What We Do

Smart, hands-on expertise

Doing search engine marketing right takes strategy, planning, and ongoing attention to detail. Some say SEM should be automated. We disagree—automating important decisions yields mediocre results. In contrast, our experience shows that experienced hands-on practitioners who can make smart decisions on the fly, regardless of technology, create the best path to exceptional SEM results.

At Closed Loop, we help our clients get the most out of SEM, building and managing campaigns to align with business goals and combining up-to-the-minute knowledge with proven techniques and strategies.

Our search marketing engagements combine campaign build or rebuild with ongoing month-by-month management. We don’t believe in forcing clients into long-term contracts, so we don’t use them. Most of our SEM clients stay with us for years because they see measurable ongoing increases in ROI.

The right fit

We work with medium- to enterprise-sized clients for whom we can make a substantial impact. Most spend $20,000 or more on SEM each month and engage us to fully manage their search programs. To maximize ROI and reinforce the value of SEM, many of our clients also engage us for landing experience optimization.

What we're working on now

We recently took over paid search management for a large B2B enterprise software company. Since then, quarter-over-quarter paid search leads have increased 337% while cost per lead has dropped by 71%. Phase two of this project includes an extensive landing experience optimization component.

To strengthen a B2C client's SEM campaign, we implemented several advanced ad features. The client now occupies three key pieces of above-the-fold search engine real estate for many of its most strategic search terms—holding a top-of-page paid search listing accompanied by a Product Extension and a Google Product Listing. The stage is set for record-setting sales.

The power of SEM + LXO

Implementing SEM without optimizing your landing experience is like trying to clap with one hand. The search and landing experiences are parts of a whole—and to generate maximum ROI, they need to work together.

At Closed Loop, our integrated SEM + LXO team works together through strategy, execution and reporting to improve our clients’ results exponentially—yielding a serious competitive advantage.

Contact us about SEM and LXO >

End-to-end management and optimization

Anyone can produce a handful of landing pages that incorporate a few leading practices. But that’s a recipe for mediocrity in a competitive environment. If you want real results, landing experience optimization can’t be “set it and forget it.” Instead, landing experiences need constant attention. Great landing experience optimization requires thoughtful strategy, expert design, flawless execution, and the right technology platform.

At Closed Loop, we bring together design, technology, and marketing expertise to create landing experiences that maximize the power of your search strategy now and over time. Our fully managed custom LXO solutions—encompassing hundreds or even thousands of landing pages/experiences—help major B2B and B2C clients build real competitive advantage by addressing unique audience segments, traffic sources, business objectives and brand considerations.

Our LXO services also encompass custom-crafted landing experiences drawn from our UX expertise and fully produced to avoid ongoing IT drain. A self-contained testing and hosting environment maximizes security and cuts implementation time. And everything we do is designed to integrate easily with major CRM and lead management platforms (including Eloqua, Salesforce, and Marketo) and enterprise analytics tools such as Google Analytics and Omniture.

Finally, as part of each LXO engagement we perform rapid, ongoing iterative testing. We follow the data, responding to results and opportunities and adjusting the testing roadmap accordingly. Meanwhile, customized reporting and status updates keep you on top of the metrics that matter most.

The right fit

With LXO engagements, we prefer to act as an extension of a client’s team, working only where we can make substantial impact, increasing conversions by 20% or more in the first two rounds of testing. New clients typically see an increase of 20 to 100% in conversion with no loss in lead quality.

Our LXO clients, which include medium- to enterprise-sized companies in multiple industries, each spend at least $30,000 per month on online media and engage us to fully manage their landing page programs. To maximize ROI and reinforce the value of LXO, many clients also engage us for search engine marketing.

What we're working on now

We’re starting Phase 5 of a combined SEM+LXO project for a longtime client. The ongoing engagement has already doubled conversion rates and produced millions in incremental revenue.

We recently launched a new LXO initiative for a major B2B cloud software company. First-round test results show a 29% increase in lead conversions for branded search-term traffic and a 56% increase for nonbranded search-term traffic.

Seeing through the customer’s eyes

Want to validate concepts before you build? Compare options and select the most effective? Uncover hidden opportunities and competitive challenges? Closed Loop research and testing services hold a mirror up to new and existing approaches, revealing what works, what doesn’t, and how to make the changes that get results.

Closed Loop research and testing engagements cover a range of customer experiences—online, mobile, and real-world interactions and how the customer moves among them. Our projects range from quick, agile, iterative tests to deep research studies incorporating multiple tools and methodologies.

Research and testing can include one or more of the following services:

• Eye tracking
• Usability testing
  
• Heuristic reviews
  
• Conversion optimization reviews
  
• Information architecture research and testing
  
• Field studies
  
• Competitive analysis

The right fit

Research and testing clients typically come to us with a major strategic question about customers or products. Early engagement in a project lets us recommend a research approach that delivers the best possible intelligence. Sometimes this means straightforward usability testing; other times we’ll approach a question using multiple methods. Either way, clients typically budget at least $10K for this type of engagement.

What we're working on now

We just finished a rapid investigative user research project for a software provider, uncovering several ways to improve how the company promotes and delivers its free trial software. Changes are in process now and are expected to raise installation rates significantly.

We recently conducted a study of a major financial services company’s account creation process. The research included live moderated usability testing, eye tracking, and user interviews.

At Closed Loop we collaborate with you to identify, prioritize, and implement powerful, memorable digital experiences that engage customers and drive profits.

UX strategy and design projects are in-depth consulting engagements tailored to fit the goals of each client. In the UX strategy phase, we use multiple visioning and analysis practices to identify opportunities and prioritize those with the highest impact. This stage can include services such as expert reviews, business case creation, stakeholder presentations, test plan creation, financial modeling, and roadmap development.

In the design phase, we use human-centered design methodologies to create the solution or experience indicated by strategy results. This can include services such as experience map creation, wireframe and prototype development, and high-fidelity design.

That’s where many UX agencies stop. But we don’t think the job is done until an experience is launched and measured. So we carry each project through to launch—or at least as close as we can get. Where possible, we also use iterative testing to refine the user experience and gain additional business benefit.

The right fit

Our UX strategy and design clients are interested in discovering key business opportunities and solving complex, wide-ranging UX challenges. Some of these engagements are standalone projects spanning months; others are retainer-based relationships lasting years. We limit the number of concurrent UX strategy and design clients to ensure that each receives our complete attention.

What we're working on now

For a major multichannel retailer, we performed an in-depth study of a specialized ecommerce process—combining real-world insights from onsite ethnographic research with online competitive analysis and heuristic reviews. Our findings led to multiple recommendations, from small design tweaks that yielded major effects to blue-sky visions for the future.

A Fortune 100 B2C financial services company engaged us to redesign its global site navigation to improve both customer experience and business return. To identify opportunities and build the business case, we conducted financial modeling and competitive testing, then presented results and recommendations. The design phase was fed by input from demographic research, information architecture testing, and multiple rounds of iterative usability tests on functional prototypes. We shepherded the navigation through to launch on the live site, where it continues to far outperform the original.