They told me "no"
Why an SEO agency turned down my offer to give them more money
I wrote about this last month as we’re doubling tripling down on SEO and GEO / LLMEO / AEO / AISEO / [insert any other acronym this has been called so far] and I promised to share my journey about the process. So today I’m back for round 2 about our journey so far with YOYABA and why they told me “NO” when I said I wanted to spend more with them to move faster.
Sponsor: HockeyStack
I was in the executive conference room of a $750M+ company, presenting a marketing readout to the CEO, CFO, and 10+ leaders. As they sat around the conference table, I could tell all they wanted to ask was this: "So what?"
I was spewing data. "Look at how knowledgeable I am with all of this data!" And that was the day I learned a critical lesson:
😅 Data without context is meaningless. But more than that, data without a "so what?" insight is even worse. And right here is the question that dashboards don't answer. Dashboards are great at passively visualizing data, but not at *proactively* helping us to understand what we should do about the data...until now.
Hockeystack just closed this gap between data and insights/execution. They've built out the "so what?" straight into the platform so that marketers + GTM leaders don't make the same mistake I did early in my career. Odin analyzes all of the data, surfacing insights, and recommending actions + then have Nova launching plays acting off of it.
This is the kind of speed we need to be operating at as we move into the AI era. And for marketing leaders like me, never again will I have to worry about trying to sift through siloed data from all of our various marketing channels to form an insight and act on it.
We start at the start
I worked at an ad agency (Refine Labs) before joining Loxo. And I became that client to YOYABA when I asked them the stereotypical question, “If I give you more money, can we move faster?” Why I let myself think I was unique and allowed to ask this question is beyond me after fielding this question myself countless times while I was at Refine Labs.
And that’s exactly why I respected YOYABA even more for the direct answer I received back: No.
They have a process they follow. And it’s not process for process’s sake, but process because it’s needed for scenarios exactly like this.
SEO contains a LOT of nuance, so when 10 companies say “we need SEO help!”, that could look like 10 very different applications of improving their overall SEO efforts.
Some struggle with content creation.
Some struggle with the technical side of it.
Some struggle with local SEO.
You see where I’m going with this…
So when I said I wanted to move faster, they said no. We start at the start. We need to do a full audit to understand your current state and the behavior of the market you serve. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to improving your SEO.
Most agencies would’ve jumped at the offer to get more money from a client. They didn’t. Respect. When I brought this up with their Founder, Tim Rath, his answer was simple and made me smile:
The audit
We know where our SEO efforts have been coming up short. But as part of the larger SEO equation, YOYABA understands the interplay between all of the facets of SEO and the importance of understanding the current state of each of those before coming up with a plan.
After a few weeks of discussion, research, and analysis, YOYABA came back with a plan - 34 pages of a plan, to be exact. It started from the top: what are our goals, what core challenges are preventing us from accomplishing those, and how are we going to overcome them.
The audit was deep. It’s comprehensive. It’s tactical. It’s prioritized. It explains why certain actions are being recommended and how they’ll play out once resolved in terms of the results they’ll drive.
I was drooling when I went through it, despite understanding maybe 50% of it (this is why you hire people who are the best at what they do and get out of their way vs. telling them what you think they should do). And this is exactly why they told me no when I asked if we could speed things up. This audit dictates everything that will follow on our SEO journey.
So stay tuned for next month’s update on this journey. What we’re prioritizing. The impact we think they’ll make. How I’m analyzing whether the investment is working and factoring that into our H2 plan.
Book quote of the week
“The only way to begin is to commence.”
- George Marshall: Defender of the Republic, by David L. Roll
In case you missed these this week
See you next Saturday,
Sam