adQuadrant Agency Overview Q&A with Tom Elliott

I sat down with Tom Elliott, adQuadrant’s Director of Business Development and resident #force here at the office, to get his take on our company, what we’re doing and where it’s going.

Q: So tell us what adQuadrant is in your own words?
A: adQuadrant is a boutique digital ad agency that specializes in new customer acquisition for our clients.

Q: What types of clients are you working with?
A: Right now, we’re entertaining all types. Recently we’ve been accepting RFPs from retailers looking to use Native Advertising to drive customers to both brick and mortar locations and online. Facebook and Twitter have done such a great job creating new advertising units that allow us to get super creative with our B2C “click to call” and “click to website” initiatives. If I had to create two main buckets for the types of clients we work with they’d be those who’ve already engaged with Online advertising and know their target metrics, and those who are still trying to figure out how to make it work. Many B2C service providers, national and local, and of course, mobile apps. There seems to be an endless supply of new apps being launched that are able to have a lot of success early due to all the app-friendly native advertising channels.

Q: What would you say is adQuadrant’s forte?
A: Great question. Definitely acquiring users, generating leads or calls using Facebook and Twitter. It seems like most companies that we’re talking to are buying leads or working with publishers and haven’t figured out how to make certain channels of media work for them. We’ve been able to solve them quickly.

Q: How does your company work with clients?
A: Well, we have two types of clients. Some require strategy and planning prior to launching performance-focused advertising campaigns. We have those folks on a monthly retainer. The clients who were already advertising when they were introduced to us, hit the ground running with a short setup to campaign launch turnaround. Some clients can be launched the same week they sign up for a test campaign while some can take a little bit longer if we are recommending that new landing pages and creative needs to be in place prior to launch. These clients are paying us a monthly minimum or percentage of ad spend depending on their needs.  If we’ve never worked with a company before, we stay focused on launching 1-2 new advertising channels before opening up the floodgates. Even still, each client is different. Some clients have a larger appetite than others, while others have a lower threshold for risk because they’ve never advertised online.

Q: Do you work with agencies?
A: We’ve just started to explore new agency partnerships. Warren and I have begun reaching out to some of our long standing contacts to begin scheduling meetings. He’ll be traveling to Europe the first two weeks of September for meetings while I stay focused here in California. Then we’ll be meeting up in New York the last week of September, spending a week a week there meeting with different folks.

Q: How quickly does it take for adQuadrant to launch a campaign?
A: From the time the insertion order is signed, campaigns can be launched within 7-14 days if the client doesn’t don’t require an entire marketing strategy built from the ground up. Some clients require a thorough marketing strategy to launch a campaign, which can take 30-90 days. If a client is already advertising and they have already done some legwork to create landing pages, creatives, setting up search or display, they are able to get started with us very quickly.

Q: Are there any guarantees?
A: Sure. We won’t bring on a client we don’t believe we can help. We will always set realistic expectations for our clients before working with them, even if that means addressing the hard truths that sometimes turns new business away. When we sign a new client, we do everything possible to achieve their target acquisition goals, as fast as possible.

Q: What types of clients would you say are your favorite to work with?  Why?
A: That’s a tough question to answer. Two types of clients for different reasons. We love clients who already know their business inside and out. They understand their metrics and what the CPA metric needs to be at in order for them to test a new advertising channel. We can hit their target metrics much faster because they already know who their target audience is, what has worked and what hasn’t. Our other favorite is clients who don’t know what their metrics are because they haven’t advertised yet, but they’re well-funded and willing to partner with us long-term to find out what those metrics are. That’s where we can create some excellent before and after case studies.

Q: How do you measure results on the media campaigns you run for your clients?
A: Before every campaign starts, we set clear KPIs. For every client, the KPIs are different. With most clients, it all comes down to their target CPA and after we have worked with them for awhile, it comes down to the Lifetime Value of the customer. If we can hit their target CPA, we are able to scale their monthly budget month after month.

Q: With so many different types of client projects going on, how does your team stay motivated to perform with every one of them?
A: I’ve known Warren and Arjun for a long time and they’ve  always attracted awesome people to their organization. The adQ agency team is super talented, from project management to creative, strategy to campaign management. Everyone takes a high level of pride in their work and how it impacts the overall success for each project. And at the end of the day, clients always come first, large or small. It’s all about creating another success story we can use to attract more likeminded companies to our portfolio. Companies looking to be the best in their respective niche.

If you’re interested in learning more about adQuadrant, shoot Tom an email tom(a)adquadrant.com or connect  on LinkedIn.