eNanny Source

Clickable Product Used: Clickable Solutions and The Clickable Pro Tool

Industry: Online Nanny Agency (SMB)

Problem Solved:
Steve Lampert began his nanny-sourcing agency as an offline business in 1994, and has run it as a purely online business since 2001. After running a simple set of campaigns with automated bid management tools and agency support, Steve decided to run his own search marketing effort. To ease the transition, Steve turned to Clickable and worked extensively with Matt Mack from Clickable Solutions. After receiving premium support - including conversion tracking implementation; campaign clean up and creation; and customized reports - Steve began managing his own campaigns with The Clickable Pro Tool. Many of his suggestions for ways that Clickable could help him be more profitable while saving time, including a tool for managing keywords across search networks, have been integrated into the product.

The Business:
Steve Lampert of eNanny Source is a Web pioneer. He began his brick-and-mortar nanny-sourcing agency in 1994, and realized the potential of having an online presence way back in 1996. (These were early days of the Netscape browser .) By 2001, Steve moved his entire business online. His model was a classic one: use Internet technology to "skip the middle man" and help families find nannies and au pairs without paying hefty fees. Always on the look-out for new opportunities, Steve realized the potential of search marketing just as quickly as he realized the potential of the World Wide Web, and began advertising online over six years ago.

Moving On From Automation And Agencies:
For many years, Steve didn't manage his search campaigns by himself. When he began, he used basic software utilities to manage his bidding. But, as his business grew and his campaigns became more complicated, an automated tool was no longer sufficient. He turned to advertising agencies for support, with mixed results: some did wonderful work, others were disappointing. Eventually, he decided to try running his own campaigns, for two important reasons. The first was cost. "In this economy," he explained, "I need to be frugal."

Steve's second reason was a simple desire to be involved in every important area of his business. "I have a fair amount of expertise in virtually every area of my business, but the PPC campaigns were a total mystery to me. For a business owner to be unaware of the details of a large expense, and not know a thing about what was going on other than the top-level numbers - that's not a good position in my opinion. I wanted to learn how this worked, and thought I could find some efficiencies once I understood what was going on." To help ease the transition from out-sourcing his PPC efforts completely to managing them himself, he turned to Clickable Solutions.

A Trusted Advisor With A Personal Touch:
Steve was introduced to Clickable by Bill Masterson, Senior Director of Sales. "I was very impressed with Bill. I could feel the passion he had for the company." As Bill explained to Steve, Clickable Solutions can provide anything from complete day-to-day management to basic launch support. As Steve's needs changed, he adjusted the level of support he received. Eventually, he moved on to managing his own accounts in The Clickable Pro Tool, while still receiving custom reports from Matt Mack, his Assist partner. The personal touch didn't go away with his move to The Pro Tool: "Another thing that really attracted me was the openness, the transparency. That comes through in everything you do. When I saw the invitation to visit your office anytime, that means something. It communicates a message that I think is important." Unsurprisingly, Steve has been an active customer and his feedback has helped Clickable develop a number of new features. One of those was the Keyword Filter and Bulk Edit tool .

Managing in Bulk and Saving Time:
"Not only did you guys jump at fixing every issue that came up, but every time I've had a suggestion, I was told that it's coming in the next edition." One of his suggestions was for a tool that would allow him to manage his keywords across all of his campaigns and search networks at once. A few months after he first suggested it, the Keyword Filter and Bulk Edit tool was included in the next upgrade to The Pro Tool. With every release, Clickable is doing a better job of helping Steve meet his goals of control costs and finding new opportunities for revenues. "I've gotten everything I want out of Clickable, both technically and from a service perspective." Nonetheless, we hope the suggestions keep coming in.

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