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RELIVE THE US SEARCH PARTY The US Search Awards, in association with Majestic, celebrate the very best in SEO, PPC and Content Marketing from across the United States. We recognise the individuals, companies and organizations that are transforming the search industry. As you know due to COVID-19 restrictions and concerns around travel, this year’s US Search Awards didn’t take place in fabulous Las Vegas the way we had planned. It was not our usual Search Awards party, but we hope you enjoyed the virtual celebrations and coming together online as much as we did, for one different but equally fantastic US Search Awards. The entry quality was extremely high this year, meaning if you made the shortlist, you are truly one of the best in the Search industry. Our thanks go out to our judges who had the unenviable task of shortlisting and deciding who went home with a prestigious trophy. We’d also like to take the opportunity to thank all of our sponsors and partners, who without their support, the US Search Awards would not be possible. We’ll see you hopefully in real life in Las Vegas in 2021! Nicky Wake Founder of the Search Awards
FINALISTS 1SEO.com Digital Agency & Tires4That Rolling Out a New Website, Driving More Traffic Go Fish Digital & ILIA Beauty Exponential ROI LSEO & Beleza na Web/Beautybox ECommerce SEO Enhancements & Cleanup Merkle & Sears Parts Direct Site Rebuild and Post Launch Optimizations Perficient & Blinds.com Traffic Recovery Stella Rising & Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare User Focused Optimizations Lead to Massive KPI Lift Tombras & Lodge Cast Iron Striking While The Cast Iron Is Hot Victorious & Capsule Supplies A Dose of Success Victorious & Parker Clay Sustainable SEO Growth is in the Bag Victorious & Printivity A Blueprint for Success
BEST USE OF SEARCH RETAIL / ECOMMERCE (SEO) Tombras & Lodge Cast Iron SUMMARY The nation’s largest cast iron brand was ready to heat up their ecommerce game when nationwide stay-at-home orders made home cooking America’s new favorite hobby. Having recently built a $100MM foundry, Lodge Cast Iron partnered with Tombras to supercharge their ecommerce sales and tell the cookware iconic brand’s 120 year history. The SEO team was tasked to relaunch a new website with minimal loss in organic traffic and address the primary concern of first-time cast iron buyers - initial fears and misconceptions of cast iron cooking. We identified three audience segments and matched them against Google and Amazon search paths-to-purchase trends. These audiences became our muses for content creation. Using a custom content personalization engine, we successfully blended a best-in-class ecommerce user interface without sacrificing rich brand storytelling. Then the virus came. Online product reviews revealed an insight - Lodge Cast Iron was helping families come together during quarantine. Tombras adapted our content strategy amongst surging demand for new home cooking ideas, recipes and products. Lodge’s website saw unprecedented traffic as people seeking moments of stress relief began consuming our new content geared at home cooking trends like bread baking, casseroles, and family dinner Zoom calls.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We thought this was a very inspiring entry, that demonstrated clear objectives and solid site migration tactics. Tombras achieved great results with a clear impact on revenue. Well done!
BEST USE OF SEARCH RETAIL / ECOMMERCE (PPC) Perficient & Lake Champlain Chocolates SUMMARY FINALISTS January Digital & Iconic NYC Retail Brand Increase Revenue 68% Through Layered Bidding Strategy Perficient & Lake Champlain Chocolates Easter 2020 PPC Campaign The Media Image & Clarins US Sale Event 2020 Tinuiti & Etsy Supporting Black-Owned Etsy Shops
Perficient is a global digital consultancy. We imagine, create, engineer, and run digital transformation solutions that help our clients exceed customers’ expectations, outpace the competition, and grow their business. With unparalleled strategy, creative and technology capabilities, we bring big thinking and innovative ideas, along with a practical approach to help the world’s biggest brands connect with customers and grow their business. Winning Best Use of Search, Retail/eCommerce (PPC) would be a fitting recognition of the excellent work and dedication of the Perficient team. We pride ourselves on combining data-intensive research with creative strategies and we believe our work for Lake Champlain Chocolates exemplifies the success we create for our clients.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We loved how Perficient adjusted to new consumer trends and used it to their own advantage. This is exactly what eCommerce websites should do. It was a well-executed campaign with a great outcome for the brand, amazing work!
USSEARCHAWARDS BEST USE OF SEARCH FINANCE (SEO) Victorious & Tower Loan FINALISTS
SUMMARY
Blue Compass How a National Insurance Company Reclaimed Page One
Tower Loan is a long-standing, family-owned consumer finance company that has been helping customers since 1936. With over 230 offices nationwide, their ultimate mission is to provide people with quick and relatively easy solutions to a variety of universal consumer needs, such as home improvement loans, back to school expenses, and even medical funds.
Crunchy Links & Finbox Scaling Revenue and Startup Valuations Path Interactive Earning Top Performance for an Insurance Client Refinitiv Surfin’ USA Victorious & Tower Loan SEO with Interest
Before Victorious, their lean, one-man marketing team launched their online loan page hoping to increase accessibility for new customers. While the site was doing well, they weren’t seeing an expected increase in organic traffic. With limited internal bandwidth and a healthy amount of skepticism, they knew they needed a tested and proven SEO strategy to usher in a meaningful ROI. That’s where Victorious came in, and our partnership was born. As of today, Tower Loan has enjoyed a record amount of growth - a 33% increase in organic traffic and a 73% increase in goal completions. Victorious is beyond thrilled that we could, and can continue to, make a noticeable impact for a company with such a rich and generous history!
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We thought this was a very solid campaign which delivered impressive results for the client. Lots of great SEO work went into this campaign, which was great to see. Victorious should be very proud of their work.
FINALISTS Go Fish Digital & Seaside Vacations Stronger Than Before: Achieving Triple-Digit Growth Despite COVID-19 Milestone & Hacienda Del Sol Resort 16% YOY Online Growth Despite Pandemic Path Interactive & Travel Client Dynamic Optimization, Dynamite Results REQ & Golden Gate Hotel & Casino Las Vegas Road Trip Series Victorious & Blueboard Rewards Campaign Victorious & Exceptional Villas Searching for Paradise
BEST USE OF SEARCH TRAVEL / LEISURE (SEO) Go Fish Digital & Seaside Vacations SUMMARY Seaside Vacations is a family-owned and operated, full-service property management and vacation home provider located on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. As the 2020 summer season was approaching, COVID-19 had shut down the Outer Banks causing operations to stall. Go Fish Digital’s objective was to help Seaside Vacations recover from this setback and be well-positioned so that 2020 could still be a successful season once operations were up and running again. Achieving positive year-over-year growth meant that Seaside could better recover from the shut down. We kept a persistent SEO strategy while things were slow, so that when there was a rebound in search traffic, Seaside Vacations was well positioned at the top of the SERPs. We focused on revenue-generating keywords by optimizing content, developing internal linking, and focusing on featured snippets. Our strategy allowed us to implement recommendations that improved multiple pages at once, and led to significant improvements in page 1 rankings. This led to year-over-year triple-digit growth in organic sessions and revenue in the month of June. During a time of a lot of uncertainty in the industry, this campaign showed that keeping a persistent SEO strategy during a slow season can yield exponential long-term results.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS Go Fish Digital demonstrated impressive results especially during the pandemic and even more so looking at YOY. This was a fantastic entry that demonstrated solid growth as the result of a strategy. They showed understanding on how quick-win opportunities can be taken advantage of to target terms which have a quick impact, which we clearly saw throughout. Very well done!
BEST USE OF SEARCH TRAVEL / LEISURE (PPC) Go Fish Digital & Seaside Vacations SUMMARY Seaside Vacations is a full-service property management and vacation home provider for over 450 properties in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. As the 2020 summer season was approaching, COVID-19 had shut down the Outer Banks causing operations to come to a complete stop. As a result they had to stop PPC spend.
NO SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED
But, as the Outer Banks were opening back up in May 2020, Go Fish Digital was able to implement a competitive PPC strategy that provided a positive return on investment when Seaside Vacations needed it most. We took an aggressive approach to stay ahead of giant competitors such as AirBnB and VRBO. These efforts resulted in historic highs for Seaside Vacations’ PPC campaign, including an 835% return on ad spend in May 2020 as compared to 67% in May 2019. While 2020 was a tough year for the travel and leisure industry as a whole, this campaign exemplifies an agile PPC strategy that stayed ahead of trends to achieve record-breaking results.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We thought this entry was a standout winner! Go Fish Digital demonstrated some amazing achievements given the challenges in a competitive market. Well done!
BEST USE OF SEARCH THIRD SECTOR / NOT FOR PROFIT 1SEO.com & CCGNJ SUMMARY
FINALISTS 1SEO.com Digital Agency & CCGNJ Spreading a Message of Hope for Problem Gamblers During Unprecedented Times Red Door Interactive & YMCA New Year, New Member Drive
The Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey (CCGNJ) is a NJ-based nonprofit organization best known for and often referred to as its 24/7, confidential helpline, 800-GAMBLER. That number appears on casino billboards and scratch-off cards statewide, providing a lifeline for problem gamblers and their loved ones. Despite their already strong presence, CCGNJ’s work is never complete. The month of March would have normally been peak sports gambling season. But with the COVID-19 pandemic gripping the nation, things looked very different. Most sporting events had been canceled, and in mid-March, NJ’s governor ordered many public spaces closed — including casinos. With gamblers turning to online outlets, the CCGNJ also needed to pivot their strategy. Therefore, their goal was to increase overall awareness as well as promote their new options for remote support. Thanks to our timely efforts, we were able to raise awareness during a difficult and unprecedented time — ultimately helping more people get the support they need to look to a brighter future.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We thought this was a very successful multi-channel campaign that exceeded goals and delivered strong results! Really great work!
CATEGORY SPONSOR
FINALISTS Directive Content strategy generates over 2 million impressions in under 4 months for cloudbased log management software company Go Fish Digital & SimpleTexting.com 3 Key Areas of Triple Digit Growth Go Fish Digital & Surety Systems Strategic Content Creation Leads to Triple Digit Organic Growth and 72% Increase in Leads Logical Position & Med One Group SEO National Campaign Minerva & Proofpoint Securing a New Remote Workforce Nebo & Buy-Rite Beauty SEO Drives Unparalleled ROI Perficient & Arrow Electronics Expert Content Campaign Refinitiv Surfin’ USA TopSpot & Butler Technologies Strategic Changes Reap Big Rewards Victorious & Blueboard Rewards Campaign
USSEARCHAWARDS BEST USE OF SEARCH B2B (SEO) Refinitiv SUMMARY In 2019, our team was given the ultimate SEO challenge, migrate from a highly authoritative domain that generated 3 straight years of strong growth in organic traffic to a brand-new domain while continuing to improve SEO performance at a global scale. Our new investors, Blackstone Private Equity, were looking for quick returns as we were expected to compete with Bloomberg and other comparable brands and websites that have been around for over 20 years. This became even more crucial after the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) announced they had agreed with Blackstone to acquire Refinitiv for $27 billion dollars. A large-scale website migration would not be an acceptable excuse for a dip in performance. To tackle this challenge, we devised an innovative strategy that relied on our strengths as a business to transform our site into a lead generation powerhouse. Our small in-house team leveraged the power of our internal resources to successfully beat all our aggressive growth targets for site traffic, leads and revenue by the end of the year. This site transformation has enabled us to comfortably target even more ambitious sales targets in 2020 as we prepare to undergo yet another company transformation.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We thought this was a great, successful campaign with an impressive strategy and excellent results. A really solid entry that demonstrated good targeting and identification of what needs to get done! Congratulations.
FINALISTS 1SEO.com Digital Agency & Nassau National Cable Wired for Success Aimclear & Recruitment SaaS Winning Via Strategic Integration Barbauld Agency & Trailer Transit Leasing Nationwide Directive How Directive Drove 114% More Paid Leads for ITSM Client Through Personalization and Aligned Landing Page Experience Forthea & Acuren 277% ROAS for B2B Industrial Refinitiv Living in America Search Laboratory & UiPath Increasing international conversions while decreasing cost per acquisition
BEST USE OF SEARCH B2B (PPC) Aimclear & Recruitment SaaS SUMMARY Aimclear was retained by a talent recruiting SaaS for their B2B customer acquisition. The challenge was holding the client’s marketing system steady - and gaining - through the teeth of Covid-19. Declining search interest signaled paid search usage needed to include magnification to survive in a pandemic-depressed sector. And, our client had to reduce media-spend in June. The recruiting SaaS space is highly competitive in usual circumstances, forcing marketers to operate in the LTV realm (average lifetime value) to justify expenditures. The assignment nonetheless was to generate SQLs (sales team human-qualified leads) with higher potential value, gain new customers/ first year revenue from the SQLs, and new LTV. Our tactics integrated channels (inter and intra) Google, LinkedIn, Facebook/Instagram, YouTube, search, display, retargeting, remarketing, and proved the value of attributable nurture. We nailed the assignment, generating new customers, greater potential revenue for longer-term audience nurture, LTV, and a solid model which even recommends greater investment.
The Media Image & Refinitiv Rebrand and Restructure: Sustaining Efficiency At Scale For A New Brand
The case study’s unexpectedly effective YouTube/GDN integration campaign opened our client’s eyes to more complex attribution vs last click, whilst creating noteworthy value. Our client’s marketing manager was new, from a marquis agency, and specifically wanted to work with Aimclear. The project succeeded. We’ve been retained for another 6 months.
SILVER AWARD
JUDGES’ COMMENTS
Tombras & Pilot Flying J Keeping America Moving
This was an extremely sophisticated campaign. We appreciated how the campaign leveraged the strong points of different social media campaigns. It was incredibly well thought out and very detailed, great results!
FINALISTS HigherVisibility & Allied Van Lines Moving Success with SEO Merkle & Sears Home Services Growth in Non–Brand Traffic Minerva & Blurb Providing A Creative Outlet During Challenging Times Path Interactive Earning Top Performance for an Insurance Client Perficient & Blinds.com Traffic Recovery Red Door Interactive & CenturyLink Support Center Stella Rising & Backstage.com Casting Call Campaign Tombras & Lodge Cast Iron Striking While The Cast Iron Is Hot Victorious & Boombox San Francisco Storage Victorious & Felix Gray Keyword Visions
BEST USE OF SEARCH B2C (SEO) Tombras & Lodge Cast Iron SUMMARY The nation’s largest cast iron brand was ready to heat up their ecommerce game when nationwide stay-at-home orders made cooking at home America’s new favorite hobby. Having recently built a $100MM foundry, Lodge Cast Iron partnered with Tombras to supercharge their ecommerce sales and tell the cookware iconic brand’s 120 year history. The SEO team was tasked to relaunch a new website with minimal loss in organic traffic and address the primary concern of first-time cast iron buyers - initial fears and misconceptions of cast iron cooking. We identified three audience segments matched against Google and Amazon search pathsto-purchase trends. These audiences became our muses for content creation. Using a custom personalization engine, we successfully blended a best-in-class ecommerce user interface without sacrificing rich brand storytelling. Then the virus came. Online product reviews revealed an insight - Lodge Cast Iron was helping families come together during quarantine. Tombras adapted our content strategy amongst surging demand for new home cooking ideas, recipes and products. Lodge’s website saw unprecedented traffic as people seeking moments of stress relief began consuming our new content geared at home cooking trends like bread baking, family meals, and casseroles.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS The implementation and creativity in this entry was extremely strong. Tombras made good use of search personas for their content targeting which led to impressive results. A well rounded entry and a stand out winner!
FINALISTS
USSEARCHAWARDS BEST USE OF SEARCH B2C (PPC) Socium Media & Lashify
Intuitive Digital & Fly Precision B2C Campaign PPC US
SUMMARY
January Digital & Iconic NYC Born Brand Increase Revenue 68% Through Layered Bidding Strategy Perficient & Lake Champlain Chocolates Easter 2020 PPC Campaign Rakuten Advertising & Control4 Non–Brand Restructure and Scaling w/ Smart Bidding Rise Interactive & ATI Physical Therapy Drive Incremental New Patients with Paid Search Socium Media & Lashify Maximizing SEM During COVID-19
Socium Media creates integrated SEM, Paid Social and SEO campaigns with one purpose — to grow your business. We are an ROI-driven digital marketing agency, backed by data and executed from strategies developed over years. Lashify and Socium started their partnership in the middle of 2019. Lashify was involved in a wellrespected Google Accelerator program and was looking for a partner to transition to that could continue growing their business. Since the start of our engagement we have been humbled to be part of a major growing brand in the beauty space. Socium was founded in April of 2019 and has very quickly grown to a small, but mighty team based out of NYC. Clients range from start-ups, to smaller brands, to emerging brands, and all the way up to fortune 500 companies. Industry agnostic, where we really specialize in is driving paid media dollars towards a specific goal, whether that be new customers, increased orders, leads or return on investment indicators. Winning the BEST USE OF SEARCH - B2C (PPC) award would be an absolute honor and would help us to continue moving in our number 1 goal of being rated one of top digital marketing agency’s in the USA.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We thought this was a great campaign, Socium Media started with clear objectives and achieved impressive results. We loved how they combined search, social and YouTube, it was a great strategy and brilliantly executed!
1SEO Digital Agency & ARBDA Optimizations: The Backbone of a Strong Digital Strategy
USSEARCHAWARDS BEST USE OF SEARCH HEALTH CMI/Compas & Genentech
CMI/Compas & Genentech Xofluza Follow the Flu
SUMMARY
Reprise Digital & Endo Pharmaceuticals Empowering Men to Take on the Curve
Well-known as a media planning and buying organization for healthcare clients, sister agencies CMI Media, a WPP company, and Compas, Inc. together form the indispensable strategic marketing partner to the world’s game-changers in health, offering guidance at every level of marketing.
FINALISTS
REQ & American Sleep Association (ASA) New and Improved Information Architecture SalesX & Aeroflow Healthcare Breast Pump Campaign
CMI/Compas has brought many firsts to healthcare marketing and the Xofluza Follow the Flu campaign was no different. The campaign brought on unique challenges that forced the team to get out of their comfort zone and consider new partners and strategies that weren’t necessarily part of the agency’s “wheelhouse”. In a space where risk is typically avoided, the agency instead embraces innovation and pushes the boundaries to provide the best results to the client.
Schema App & AdventHealth Structured Data Campaign
JUDGES’ COMMENTS
Stella Rising & CCRM Family Building Campaign
We thought this was a very, high level campaign. It demonstrates great use of people resources and budget, and we loved that they addressed both the needs of the health care professional and the end user. A fantastic campaign and much deserved win.
Stella Rising & CCRM Sparking Hope for Families in 2019 and 2020 Victorious & Capsule Supplies A Dose of Success
USSEARCHAWARDS BEST USE OF SEARCH AUTOMOTIVE Trader Interactive SUMMARY FINALISTS Adthena Competitive monitoring helps Volkswagen turn a potential loss into a big gain Trader Interactive The Summer of the RV
Recreational Vehicles (RVs) is a competitive vertical in the US, with several auto marketplace sites, such as AutoTrader, and large, nationwide bricks and mortar stores, such as CampingWorld, also competing. The Trader Interactive Team took the approach that a strong focus on search was vital for us to grow and succeed, and a 6 month dev project, that concluded in August 2019 took place to work through all of the SEO and SEM issues that we’d identified. Despite SEM spend dropping 75% April-July, the initiative’s efforts resulted in record-breaking monthly performance numbers, with new records set in May and June, and projected for July. This award would be a validation of the work of the Audience Growth team, and would, quite frankly, provide publicity that reinforces Trader Interactive’s industry leadership.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This submission was incredibly well thought out and had all the right details to show the efficacy of the campaign. We found the user’s willingness to travel research particularly impressive and a very smart tactic. Very well done!
BEST USE OF SEARCH REAL ESTATE & PROPERTY Digital Third Coast & IPX1031 FINALISTS
SUMMARY
360i & Pulte Building an SEO Foundation for Growth
Our agency is dedicated to making a measurable difference for our clients.
Digital Third Coast & IPX1031 Quadrupled Visibility Year–over–Year Forthea & The Repipe Company SEO Drives 700% Increase in Leads Infront Webworks & We Are 307 Real Estate National Real Estate Campaign Stella Rising & Sea Glass Properties Driving Real Estate SEO Through Real UX Insights
When IPX1031 came to us, they were in a unique position. They were the overall industry leader with regards to volume, but their digital presence did not reflect their position in the market. They had never focused on SEO or Google Ads. They had competitors bidding on keywords that they weren’t bidding on. They had dozens of physical locations, without any local optimization or visibility. Not only that, but they weren’t utilizing digital to expand their market reach into areas without a physical presence. They needed a partner to help them break the business through the current plateau and reach new heights. The combined digital strategy, scalability across new markets, and continuous optimization produced dramatic, record-setting results: every month in the second half of 2019 was a new monthly record for new orders. Winning this award would acknowledge the benefits of a strong partnership between agency and client. IPX1031 is an example of a business who we grew alongside, who enacted the recommendations we made, and trusted us with more and more elements of their digital strategy as we provided month-after-month of tremendous results.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS A really creative and exciting approach to their goal which was executed perfectly. Great results and It was nice to see an entry that used paid and organic search to complement each other. Well done!
BEST USE OF SEARCH FMCG Reprise & Johnson & Johnson SUMMARY Reprise Digital partnered with Johnson & Johnson to develop an innovative and strategic way to tap into consumer search data to inform their product positioning on Amazon with the goal of driving improved organic visibility and sales.
NO SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED
The team’s utilization of search insights created new opportunities to improve organic visibility within Amazon and create stronger alignment between product positioning and consumer needs, ultimately leading to an impressive 19MM incremental impressions and 28% YoY improvement sales for optimized products. This campaign also allowed us to emphasize the importance of using organic search data to inform all business decisions. Reprise conducted exhaustive keyword research, not just to optimize for targeted terms, but to better understand consumers and their needs. While the impressions and sales driven by this approach validate the strategy, it is very meaningful to get recognition from industry colleagues around this innovative way of thinking.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS The scale and scope of this campaign was hugely impressive and led to strong results for a huge company in a very competitive space. The audience data was well thought out which was nice to see. A stand out winner and well deserved win.
FINALISTS 1SEO Digital Agency & Matthew Rathgeb Painting SEO: Applying A Fresh Coat Intuitive Digital & Oregon Trail Recovery Best Local SEO Campaign Logical Position & Allergy & ENT Associates SEO Local Campaign Nebo & Arrow Exterminators Growing Local Traffic via Geo–Specific Answers Sears Home Services & Merkle Growth in Local SEO Campaign Tombras & Orangetheory Fitness Orangetheory At Home Victorious & Boombox San Francisco Storage
USSEARCHAWARDS EAT.SLEEP.SEARCH.REPEAT. BEST LOCAL CAMPAIGN (SEO) Victorious & Boombox SUMMARY Boombox Storage is a tiny startup that serves the San Francisco Bay Area, a local market in which many residents live in small, shared spaces, with limited access to personal transportation. Boombox picks up residents’ items and brings them to storage – a transportation and storage solution, all in one. Calvin, the founder of Boombox Storage, came to Victorious with a new website, ready to take on his competitors. But he was competing against large marketing budgets fueled by recent closed rounds of funding, and he didn’t know how to beat them. He needed to increase his brand awareness, and beat his competition with a low lead acquisition cost. Victorious designed a custom campaign that focused on the seasonality of his business and targeted common storage pain points. Working closely with Calvin, Boombox Storage reached exciting levels of growth, quickly doubling keyword volume and monthly traffic. Currently on month 17 of a 3-year contract, we still see dramatic increases across the board. In the last 12 months, ranked keywords have increased 230% YoY and new users to the site have increased 346% YoY. These numbers translate directly into new business, with a 360% increase in online booking conversions on the site.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We felt this campaign was very well implemented, with a solid strategy and execution. Victorious achieved some really amazing conversion results and great growth from a low budget. Great work!
USSEARCHAWARDS EAT.SLEEP.SEARCH.REPEAT. BEST LOCAL CAMPAIGN (PPC) Tombras & Pilot Flying J SUMMARY FINALISTS Goodway Group & Kubota Farmbelt Equipment Creating Local Impact for a National Brand
From phones to furniture, coffee to cabinets - if you use it, it came from a truck. In a world without professional truck drivers: • Fuel stations will be empty in 1-2 days; • Food shortages will occur in three days;
Infront Webworks & Peak Structural Foundation Repair Local Campaign
• Retail deliveries will halt within one day.
LSEO.com & JPP Law Bankruptcy Leads
Professional drivers are the definition of “essential.” Pilot Flying J, the largest network of Travel Centers and Truck Stops in the United States, sought to digitally amplify this message with Tombras. By engaging professional drivers across Google Search,
Tombras & Pilot Flying J Thank You, Drivers
YouTube, and App Campaigns, we were able to drive localized store visits to Pilot Flying J Travel Centers nationwide, while also engaging with known CRM audiences to build brand loyalty and rapport among drivers. In leveraging the Pilot Flying J App, Tombras was able to offer exclusive benefits to professional drivers, measuring redemptions at Pilot Flying J Travel Centers nationwide to validate campaign performance. To achieve local visitation goals, Pilot Flying J enlisted the digital prowess of Tombras, a digitallyminded full-service agency built to “Connect Data and Creativity for Business Results.” The result? Over 450,000 campaign-attributable store visits during “Driver Appreciation Month,” bolstered by 164K offer in-app redemptions at Pilot Flying J locations.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We thought this was a brilliantly executed campaign. It was really ‘feel good’ campaign with clear goals and fantastic results for the client, that went beyond basics. Very well done!
BEST LOW BUDGET CAMPAIGN (SEO) Go Fish Digital & Parrot Bay Pools CATEGORY SPONSOR
FINALISTS Crunchy Links & Finbox Scaling Revenue and Crawl Budget Go Fish Digital & Parrot Bay Pools Diving Deep with a Shallow Budget
SUMMARY Parrot Bay Pools is a pool builder serving eastern North Carolina. Unhappy with their site’s performance after a recent website rebuild and without the budget to rebuild again, they reached out to Go Fish Digital with the objective to improve the SEO of their current site. When we began our work, Google Analytics hadn’t even been installed on the site. In just 7 months, we were able to outrank strong competitors for local and national terms and the site went from ranking on page 1 for 20 keywords to over 150 keywords in the region Parrot Bay Pools serves. From January to June 2020, organic sessions improved from 594 to over 15,000, and the goal conversion rate increased from 1.96% to 2.34%. This site is a great example of how even small businesses with small budgets can achieve big results. All it takes is an aggressive and focused keyword strategy and a team of dedicated SEOs to implement it.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This campaign did a great job, starting from scratch and educating the client along the way. Go Fish Digital achieved great results and it’s a great example of how a strategy can deliver when getting the basics right, and can really have a strong positive impact upon organic visibility.
BEST LOW BUDGET CAMPAIGN (PPC) 1SEO.com & Economy Drain Cleaning FINALISTS 1SEO.com Digital Agency & Economy Drain Cleaning & Plumbing Filling the Pipeline with Leads Beanstalk Internet Marketing & CattleTags Optimizing Until The Cows Come Home beMarketing & Green Terra Disposal Low Budget Dumpster Campaign LSM & Thompson Burton PLLC Google Search MLM Campaign Tombras & Kamado Joe Bayesian Learning for Low Budget Success
SUMMARY Since 2018, Economy Drain Cleaning & Plumbing, out of Prospect Park, PA, has specialized in providing drain cleaning services to the Greater Philadelphia area. Among strong competition in such a densely populated region, Economy Drain struggled to stand out, in part because of how new a company they were. Although we were limited by budget and unable to run LSAs, we were able to achieve astounding success for Economy Drain Cleaning & Plumbing. Not only did they substantially increase their Google Ads budget following this campaign, but they were also able to purchase two more trucks as they originally hoped. Through our innovation and collaborative efforts, we helped Economy Drain exceed all of their goals. After barely surviving, they are now thriving!
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This was a very cool and unique approach. We like the targeted marketing specifically for mobile and the discount campaigns ran. This is a great example of how a clear strategy and strategic thinking can win. Amazing work!
FINALISTS Aimclear & Recruitment SaaS Winning Via Strategic Integration CitizenNet & Magnitude Digital Butterfly Network: 2019 Holiday Campaign Investis Digital & Spalding Holiday Slam Campaign January Digital & Iconic NYC Fashion Brand MilliporeSigma Project Fetch Reprise & Coca-Cola North America Coca-Cola Holidays Delivers DTC Performance
USSEARCHAWARDS BEST INTEGRATED CAMPAIGN Stella Rising & Swiftwick SUMMARY Stella Rising is the top independent media, marketing services, and business consulting firm for rising star brands. Our client, Swiftwick, represents a true leader in their space, and we have been proud to drive stellar work in collaboration with them. Through high-quality standards and sustainable materials, Swiftwick crafts unparalleled socks for performance and comfort. Entering 2020, revenue goals were ambitious. Then, a dual crisis of a natural disaster and global pandemic hit, with severe ramifications for the brand. In order to exceed goals and deliver at a critical moment, we capitalized on a Good Morning America segment, layering digital media with traditional and creating significant revenue.
Stella Rising & Swiftwick Maximizing on Television Through SEM
Even when Swiftwick was negatively impacted by two disasters, the brand doubled down on its values during this challenging time, donating to medical and essential workers and committing to local manufacturers.
Tombras & FreshDirect Omnichannel Attribution for New Customer Acquisition
We are thrilled that our work supported their business in a meaningful way, and we are proud to help power Swiftwick.
Wild One & Metric Theory Cross–Channel Synergy: Helping Pets and Owners Improve Stay-At-Home Life
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This was a standout winner! A truly integrated and brilliant campaign, which was an incredible way to capitalize on the TV appearance. The strategy was superb and the execution proved to be exceptional by the results the agency has presented.
MOST Innovative CAMPAIGN (seo) Tombras & Lodge Cast Iron SUMMARY FINALISTS Mover Search Marketing & All Clients Coronavirus/COVID-19 Obtain Leads for Clients Campaign Path Interactive & Travel Client Dynamic Optimization, Dynamite Results Tombras & Lodge Cast Iron Striking While The Cast Iron Is Hot
The nation’s largest cast iron brand was ready to heat up their ecommerce game when nationwide stay-at-home orders made home cooking America’s new favorite hobby. Having recently built a $100MM foundry, Lodge Cast Iron partnered with Tombras to supercharge their ecommerce sales and tell the cookware iconic brand’s 120 year history. The SEO team was tasked to relaunch a new website with minimal loss in organic traffic and address the primary concern of first-time cast iron buyers - initial fears and misconceptions of cast iron cooking. We identified three audience segments and matched them against Google and Amazon search paths-to-purchase trends. These audiences became our muses for content creation. Using a custom content personalization engine, we successfully blended a best-in-class ecommerce user interface without sacrificing rich brand storytelling. Then the virus came. Online product reviews revealed an insight - Lodge Cast Iron was helping families come together during quarantine. Tombras adapted our content strategy amongst surging demand for new home cooking ideas, recipes and products. Lodge’s website saw unprecedented traffic as people seeking moments of stress relief began consuming our new content geared at home cooking trends like bread baking, casseroles, and family dinner Zoom calls.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This campaign demonstrated strong objectives and great innovation which delivered great results. It was a very detailed entry that nicely described the thought process that went into the project. We found the audience qualifier questions really interesting for delivering the right content to users. Very well done!
FINALISTS Croud & Shudder Driving brand awareness and ad recall with YouTube Audio Ads Cubic & Miami-Dade County Cubic Interactive Superbowl & Beyond Campaign Rakuten Advertising & Art to Frames Smart Shopping Split Test Rise Interactive & ATI Physical Therapy Drive Incremental New Patients with Paid Search SalesX & Aeroflow Healthcare Breast Pump Campaign Tombras & BioLife Plasma Services Plasma, Now More Than Ever
USSEARCHAWARDS MOST Innovative CAMPAIGN (PPC) Cubic & Miami-Dade County SUMMARY While traditional advertising platforms such as TV reach large audiences of potential customers, brands that seek the ability to offer targeted ads increasingly turn to digital spaces. Introducing Cubic Interactive - an innovative, fully integrated advertising and loyalty service. Designed for the digital age, Cubic Interactive connected transit agencies with brands seeking to reach new demographics, and generate additional revenue streams for agencies, while offering travelers an opportunity to subsidize travel costs. Providing brands with access to a captive transit audience through personalized ads on mobile devices deemed a significant source of additional revenue for agencies. Cubic Interactive allowed advertisers to tap into new, valuable audiences based on transit agencies’ rich traveler demographic data; engage with audiences through channels that go beyond traditional mass retailer or national advertising; engage with advertising content from brands and earn loyalty points that can then be turned into transit value (stored value or to buy products) and used to subsidize or pay for transit or redeem various in-app offers.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We thought this campaign had an interesting and ambitious concept, which in turn had an impressive outcome. Great job and a stand out winner in this category!
CATEGORY SPONSOR
FINALISTS Forthea & Acuren 277% ROAS for B2B Industrial Infront Webworks & Peak Structural Foundation Repair Campaign Merkle Inc. & Tarte Cosmetics Custom Kit November 2019 Nebo Agency & Buy-Rite Beauty Paid Search Restructure Drives Record High Results Rakuten Advertising & Control4 Non-Brand Restructure and Scaling w/ Smart Bidding Refinitiv Living in America
USSEARCHAWARDS EAT.SLEEP.SEARCH.REPEAT. Best PPC CAMPAIGN Tombras & Pilot Flying J SUMMARY Even in normal times, we’d all be helpless without truck drivers — grocery stores and hospital shelves would run out of stock, ATMs would be empty, landfills would start to overflow, and naturally, your online orders would be delayed. Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pilot Flying J, the largest network of Travel Centers and Truck Stops in the United States partnered with Tombras to help them execute their vision of becoming a primary support network for our nation’s essential professional drivers by anticipating their needs and engaging with them throughout their journey. Tombras pivoted on a dime to execute an omnichannel digital campaign. Pilot Flying J shifted into overdrive with new driver benefits, advanced sanitization measures, and fully stocked shelves with food and essential goods for long hauls. Together, we built Push4Points - a new rewards program built to help drivers keep America moving.
Rise Interactive & ATI Physical Therapy Drive Incremental New Patients with Paid Search
By adapting quickly and working as a team, Tombras helped drive nearly one million location visits to Pilot and Flying J locations and surpass our Push4Points membership goal. Winning this award would be one more way we can thank truckers for risking their personal health to do the hard and solitary job of keeping America moving.
SalesX & Aeroflow Healthcare Breast Pump Campaign
JUDGES’ COMMENTS
Stella Rising & Swiftwick SEM Campaign, 2020
This was a very solid application with clear objectives and well achieved goals. Tombras leveraged CRM and app engagement data for omnichannel campaign targeting and audiencespecific messaging taking them beyond the search engine results page.
Tombras & Pilot Flying J Keeping America Moving
CATEGORY SPONSOR
FINALISTS Directive Keyword adjustment leads to #1 spot for toughest keyword to rank for in insurance industry Forthea & The Repipe Company SEO Drives 700% Increase in Leads HigherVisibility & Allied Van Lines Moving Success with SEO Hive Digital & MFASCO First Aid Campaign Infront Webworks & We Are 307 Real Estate Real Estate Leads Campaign Merkle & Avocados From Mexico Avocado How-To Campaign Minerva & Blurb Providing A Creative Outlet During Challenging Times Tombras & Lodge Cast Iron Striking While The Cast Iron Is Hot Victorious & Conexwest Let’s Ship It! Victorious & Printivity A Blueprint for Success
USSEARCHAWARDS EAT.SLEEP.SEARCH.REPEAT. Best SEO CAMPAIGN Hive Digital & MFASCO SUMMARY Hive Digital not only emphasizes the quality of our work, ethics, and results, but also has a sincere focus on creating an inspiring culture that encourages employees to pursue their passions while the company pursues a client portfolio representing the change we wish to see in the world. Following our rebrand and conversion to a Benefit Corp, we have been transitioning to exclusively work with organizations that are making a positive impact in the world, inspiring our existing clients to adopt strategies that give back to their communities, and providing pro bono services for organizations such the Human Rights Foundation. With an amazing team of 13 employees (64% have been with the company for over 5 years), Hive Digital bills over $2 million in revenue a year with 95% client retention. With some of the most dedicated, loyal, and hard-working individuals found in our industry, it would mean a lot to our company and our team to be awarded the Best SEO Campaign. We feel this would further inspire our existing team and help us continue to attract the talent needed to scale our agency while holding firm to our core values
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We thought this was a highly effective campaign. Hive Digital kept the target audience at the front of their mind throughout and it demonstrated how a solid SEO campaign can improve traffic and revenue. Their tactics and execution led to beating massive rivals and fundamental results. Great work!
FINALISTS Directive Keyword adjustment leads to #1 spot for toughest keyword to rank for in insurance industry Forthea & The Repipe Company SEO Drives 700% Increase in Leads HigherVisibility & Allied Van Lines Moving Success with SEO Hive Digital & MFASCO First Aid Campaign Infront Webworks & We Are 307 Real Estate Real Estate Leads Campaign Merkle & Avocados From Mexico Avocado How-To Campaign Minerva & Blurb Providing A Creative Outlet During Challenging Times Tombras & Lodge Cast Iron Striking While The Cast Iron Is Hot Victorious & Conexwest Let’s Ship It! Victorious & Printivity A Blueprint for Success
USSEARCHAWARDS Best use of Content Marketing Children’s Health SUMMARY As one of the largest pediatric health care providers in the country, Children’s Health is a trusted source of information for patients and families. A big part of this trust is a result of the resources and advice it provides – content that informs and guides parents to confidently raise their children. In 2019, Children’s Health wanted to leverage its content to further its mission to make life better for children by providing clear answers and trusted resources to more families searching for pediatric health information online. This required a strategic, data-informed content marketing strategy focused on SEO to increase organic web traffic and establish Children’s Health as a reliable and engaging expert online. The results were remarkable. Children’s Health was able to increase its organic web traffic nearly 300%, increase its Google “answer box” placements by nearly 400%, increase its page views to more than 1 million – a first-ever – and increase engagement with content by more than 1 minute. All of this work allows Children’s Health to effectively carry out its mission and become an even more trusted resource for parents and families.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We appreciate the great work done as an in-house team to get this accomplished. In a sector where core algorithm updates have caused turbulence for many websites, this was a great entry that demonstrated an understanding of searcher intent, how to structure content to maximize visibility and drive success. Huge congratulations!
USSEARCHAWARDS Best use of PR in a Search Campaign Aimclear & LegitScript SUMMARY FINALISTS Aimclear & LegitScript Ground-Breaking CBD Study Drives Brand Awareness & Sales Clearlink, Performance Outreach Team Stephen King Campaign Digital Third Coast & US Foods Viral Food Delivery App Study
In 2019, Minnesota-based Aimclear advised and executed an integrated PR campaign hand-in-hand with our client, internet monitoring company LegitScript. Together we launched and optimized their groundbreaking CBD product quality study. Resulting PR coverage exploded LegitScript’s newly released CBD Certification service, driving report downloads, SEO results and a lucrative sales lift. Masses of people use CBD (cannabidiol) products to improve well-being. CBD’s meteoric rise created a “wild west” marketplace replete with players from genuine to downright nefarious. LegitScript makes the internet and payment ecosystems safer and more transparent through monitoring and certification of products in multiple high-risk categories. The burgeoning CBD market is ideal for LegitScript certification. LegitScript’s CBD product study uncovered massive product quality gaps and the presence of harmful, carcinogenic substances in common CBD products. Crisp journalist targeting drove an exclusive story with Bloomberg Media’s globally syndicated cannabis reporter, expanding to 160+ media placements. Earned media synchronized elegantly with supporting paid social marketing. Report downloads generated $1.4 million+ in influenced sales pipeline revenue. PRaugmented (or directly caused) conversions from SEO, direct traffic, and link referral traffic.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We thought this campaign was brilliantly done - well planned, well executed and it delivered some excellent results! Very well done!
FINALISTS
USSEARCHAWARDS Best use of Social Media in a Search Campaign Aimclear
1SEO Digital Agency & JBA Offroad Forging a New Path Online
SUMMARY
Aimclear From Prosperity to Pandemic: Budget Slashing Be Damned! Integrated Performance Marketing Saves the Day MilliporeSigma Project Fetch REQ & Allwell Senior YouTube Campaign The Media Image & Wander Beauty Leveraging Paid Search and Social For Greater ROAS Tombras & FreshDirect Omnichannel Attribution for New Customer Acquisition
Aimclear was retained by one of the world’s predominant specialty manufacturers, a direct to consumer seller. Products are heavily in the pop culture realm. The assignment was to use social performance marketing to sell/upsell new and existing customers, expand search campaigns to other mediums, grow global sales, and extract maximum revenue from integrated paid social and search - driven by search data. Our assignment was progressing swimmingly, with lovely success. Then COVID-19 arrived, presenting radical challenges including: • Holding client’s marketing system steady and even gaining through COVID-19 • Working around a COVID-dysfunctional international supply chain, which provides the products • Accommodating client’s need to cut media spend dramatically in light of COVID Our tactics definitively proved the value of integrating search and social by enabling an extremely lucrative paid social buildout, maintaining and adding over $7 million in revenue. We exceeded assignment parameters, including navigation of commercial realities surrounding the global pandemic. We helped increase revenue against goals whilst slashing media spend by 65%. Moreover, the media spend reduction was extreme enough that our client’s reallocation of funds helped avoid layoffs during COVID’s onset and propagation. The project is a strong success and we’ve been retained for another 12 months.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS What a great entry! Aimclear displayed very specific objectives and budget. We were impressed with their results and it was great to see how they related these back to defined goals. Fantastic use of social and a standout winner.
USSEARCHAWARDS EAT.SLEEP.SEARCH.REPEAT. Best use of DatA (SEO) Trader Interactive SUMMARY
FINALISTS TopSpot & Regal Plastics Data Driven Strategies Drive Sales for Regal Plastics Trader Interactive Driving SEO with Data
Trader’s small in-house team works across eight different vehicle verticals: Motorcycle, RV, Commercial Truck, ATV, Aero, Personal Watercraft, Snowmobile, and Equipment (Construction and Agricultural). In several of those markets, Trader Interactive is the industry leader. Despite this success, there was an understanding within the company that opportunities for improvement remained. This particular project leveraged responses from a question-based User Survey to execute a shift in an entire suite of sites. Results include content that better meets user needs on previously empty pages, rankings for those pages, an increase in leads, and a better user experience. Winning this award would show that a lean, hungry, in-house team that works together, asks the right questions, and does things the right way, can succeed even in the midst of a global crisis, for which no marketer can model.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We thought this entry demonstrated an excellent strategy with impressive results. Their objectives where clear and it shows they have done some great work, a stand out winner in this category!
FINALISTS DAC Leveraging Robust Data to Inform Smart and Agile Market Entry, Driving All-Time Record Growth During COVID-19 Nebo Agency & Brookdale Senior Living We Are Committed to You Rakuten Advertising & Camp Chef Halo Effect of YouTube Reprise LA & TV Streaming Client Solving the Brand Keyword Paradox Rise Interactive & ATI Physical Therapy Drive Incremental New Patients with Paid Search SalesX & Aeroflow Healthcare Breast Pump Campaign Statwax & 250ok Hitting New Customer Acquisition Highs with Data-Driven Paid Search Workday & Metric Theory Deep Data Knowledge Leads to Qualified Lead Growth
USSEARCHAWARDS Best use of DatA (PPC) Reprise LA & TV Streaming Client SUMMARY Our client is a major digital TV streaming and on-demand video provider (OTT) with over 30 million subscribers. Paid Search has been the cornerstone of their subscriber acquisition strategy, in which they have made significant investments over our 3+ years relationship. Extensive testing concluded our client’s brand keywords delivered low incremental CPA compared to other media tactics, but we did not want to sacrifice the value of brand keywords in a market where our client was often conquested by competitors. Our challenge became defending our client’s branded keywords, while minimizing investment in those same keywords due to their low incremental contribution. We needed Equilibrium – our proprietary solution that monitors SERP activity on pre-selected keywords and auto-activates branded keywords when competition is detected. Its successful activation yielded 98% savings year/year and helped us defend 160 brand keywords against 20+ competitors. Our team had never seen this type of synergy between SEM technologies, and we couldn’t believe we had found the answer to this persistent client challenge. The client was thrilled with the results, approving our new strategy within 15 minutes and signing on for the remainder of 2020. They continue to cite it as innovative thinking that helped evolve their business.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS The new brand strategy saved the client massively YOY in a 3-month span, reducing branded keyword spend. Reprise created a process where they were able to figure out when they needed to defend the brand, which was very innovative and cool. It achieved great results, well done!
FINALISTS Back Azimuth Consulting HREFLang Builder DeepCrawl Automator: SEO QA Fluency Groundbreaking Automation Technology in Enterprise–Level Advertising
USSEARCHAWARDS EAT.SLEEP.SEARCH.REPEAT. Best Software Innovation ONCRAWL SUMMARY
Kenshoo Impact Navigator
OnCrawl is a technical SEO platform powered by data science to help you make smarter SEO decisions. We help e-commerce websites, classifieds and online publishers to improve their organic traffic, rankings, and online revenues by opening Google’s black box.
OnCrawl Connecting the dots between technical SEO & data science
Driven by a strong tech spirit, OnCrawl gives search marketers easy access to the data they need by providing actionable dashboards and reports to support the entire search engine optimization process.
Optmyzr Campaign Automator: Innovation for Effective PPC
Winning this award would be a huge achievement for our teams. It would highlight our dedication to make data science and AI a key asset for technical SEO and to show that it is not just another buzzword from the search industry.
Shape Advertising Data Infrastructure
JUDGES’ COMMENTS
Squared.io Automation and Audit for Google Ads TrueClicks PPC Auditing and Monitoring built for Teams Yext Yext Answers
OnCrawl have created a really outstanding piece of software. The entry showed the complexity of their product and they have also been able to add so many new features in 2020 that this really deserves to be the winner in the most innovative software category.
USSEARCHAWARDS BEST PPC MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE SUITE Optmyzr FINALISTS Kenshoo Search Optmyzr Extraordinary PPC Management Tools Empowering the Paid Search Community Squared.io Automation and Audit for Google Ads TrueClicks PPC Auditing and Monitoring built for Teams
SUMMARY Optmyzr is a comprehensive, turnkey PPC management platform purpose-built for PPC marketers with moderate to deep paid search expertise. The Optmyzr PPC Management Suite replaces bloated point solutions at a fraction of the cost, using WYSIWYG layered scripts to remove barriers to PPC automation. More than 25 tools within Optmyzr provide insights fueled by machine learning. Optmyzr enables one-click optimizations for bids, budgets, keywords, and more to transform cumbersome PPC tasks and reporting into instant, automated processes. With an onboarding window of just minutes and less than 2 weeks to full account optimization, Optmyzr supports agency and in-house PPC teams to scale efficiently and quickly. The system empowers PPC pros to move from “tactician” to “advanced marketing strategist.” In Q1 2020, Optmyzr launched the weekly web series “PPC Town Hall” hosted by Co-Founding CEO Frederick Vallaeys. Initially created as a safe space for PPC professionals during the onset of the COVID pandemic, PPC Town Hall now focuses on highly strategic aspects of paid search and digital marketing to advance the industry in turbulent times. Creating community during crisis, Optmyzr empowers PPC pros to discover new successes, despite economic headwinds.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This was an excellent submission, with lots of innovation. The customer quotes were a nice touch and it was impressive to see the new features that go beyond simple automation, which were also supporting multi-platform. Outstanding work!
USSEARCHAWARDS EAT.SLEEP.SEARCH.REPEAT. BEST SEO SOFTWARE SUITE ONCRAWL FINALISTS MarketMuse MarketMuse Suite Milestone Schema Manager OnCrawl Connecting the dots between technical SEO & data science
SILVER AWARD seoClarity seoClarity SEO Platform
SUMMARY OnCrawl is a technical SEO platform powered by data science to help you make smarter SEO decisions. We help e-commerce websites, classifieds and online publishers to improve their organic traffic, rankings, and online revenues by opening Google’s black box. Driven by a strong tech spirit, OnCrawl gives search marketers easy access to the data they need by providing actionable dashboards and reports to support the entire search engine optimization process. Winning this award would be a huge achievement for our teams. It would highlight our dedication to make data science and AI a key asset for technical SEO and to show that it is not just another buzzword from the search industry.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We thought this was a very impressive entry. The value of the product for the cost is amazing, and it’s an excellent toolset with great insights and actionable metrics. Great work!
FINALISTS Back Azimuth Consulting HREFLang Builder Content Harmony Content Briefs INK INK For All Content Optimization Editor Kenshoo Search OnCrawl Connecting the dots between technical SEO & data science seoClarity Schema Builder Squared.io Automation & Audit for Google Ads Trisolute News Dashboard TrueClicks PPC Auditing and Monitoring built for Teams Yext Yext Answers
USSEARCHAWARDS BEST Search Software Tool SEOCLARITY SUMMARY seoClarity is only SEO & content optimization platform providing all SEO data, metrics & capabilities without artificial limits, built on the worlds largest proprietary data set of global keyword information. Providing clients with unlimited access to tracking, research, AI-assisted content optimization, site audits, analytics, third-party integrations and more, seoClarity’s AI insights go beyond data acquisition and reporting to becoming an indispensable member of enterprise SEO teams. Schema Builder at schema.dev is our gift to our beloved SEO industry: the easiest-to-use structured data code creation tool available anywhere.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This entry was very well thought out and truly shows the capabilities of the tool. We loved that it was free to use and will reach a lot of people. A truly exceptional entry, well done to seoClarity!
USSEARCHAWARDS BEST In-House Team T-Mobile Paid Search Team SUMMARY
FINALISTS T-Mobile Paid Search Team Trader Interactive Audience Growth Team
T-Mobile in-housed paid search, fully staffing the team by May 2019. This included onboarding 11 talented and driven paid search practitioners and taking over five different lines of business: T-Mobile Consumer, Metro By T-Mobile, T-Vision, T-MONEY and TMobile Home Internet. After in-housing the program, the paid search team flawlessly executed project after project and ultimately drove results that have been recognized across the organization. The team has navigated the ambiguity involved with starting a new team with no preexisting playbook and eagerly took this challenge head-on by building a narrative of their own. The team has challenged the status quo of how digital media was managed at TMobile and has led the charge in turning paid search into a true performance engine. Winning this award would provide the paid search team with recognition of their success and would further their credibility, both in the industry and internally at T-Mobile. This would only feed the ambition of the team to continue to build a truly world-class paid search program.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS The judges felt this team are clearly reshaping how digital media is being managed. Continually changing the status-quo and innovating. For such a young team, the results they’re achieving and the impact that’s having on the company is very impressive. Brilliant Execution!
USSEARCHAWARDS BEST Small PPC Agency AIMCLEAR SUMMARY There is sometimes spirited discussion amongst Search Awards judges whether the best PPC agency awards should go to pure play paid search firms or to an integrated agency also best at PPC… the old “tastes great/less filling” debate.
FINALISTS Aimclear SalesX
Such debate has no perfect answer. The marketing landscape is replete with solid PPConly agencies, yet the market is commoditized, driving cost, salaries, and expertise down. Some firms do good (but not mind blowing) PPC, yet lack the depth to execute credibly and tender industry influencing results. Aimclear® is a storied Minnesota-based agency that thrives year over year blending pureplay PPC excellence with intense brand-defining integrated marketing. It’s rare to find a small agency SO adept at PPC performance ALSO aligned elegantly with the whole marketing stack, including organic and creative. Even more critical in 2020 whilst brands navigate tumultuous times, Aimclear marketers include some of the sharpest PPC minds in the biz. In 2020, we fielded two leaders in the top 25 most influential list (total of 14 wins between them), and we’re developing PPC talent that is again reshaping how PPC works – standalone AND integrated. (You’ll be hearing a lot more about Tim, Tanner, Matt, and Krystal in months ahead).
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This was a complete entry and the details of clients and team contribution painted a great story. We greatly applaud the way they have handled the pandemic and they were a stand out winner in this category.
USSEARCHAWARDS EAT.SLEEP.SEARCH.REPEAT. BEST Large PPC Agency Metric Theory SUMMARY
FINALISTS Metric Theory Rise Interactive The Media Image
Metric Theory was born as a search engine marketing agency. Though the idea of “PPC” has grown to encompass a much larger paid media universe, our performance roots have been the force behind our growth to five US offices, hundreds of clients, and being recognized by Ad Age, Entrepreneur, Inc. Magazine, Search Engine Land, Digiday, and more. Every year, we’ve built on that foundation by continually investing in our people and our clients’ success. Those investments in both have been critical to weathering the challenges wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been at the heart of some of the most inspiring stories of our year. We’ve presented some of those to the award committee. In 2017, the same year that we made the Inc. 5000 list for the first time, Microsoft awarded us Rising Star Agency of the Year. Last year, we were fortunate to be recognized as SEM Agency of the Year from Search Engine Land against some stiff competition. Winning US Search Awards Agency of the Year was another goal we’ve had since starting this little shop. Thanks for considering us and for recognizing the best work in our field every year!
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We thought this agency were stand out winners in this category. They have demonstrated great growth during a tough time and have every reason to be pound of their success. Well done!
USSEARCHAWARDS EAT.SLEEP.SEARCH.REPEAT. BEST SMALL SEO Agency HIVE DIGITAL SUMMARY FINALISTS Blue Compass Hive Digital Infront Webworks LSEO SEO Team REQ TopHatRank
Hive Digital not only emphasizes the quality of our work, ethics, and results, but also has a sincere focus on creating an inspiring culture that encourages employees to pursue their passions while the company pursues a client portfolio representing the change we wish to see in the world. Following our rebrand and conversion to a Benefit Corp, we have been transitioning to exclusively work with organizations that are making a positive impact in the world, inspiring our existing clients to adopt strategies that give back to their communities, and providing pro bono services for organizations such the Human Rights Foundation. With an amazing team of 13 employees (64% have been with the company for over 5 years), Hive Digital bills over $2 million in revenue a year with 95% client retention. With some of the most dedicated, loyal, and hard-working individuals found in our industry, it would mean a lot to our company and our team to be awarded the Best Small SEO Agency. We feel this would further inspire our existing team and help us continue to attract the talent needed to scale our agency while holding firm to our core values.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This was an excellent entry showing a personalized and service focused approach with clients. This agency is doing great things, a stand out winner!
USSEARCHAWARDS EAT.SLEEP.SEARCH.REPEAT. BEST LARGE SEO Agency HigherVisibility SUMMARY FINALISTS
Founded in 2009, HigherVisibility is a full service digital agency with a core focus on SEO.
1SEO Digital Agency
Of our 67 team members, 31 make up our organic team which has flourished along a steady, double-digit annual growth trajectory and is HigherVisibility’s largest team, accounting for 73% of total revenues.
Go Fish Digital HigherVisibility Perficient Reprise Stella Rising Victorious
In 2019, our team drove phenomenal growth, not only for our business, but also for our valued clients. Yet, through the successes this past year, our organic team has met some unprecedented challenges, successfully overcoming these challenges has proven our greatest triumph to date and has laid the foundation for more sustainable, long-term growth.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This agency have demonstrated great results both for clients and in their own growth, They had very defined goals which were clearly achieved. They are doing some amazing work, well done!
USSEARCHAWARDS BEST SMALL Integrated SeaRCH Agency AIMCLEAR SUMMARY Uncertain times require certain marketing. Aimclear®, a storied Minnesota-based agency, thrives year over year through purposeful, strategic, introspect and reinvention.
FINALISTS Aimclear beMarketing Crunchy Links
Moving through our 14th year running transformative programs for brands, iconic to upstart, we know what it takes to be great. Whilst brands navigate tumultuous times, Aimclear methodically continues to smash barriers, developing a powerful stable of hybrid professionals - experienced integrated marketers. Our way is to field 360°, senior marketers, empowering them with specialized data and operational support. Sadly in 2020, prosperity collided with pandemic. Aimclear helped clients navigate devastating downturns- in several cases dramatically cutting media spends but holding clients’ revenue steady and even gaining. We also volunteered services help save businesses, offered free webinars in conjunction with our Chamber of Commerce, and our agency has been and remains 100% staffed. For clients’ lucky enough to be selling products/services tooled to thrive in this new world, we put our foot on the gas. So much marketing these days is cautious and weak- not Aimclear. We’re set for whatever the world throws at us. Our clients are getting the best Aimclear we’ve ever been.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We thought this was a solid, well written entry, with a great combination of PR, social, paid search and SEO. The investment in their employees has paid off, and this agency should be very proud!
BEST LARGE Integrated SeaRCH Agency TopSpot Internet Marketing SUMMARY
FINALISTS Search Laboratory Tombras TopSpot Internet Marketing
Headquartered in Houston, Texas, TopSpot has been helping companies plan, implement and measure their online marketing efforts for the last 16 years. We are a search engine marketing agency with an emphasis on accountability, transparency, collaboration, education and delivering meaningful results for our clients. Our Team Members work with their clients to develop customized digital strategies that deliver pre-qualified traffic, increase online & offline leads that result in sales growth. As a Premier Google Partner, Microsoft Channel Select Partner and a member of the Google Analytics Certified Partner Program, our culture is built around a quality focused approach-both in our work and customer service. TopSpot is incredibly proud of the work our Team does for our clients. It always means a great deal to be recognized for that work by our peers, especially at an event as prestigious as the US Search Awards.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This agency demonstrated positive results overall for their clients, as well an excellent holistic approach to clients and lots of care for the team which is great to see. Excellent results!