilled conferences made a comeback this year and we were honored to be invited to speak at a show I’ve had on my industry conference bucket list; MnSearch. Hosted this past June in St. Paul, Minnesota, I presented on “Creative Audience Targeting Tactics for Meta Advertising”. It was such a delight to attend, speak, meet new people and reconnect with old friends in person after being apart for years. The last time I spoke at an in-person event was 3 years to the month but in Duluth, MN before my daughter was born and the pandemic began shortly-thereafter. The show was terrific, informative, incredibly well organized and I highly recommend attending next year.
- Our team was published in AdAge, Search Engine Journal, DataBox, FemFounder, Exeleon Magazine, and other news publications and industry blogs.
- Joined PPC Town Hall with host, Frederick Valleys and guests Anu Adegbola and Navah Hopkins for the Women in Digital Marketing episode and the Channel Mastery podcast as a guest to talk advertising, business, entrepreneurship, and career.
- I won this year’s FireTeam x Marpipe Media Buying Conference champion and came in second place overall for the media buying bracket on Twitter.
- Worked with a number of exciting, creative, and innovative clients such as RVshare, Salt & Straw ice cream, Indow custom window inserts, Dansko shoes, Johnson & Johnson, personality test and career assessment company, Truity, Lantern Play, Avenlur, Delmain, and others. We also launched some very exciting client partner campaigns with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Lizzo, Kevin Costner, and the Real Housewives.
- Teamed up with and collaborated on some accounts with our agency friends at That Pam Chick, Blue Light Media, Paid Media Pros, and Group Twenty Seven.
- We continued to see more consulting requests this year again – more so since the start of the pandemic – ranging from non-profits, small businesses, and startups.
- We mentored three people this year interested in social media advertising that included upcoming university graduates and people new to the field. If you or someone you know is interested in learning more, is seeking a mentor in the space, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me through our contact form.
- As an agency that lives to connect people, we are thrilled to share that over the last year, we referred over 110 leads to other talented, reliable, and seasoned freelancers and agencies in our network where we thought they would have been a better fit for the client with their expertise or that we did not have the bandwidth for at times.
What’s Next?
It’s important to always have something to look forward to and to always have something to strive for. In the theme of this past year being a year of optimization, our plan is to continue keeping our foot on the gas to scale current accounts even further but also seek out other ways to amplify growth in this coming year with new partners, projects, and services. Stay tuned as we have some things cooking in the conceptual kitchen that’s going to get served up in the next calendar year.
We wish you health and wealth in every aspect of your life as we enter the holiday season and into the new year. I’m ever so grateful for you being a part of our journey. Onward to year 9, team – let’s go!
Cheers,
Akvile DeFazio
President, AKvertise
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