One of the most innovative search engine marketing firms: 180fusion

“We drive excitement, we strive for excellence, we create adoration.”

180fusion is run by a team of seasoned software and internet executives headquartered in California with its Center of Excellence in Utah. 180fusion has been recognized as providing digital marketing products and services to thousands of clients across the globe. Its suite of integrated products include SEM, National and Local SEO, PPC Management, Mobile Search, and Social Media Marketing to help SMB’s to Fortune 1000 companies succeed online.

In conversation with Andy Mentges, CEO

Why was the company setup?
180fusion was founded in 2010 to capitalize on the fast-growing search engine marketing space, with the goal of helping small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) and enterprise organizations navigate the challenging and complex world of search engines, social media, and mobile technologies to increase sales by driving qualified traffic in a profitable way. We saw an opportunity in the marketplace from sitting on the other side of the table. Through various companies I was involved in, we looked to hire several consultants and agencies and were never really satisfied with how they aligned with our business objectives. We were always locked into long-term contracts with very minimal transparency and poor communication. 180fusion was built with best-of-breed talent who have a strong business acumen as well as domain expertise. It is a marathon, not a sprint for us, but we are in this for the long term, just like our clients.

Tell us about your first product that was launched. Our first product launched was Pay-Per-Click Management to ensure that our customers’ accounts were optimized to align with their key performance indicators. We chose not to be vertical-specific, and doing so has allowed us to track data across thousands of clients by dialing in our own internal formula for best practices.

What do you feel are the reasons behind your products’ popularity?
As more and more users gravitate online, there is a lot of fray in terms of the best strategy out there. Luckily our track record, number of case studies and success stories allow us to stand apart from the saturation in the market. The barrier to entry can be very low in our field. We have made sure to segment our team members to truly be the best at their particular crafts as opposed to “jacks of all trades.” The market is dictating for all businesses to be online in some way, shape or form. We provide the execution layer and have the focus to align with a company’s objectives to first show proof of concept and then scale.

If you had to list five factors that have been/are the biggest assets to your organization, what would they be and why?
Team: The company hires strong candidates who are passionate about digital marketing. Its Fulfillment Center of Excellence is located in a technology hub, which specializes in web fulfillment and is within 20 minutes of three major universities and more than 100,000 students.

Training: A focal point for 180fusion. It offers an in-depth introductory course for all new hires, which covers: processes; product knowledge; company infrastructure, tools and resources; and fulfillment strategies and techniques. This initial training is followed by ongoing training, including Google visits and certifications.

Technologically advanced and efficient infrastructure: 180fusion has invested substantial time and money in developing a suite of technologies that improves customers’ experiences and provides scalable business processes. Taken together, these systems underpin all the key operational processes of the company and provide a competitive advantage in terms of speed and effectiveness of execution for customers. Overall, the infrastructure streamlines processes, facilitates revenue growth, aids in fulfillment execution, and ultimately drives scalability of the business.

Recognized thought leadership in digital marketing: We are a contributor to Wired, Forbes, Search Engine Journal, Social Media Today and YFS, and we have been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur and on CNN, among others. We have been guest lecturers at USC Marshall School of Business, Georgetown University and University of Arizona Eller Business School on the topics of digital marketing.

180fusion is a Premier Google Partner: 180fusion’s partnership with Google gives it a competitive edge, including unique insights into web, social and mobile marketing that translate into increased effectiveness in customers’ digital ad spend.

“180fusion has been vetted by Google, and this is a company that has very good, strong, and clear business practices and has demonstrated increased account performance, and increased customer satisfaction.” Heather Wilburn, Founding Member, Google AdWords Team

What kind of responses have you received from your consumers over the years?
Over the years, we have been pretty lucky to work with some very notable enterprise clients downstream to a lot of SMB clients needing to have visibility online and rely on us to grow their business.

Do you have any new products ready to be/getting ready to be rolled out into the market?
Yes. Last year we became a certified partner with the Yahoo Gemini platform, so we have been really expanding on native advertising as well. With Deluxe we have recently added email marketing as a service (EaaS) as well as a social media promotion service and programmatic display advertising. It is really exciting to be able to offer a full funnel approach for digital to help close the loop and extend the lifetime value of our clients’ customers.

Where do you see you and your company a couple of years from now?
I see more growth and diversity across our brand and platform. I think we will be able to segment into some vertical-specific services as well as particular geographies (not only in the United States). There is a great need for our services in other countries, where the market is less saturated.

“I would say to choose your strengths and amplify them, choose your niche and be the best at that.”