Drew Brosnan

Room VI: the lobster telephone

Four big logos and a phone that reports back

Engagement
Vertical Nerve
Role
Account Manager to Senior Account Manager
Period
2011 → 2013
Location
Dallas, TX

Vertical Nerve was a Dallas search and ecommerce agency, now part of Medium Giant. I came in as an account manager, left as a senior account manager, and ran SEM, shopping, Facebook, and display for clients including KB Home, MetroPCS, ING, and Huawei. The parts I liked best were the two systems I built: automated reporting through platform APIs, and call tracking that tied phone leads back to the ads that caused them.

The landscape

Agency accounts live on reporting, and reporting by hand eats the hours that should go to optimization. Several clients sold over the phone, so the click was only half the story. Account health had to be visible at a glance, across a team of account executives, for clients in the US, the Netherlands, and China.

The approach

I project-managed the account executive team on new campaigns and the optimization of existing programs. Then I built the tooling: an automated internal reporting system on the ad platform APIs, so account status updates came from the data rather than a spreadsheet, and a network of unique phone number banks so tests could be tracked back to calls. The results of each test fed changes to the SEM programs across Google and Bing.

  • Project-managed an account executive team building new campaigns and optimizing existing programs.
  • Built an automated internal reporting system on the platform APIs for at-a-glance account health.
  • Integrated unique phone number banks so campaign tests could be tracked back to calls.
  • Ran SEM across Google and Bing, plus shopping, Facebook, and the Google Display Network.
  • Promoted from Account Manager to Senior Account Manager.

The projects

  1. 01

    Reporting from the APIs, not the spreadsheet

    An automated internal reporting system built on the ad platform APIs, so every account’s health showed at a glance without an account executive assembling it.

    • Pulled campaign data through the platform APIs on a schedule.
    • Surfaced account health as status updates the whole team could read.
  2. 02

    Tracking tests back to phone calls

    A network of unique phone number banks tied campaign tests to the calls they produced, for clients who sold over the phone.

    • Assigned number banks per test so calls carried the campaign that caused them.
    • Fed the call outcomes back into SEM changes.
  3. 03

    SEM for KB Home, MetroPCS, ING, and Huawei

    Search, shopping, Facebook, and display programs across Google and Bing for a small team’s ecommerce and telecom clients in three countries.

    • Spearheaded the SEM strategies across search engines and ad networks.
    • Managed multi-channel programs for KB Home and MetroPCS in the US, ING in the Netherlands, and Huawei in China.
    • Promoted to Senior Account Manager after results in SEM, SEO, and display
The phone was the half of the funnel nobody was measuring, so I wired it in.

The exhibits

  1. Exhibit I Account health at a glance, pulled from the APIs.

The results

  • 4 named clients KB Home, MetroPCS, ING, and Huawei
  • 2 systems built in-house API reporting and call tracking
  • Promoted Account Manager to Senior Account Manager

The apparatus

  • Google Ads
  • Bing Ads
  • Google Display Network
  • Facebook Ads
  • Call tracking number banks

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