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Straight North Reviews & Provider Details

Straight North is an Internet marketing agency that helps growth-minded, small and middle-market firms generate online sales leads and e-commerce revenue. With an in-house team of over 100 full-time marketers, we have the depth and breadth to manage complex, multi-front campaigns that deliver continuously improving results.

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Straight North

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Straight North Community

Overview by

Aaron Wittersheim (Chief Operating Officer at Straight North)

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Straight North Reviews (15)

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Verified User in Computer Software

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

3/19/2024

"Failed to perform, Billed anyway"

0/5

What do you like best about Straight North?

Nothing. We did not get anything for our fees. See the dislike question for details. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Straight North?

We have a very specific B2B2C business model, where all of our paying customers are B2B companies. The drafts at rewriting our website for "SEO purposes" resulted in complete confusion as to what our business is all about. They dummed everything down to generic words that no one could understand. And it even had the effect of limiting the depth and breadth of what we provide to our customers. And when we told them that the writing was non-compliant with the scope of the engagement and that we had to completely rewrite it ourselves, we tried to shift services to backlinks. Their first attempt at backlinks focused entirely on B2C outlets and they simplified the depth of our AI offerings to look like any B2C player in the market. So again, we could not use anything they produced. We asked them to stop working while we regrouped to figure out what we were going to do. They continued to charge our credit card on file for two more months, refused to reverse the charges when we asked, and then fought the dispute with the credit card company. We ended up paying for 5 out of 6 months of "service" even though in the end we got nothing that was usable. In our opinion, they were very unprofessional and I cannot recommend them to anyone at this point. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Straight North:

Do not give them the ability to do autopay on your credit card. And carefully consider if they have the expertise to serve you in your market. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Straight North solving and how is that benefiting you?

We hired SN to help us with SEO services. We ended up not being able to use any of the work that they did, had to hire someone else to help us, yet SN continued to charge our credit card for the services throughout the periods where they did not provide services, and they refused to respond to any messages we sent them. Doesn't help that they kept changing who we were to speak with either. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Kate W.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5/1/2023

"Great website build and SEO"

5/5

What do you like best about Straight North?

Communication, Transparency, and Quality Work Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Straight North?

Only downside is that they arent free! You pay for quality though, and these guys are top-notch! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Straight North:

The more info you can convey to the team, the better work they can do! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Straight North solving and how is that benefiting you?

We needed a new website because ours was stuck in 1999. Straight North spent countless hours ensuring the website was built and populated with exactly our vision. Then once the site was done, we launched an SEO campaign with them to increase lead gen and move us up the rankings Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Logistics and Supply Chain

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

1/20/2022

"Poor communication, inability or lack of motivation to learn my business, and no ROI"

0/5

Describe the project or task Straight North helped with:

StraightNorth was asked to provide support for my organization, specifically focused on SEO, keyword strategy, and page/link optimization. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about Straight North?

Initial sales interactions were quite positive, good understanding of our needs, urgency, and timeline. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Straight North?

Poor communication, lack of follow-through, and low-value output.

StraightNorth did not spend the time to onboard their team with ours, exacerbating the lack of understanding for our market, target audience, and niche within the supply chain. They did not allocate or schedule adequate time with my team, even when offering, to get properly onboarded. Their outputs, basic content gap analysis (was rubbish and misaligned from our business), Crawl and Indexation Check (provided no actionable feedback), target page, and keyword selection (enabled us to double-check SEO opportunities to 4 of our key pages). Unfortunately, several of the defined SOW deliverables were never provided or acted on. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Straight North solving and how is that benefiting you?

We were unable to solve the issues we were hoping to with StraightNorth. No benefits realized. Net results, we wasted two months, forcing us to restart with another agency. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Rustam U.

CEO

Real Estate

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

8/15/2019

"PPC for small business"

0.5/5

Describe the project or task Straight North helped with:

We hired Straight North to set up and run paid ads on google. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about Straight North?

Communication was consistent. The team was professional, but lacked the willingness to learn more about my business and implement that in the campaigns. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Straight North?

They set up the campaigns in a scripted way. At the start there were about 60% broad match keywords. Our website doesn't need just any random traffic. It needed the right traffic that would convert into sales. Broad match keywords were a huge waste of time and some money. Well, they fixed that. But the overall campaign performance didn't increase anyway.

If you are small business with limited marketing budget, Straight North is not the company to go to.

I see they have million dollar customers, and they won't care about you as much as they do about those big companies. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Straight North solving and how is that benefiting you?

Getting leads, conversions. But they failed. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Response from Aaron Wittersheim of Straight North

edit

Thanks for your review. It seems while you were happy with the level of communication our team provided, you were not satisfied the performance that was produced in just over one month.

In response to the performance, PPC campaigns require data to be collected in order to make strategic decisions that allow us to improve the performance of your campaign over time. In 36 days, your campaign garnered 87 clicks and 8 leads. Unfortunately, at your monthly budget, this short timeframe did not allow for adequate data collection, which would have enabled us to make larger-scale changes to improve future campaign performance.

Please note that nearly 50% of your total investment went into building out a new PPC campaign that you now own. You are free to manage the campaign yourself or hire another firm to manage it for you.

We are sorry that we did not deliver on your expectations. In order to make things right, we decided to release you from a legally binding contract and the associated billing one month early.

Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4/24/2019

"Improved SEO Making it Largest Digital Property "

5/5

Describe the project or task Straight North helped with:

During my tenure at a national nonprofit in Washington, DC, I worked with Straight North to overhaul the education arm website to improve SEO, create more opportunities for digital engagement. The project team assigned to the account was extremely knowledgeable, accessible, and quickly helped us get results. By the time I left the organization, it was the largest digital property they owned. I couldn't have done it without the support and expertise of Straight North. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about Straight North?

Although we had an in-house web department it was a small team, working with Straight North allowed us to expand our capabilities, align digital strategies, and quickly garner results. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Straight North?

I think the only downside was that because it was an extension of our internal digital department sometimes when priorities shifted it was additional steps that needed to be taken in order to communicate those changes to Straight North because they were not internal. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Straight North:

I think it is critical to have a clear understanding of what the goals are that you are trying to receive, understand how you will measure success, and be willing to pivot based on the expertise or strategy that Straight North comes up with a plan. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Straight North solving and how is that benefiting you?

The greatest impact is that we finally had additional capabilities to focus on priorities that with a small staff we were unable to do. Additionally, the expertise to try new digital marketing and SEO strategies. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Construction

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5/20/2019

"Awesome experience"

5/5

Describe the project or task Straight North helped with:

I have worked with SN for a number of times with my tenure at different companies. SN has a great team of designers as well as SEO experts. I’ve contracted SN for both web design and SEO. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about Straight North?

Project Managers are very customer oriented. They will always keep you posted on the performance of your website. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Straight North?

I would like SN to have a full range of capabilities to offer websites of all different platforms. Whether it is Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal, PHP, etc. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Straight North:

N/A Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Straight North solving and how is that benefiting you?

Driving and optimizing my sites to rank top 3 on search engines. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Arts and Crafts

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

1/16/2019

"Straight north on target "

5/5

Describe the project or task Straight North helped with:

Was able to help us get our point across, without being overly technical , so that is also sounded like we knew our platform Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about Straight North?

Support service wonderful , helps us get to the customer directly Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Straight North?

Not being able to be flexible and adapt your presentation to the circumstances of the individual case. This requires preparation, maybe even to the extent of having two (or more) pitches formatted and ready to go for technical and nontechnical presentations. The benefit, of course, is threefold: more types of clients your pitch will appeal to, more effective pitching in every case, and more new clients.

Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Jane J.

Realtor

Semiconductors

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

7/24/2018

"Straight North really works"

4/5

Describe the project or task Straight North helped with:

I profoundly suggest Straight North for their expert site and Internet advertising administrations! I've had a business association with their organization for quite a while and observe the colleagues to be responsive, learned and mindful to my record. I am aware of no other SEO/PPC promoting office around that can coordinate their execution. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about Straight North?

They were anything but difficult to work with and I felt like they extremely comprehended my business. They were proficient, yet cordial and honest.The simplicity of their stage. A website composition degree isn't important to keep it refreshed and looking current They are exceptionally responsive, comprehend the regularly changing field of SEO positioning, and are extremely mindful. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Straight North?

I truly cant say anything terrible in regards to my experience.None. We have had only positive encounters with them up until this point. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Straight North:

The website architecture group completed a stunning activity to make what we accept to be the simple best Hockey site accessible. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Susan F.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

3/19/2018

"Straight North SEO Marketing Review"

5/5

Describe the project or task Straight North helped with:

Helped with SEO Marketing strategy and how SEO could help us become more visible on the internet.

They analyzed our current marketing strategy and identified areas where we could improve and increase traffic. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about Straight North?

The professionalism and attention to detail. Listened to my concerns

I highly recommend Straight North for their professional website and Internet marketing services! I’ve had a business relationship with their company for several years and find the team members to be responsive, knowledgeable and attentive to my account. I know of no other SEO/PPC marketing agency around that can match their performance.

. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Straight North?

There was nothing in our interaction that I disliked. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Straight North:

Shawn O.

Operations Manager

Sporting Goods

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

6/15/2017

"Straight North will grow your business! "

5/5

Describe the project or task Straight North helped with:

Web design, SEO & PPC Campaigns, & Email Marketing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about Straight North?

Professional and easy to communicate and work with. Any time we had questions or concerns our contact at Straight North addressed each situation with patience and understanding (especially for those of us who do not fully understand web operations). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Straight North?

As mentioned previously, understanding the ins and outs of web design, SEO and PPC can be difficult to follow at times if you are not very knowledgable in how web marketing campaigns are designed and how they operate. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Straight North:

We had a wonderful experience with Straight North. Everything was very pleasant from the get go. Straight North developed different strategies to make sure we get the most out our SEO and PPC campaigns. The web design team did an amazing job to create what we believe to be the very best Hockey website available. The team really held our hand through this experience to make sure everything is exactly how we want it and within our projected budget. We could not be more happy. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.