Say hello

When we started Vert over 13 years ago, there were no standards or best practices for the things our teams are best-in-class at today. Back in the 2010’s, we had to help write the book for social media strategy, mobile web usability, and performance paid media. We learned a lot along the way, carved our own paths, and helped build a mature and globally impactful industry. Today it’s a much different story, with everyone from global holding company agencies to enterprising high school students touting things as rudimentary as “Google & Facebook Ads” on their capabilities list. So how does an exceptional agency like Vert differentiate itself in a world flooded with a perceived commodity? We do so through enterprise-level certifications with market-leading technologies – and boy, do we have a lot of ’em…

Per capita, our team has more agency & staff-level certifications than most global agencies more than double or triple our size… that’s because we’ve spent the last several years getting really, really good, not really, really big. It is for this reason that Vert has been granted agency-wide certifications from both Google and Meta in 2022 (Facebook & Instagram’s re-branded parent company), which puts us in the top 3% of all agencies globally. It’s true! Just take a quick little scroll to the bottom of this page and you can see the fancy official badges for yourself. Our expert teams earned this enterprise-level of distinction as a result of both the volume of media spend (hint: it’s in the tens of millions annually) for our clients, as well as the level of rigor, sophistication & performance that those invested media dollars generate.

So how does an agency like Vert become a Google Premier Partner?

Vert must maintain client growth within our ad accounts, demonstrate ability to sustain client business measured by client retention, and give product diversification across Search, Display, Apps, Video and Shopping campaigns and overall annual ad spend. Simply put, we we have to proactively remain strategic & forward-thinking, which will inevitably lead to better performance, larger budgets and better relationship with our clients. Oh, and this program isn’t, “set it and forget it.” Google Premier Partners must maintain an optimization score of 70% to keep this designation. This means our team is constantly innovating methods to optimize and improve campaigns along the way. 

Vert is committed to earning & maintaining enterprise certifications with the most critical platform partners like Meta & Google because it is both the right way to do business, and it differentiates us from commoditized competition. There simply is no comparison for third-party validated, global excellence.

Kevin Planovsky, Principal & Co-Founder

As I mentioned, these distinctions are at the agency-wide level – and the fruits of our team’s cross-departmental excellence across multiple areas including paid search, display media, paid social, analytics, and SEO. Beyond that, over 50% of all Vertbags (how we refer to ourselves) personally hold tactical-level certifications with individual badges and credentials, including:

  • Google Analytics
  • Google Search Media
  • Google Display Media
  • Google Video
  • Google Apps
  • Meta Advertising
  • 3 for Amazon Advertising (DSP, Retail & Sponsored Ads)
  • Moz Certifications
  • Hubspot Certification
  • Salesforce Certification

It is clear that one team in particular really takes the cake in both the need for certified expertise, as well as coverage of these distinctions – and that is Vert’s media team, co-led by Wes Ogden. I mention Wes specifically because he has been a critical driving force, in tandem with our co-founder Michael Lentz, to ensuring our media team members are not only equipped but also incentivized to become best-in-class, certified practitioners. As a result, Wes is about to celebrate 5 years with the Vert, and has been promoted to “Associate Media Director” in leadership of our agency-wide media investments. This has him focused on leading a team for activating campaigns across these channels using industry best practices, in-house tools to improve speed and accuracy, and with attribution and measurement in mind. His media-team counterpart, David Bailey, balances this on the strategic brand impact & investment approach to our Client media efforts. Together, they lead an expertly adept team of Media Strategists, Planners, Specialists and Coordinators for Vert’s clients.

With credentials like this, it’s no surprise that 90% of our clients invest in some form of paid media strategy & execution – and combo it with one or more of our other teams to flank with enterprise creative, audience segmentation, CRM or analytics work.

Long story short…

…for marketers who need true global, enterprise, holding-company level strategies & capabilities, Vert offers a path that is exceptionally accessible, efficient & accredited. This has been a big part of the recipe for our success through and since the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a major component of how and why we maintained 100% of our team, salary & benefits in 2020, and still grew top line revenue by 12%. It will be the reason why we continue to lead our industry in best-in-class digital strategies & execution for some of the most beloved and impactful brands of our time.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to snag 30 minutes to riff with me on this stuff anytime. I love talking shop with potential partners, and it’s my job anyway…

Kevin Planovsky

Kevin Planovsky