In 2016, when Intellitonic cofounders Alex Bruner, Courtney Rambo, and Jared Keller opened for business in Bellingham, Washington, it was with the lofty goal of building an ethical digital marketing agency set on amplifying organizations making a positive impact in the world. 

Bruner, who managed SEO, SEM/PPC and social media for Chicago’s Tribune Company prior to helping open Intellitonic, said the agency has stayed true to its roots. 

“Our mission since inception has been to create clarity around a somewhat ‘mystical’ set of services, SEO and PPC, for our clients by being radically transparent in results and billing, while at the same time creating a safe and rewarding workplace for our employees,” he said. “Intellitonic was our answer to what we saw as an often unscrupulous and intimidating industry for clients, and a cash grab for business owners rather than a sustainable operation where everyone got a piece of the pie.” 

In this ethos of sharing the wealth, Bruner said they’ve had plenty of success partnering with other agencies over the years. In fact, being able to view different processes, pitches and project management styles has ultimately helped them get more business.

“We have clients we wouldn’t have been able to win on our own because we’re so focused on digital marketing rather than a full-service offering,” Bruner added. “Given this, we would have been more open to partnering sooner and more often and/or finding marketing networks like MAGNET.” 

With clients located around the globe and the growth of the agency in both size and proficiency, he said collaborations with companies such as MAGNET have enabled Intellitonic to fine-tune their criteria when it comes to figuring out whether a client is the right fit for their particular brand of expertise. 

For example, they have utilized a checklist from another MAGNET member that includes “green flags” such as whether the client has a main point of contact in the marketing department, or if their industry or product fits within Intellitonic’s values. Pricing, the number of the client’s team members, and whether there might be baggage from past agency experiences are also among the line items discussed before getting to the proposal stage.

Before signing on, would-be clients are made aware Intellitonic utilizes a number of strategies for success. 

“Over the years, we’ve positioned ourselves as a digital marketing agency, but as search and AI have become more and more prominent, we’re repositioning ourselves as a search-first marketing agency,” Bruner explained. 

This means basic search principles can be applied to all of their tools including SEO, paid search, Amazon and web development. Along the way, Intellitonic has developed products that are complementary to that objective, including CRO and ADA audits, and web design incorporating all of the above. 

“Overall, with any of our strategies, our goal is to support our clients in streamlining their story on page and bringing the right traffic to the site,” Bruner said. 

As with any other successful business, Intellitonic has made course corrections when necessary, including temporarily shelving a software project focused on “site health” during the pandemic when new and existing clients needed to pivot rapidly and refocus efforts on online visibility and sales. A few years later, a digital wayfinding program created in partnership with local tourism organizations was found to have a “long and convoluted” sales cycle in its initial trial and thus paused. 

Intellitonic’s willingness to evolve and ability to remain agile have also resulted in the addition of successful products and services to agency offerings. Bruner said they’ve packaged existing tools and skill sets to implement a conversion rate optimization (CRO) offering, and have developed a number of tactics and a handful of standalone products to accommodate for changes in online search to ensure client visibility no matter where users are searching.

“These are great,” Bruner said, “because they also raise the value of purchased media since the fixes within these new products generally create higher conversions for anyone visiting a website.”

A lot goes on behind the scenes to help Intellitonic successfully market their clients’ businesses and products, but the agency’s technical ability is only part of what makes the digital marketing agency stand out. Clear and transparent communication with clients and partner agencies is also of utmost importance.

“We tend to know when clients are happy working with us when they ask a lot of productive questions, tell us deliberately that they are happy, ask to add new services, or add in additional budget because we’ve validated their ROI expectations from the first run of services,” Bruner said. “We also have monthly check-ins with account managers for reporting calls, and founder-level calls and emails throughout the year to take temperature.”