We are humbled to share that AIMCLEAR was awarded THREE(!) 2016 US Search Awards. AIMCLEAR was named Best Large Integrated Agency, Ad Operations Analyst Mitch Larson was recognized as a top Young Search Professional and we took home the trophy for Best Use of PR in a Search Campaign!
AIMCLEARians, along with agency and in-house friends and peers, celebrated the digital marketing industry at the awards ceremony last night at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Conferred annually at Pubcon, the US Search Awards celebrate the best SEO, PPC and content marketing agencies, campaigns, individuals and tools. A crop of respected industry judges whittle down hundreds of entries to a shortlist and ultimately select winners in 29 categories. 2016 marks the fourth year the awards have been granted.
Read on for a closer look at AIMCLEAR‘s winning entries, as well as the complete list of 2016 award recipients.
Best Large Integrated Agency
AIMCLEAR was named the Best Large Integrated Agency, an honor all-the-more humbling considering the company we were in. The award is presented to a company with 26 or more employees that demonstrates consistently great understanding and use of online and offline activity. In addition to excellent marketing outcomes, the award emphasizes agency culture, turnover and revenue.
The judges recognized AIMCLEAR‘s exceptional client service across diverse disciplines as well as our pioneering work in advanced psychographic targeting, filtered retargeting and influencer distribution; our fanatical focus on each team member’s development and personal brand; and cultural perks such as wine tastings, wilderness treks, baseball and hockey tickets, pedicures and laundry facilities, among others. Our work, reputation, thought leadership, environment and retention efforts have increased our head count and boosted revenue.
We work hard for our clients every day, and have fun while (and after) doing it. We’re so grateful the outcome is an honor such as this. Thank you, US Search Awards judges!
Young Search Professional
The Young Search Professional award recognizes a talented search marketer 25 years old or younger. AIMCLEAR Ad Operations Analyst Mitch Larson, 24, was one of two honorees this year (congratulations to fellow recipient Erika Schmidt of Intuitive Digital).
Mitch exemplifies everything AIMCLEAR seeks in upstart agency professionals. Inventive, confident and hard-working, Mitch has helped shape the AdOps role and evolve the company in terms of processes, quality control and time management, among other areas. He runs client campaigns, delivering against key performance indicators in mashed-up paid search, social, display, shopping, retargeting, attribution analytics and creative elements.
Mitch consistently delivers outstanding marketing results. He led a modern, industry-dominating paid search campaign for a large international moving company that increased conversion rate by 101 percent and decreased CPA by 8 percent. The campaign resulted in a revenue increase of 20 percent. The client remarked: “Working with Mitch and AIMCLEAR has been one of the best partner relationships I have experienced in 20+ years of business.”
HUGE congratulations to Mitch on this well-deserved award!
Best Use of PR in a Search Campaign
Recognizing outstanding public relations integration into a search campaign, the Best Use of PR award was presented to AIMCLEAR for an initiative focused on propelling our business in the hyper-competitive marketing industry. We rooted AIMCLEAR‘s SEO in classic PR mechanisms and combined a variety of tactical elements to reach our objectives of driving search interest, SERP prominence, earned media, traffic and conversion (i.e. new business). Those tactics include:
- Owned media, including our “Social Marketing Cluster Facts” video roundup and “Psychographic Targeting Hot House” blog series
- Paid and earned media
- Speaking pitches and engagements
- Trade show booths
- Award entries and wins
- Targeted amplification of the above to influencers and potential clients, including journalists, bloggers, digital marketing conference organizers and speakers, and marketing pros
The campaign resulted in an increase of “AIMCLEAR” web searches and resulted in significant earned media, most notably, a Wall Street Journal article describing our journalist-targeting method. We directly traced a 53 percent revenue lift to boldly executed classic PR tactics mashed with psychographic amplification.
2016 US Search Awards winners
Digital marketing is an incredible industry characterized by dynamic work, plus amazing, supportive people who happen to have some of the sharpest minds out there — and generously share that knowledge. Hardly a day goes by during which we’re not awed and inspired by our peers. Sure, we’re competitors, but we’re also family. We celebrate each others’ wins, help each other through tough times and give credit where credit is due. In that spirit, congratulations to our fellow award winners:
- Best Use of Search – Retail: Point It & Microsoft Store
- Best Use of Search – Finance: Catalyst & HSBC
- Best Use of Search – Travel/Leisure: Wordstream & insightCuba
- Best Use of Search – Third Sector: LSEO.com
- Best Local Campaign: Wordstream & Firstline Locksmiths
- Best Low-budget Campaign: BMC Software
- Best Use of PR in a Search Campaign: AIMCLEAR
- Best Use of Social Media in a Search Campaign: Performics
- Best Use of Video in a Search Campaign: 360i & Malibu Rum
- Best Integrated Campaign: Barefoot Proximity & Cincinnati Children’s
- Best Mobile Campaign: PMG
- Best PPC Campaign: Nebo
- Best SEO Campaign: Go Fish Digital
- Best Use of Content Marketing: Go Fish Digital & 1776
- Innovation – Campaign: PMG
- Innovation – Software: Trisolute Software
- Best PPC Management Software Suite: AdAlysis
- Best SEO Software Suite: Searchmetrics
- Best Search Software Tool: Botify
- Best In-house Team: MilliporeSigma Digital Acquisition Marketing Team
- Best Small Integrated Agency: Rogue Marketing Agency
- Best Large Integrated Agency: AIMCLEAR
- Best Small PPC Agency: SalesX
- Best Large PPC Agency: Point It
- Best Small SEO Agency: Go Fish Digital
- Best Large SEO Agency: Stone Temple Consulting
- Young Search Professional: Erika Schmidt, Digital Strategist & PPC Warrior, Intuitive Digital; and Mitch Larson, Ad Operations Analyst, AIMCLEAR
- US Search Personality: Eric Enge, President, Stone Temple Consulting
- Lifetime Achievement Award: Brett Tabke
We were honored to be among such talent last night. It was an absolute pleasure celebrating with each of you. The energy, vibrancy, creativity and innovation you bring to the industry is what makes digital marketing so special. Although it’s mostly company names that appear on the trophies, where would we be without the people that make the hardware possible? Thank you to our employees for their hard work, our clients for making this success possible and our peers for making this industry what it is. Cheers to you, marketers!
