2017: A Year in Review

Go Back

Happy 2018!

It’s a perfect time to reflect on the accomplishments and notable happenings of 2017. Thanks to the dedication, skills, and passion of the entire roboboogie team, 2017 was a year of considerable growth and success. We doubled both our office space and staff, deepened relationships with our existing clients, and set sail with some new brands we love and admire.

We designed a whole bunch of really engaging, high-performing digital experiences and helped all of our clients significantly improve their conversion rates… all while having a whole lot of fun. But, we couldn’t have done it without the close collaboration, commitment, and partnership of all the smart marketers we work with. So a huge thanks to all of our clients for being really awesome!

Here’s a list of our top ten moments. Let’s all toast to another successful year in 2018!

1. What happens in Vegas…

In October roboboogie sponsored its third Opticon event. Opticon is Optimizely’s annual thought leadership conference and this year we headed to Las Vegas. We’re proud of our close partnership with Optimizely and have been BFF’s for over 4 years now. As a leading testing and personalization platform, Optimizely always inspires us at this well organized, well attended event. This year was no exception. We learned a lot, had a blast, and met some really smart marketers. Read all about it on our blog. 

2. Happy Customers Convert

The ‘cobblers children’ adage rings true at every agency I’ve ever worked. It’s no exception here at roboboogie. We’re extremely good at distilling brand positions and messaging for our clients, but it is really difficult at times to tell our story elegantly and concisely. We’re just too deep in our own forest to see through the trees. However, this past year we stumbled on three words that we think say it all – Happy Customers Convert. It’s become a simple guiding mantra that reminds us to always keep learning about customer desires, and to design digital experiences that delight. Happy Customers Convert made its debut at Opticon in the form of face coasters and t-shirts.    

• 

• 

• 

3. Fall Retreat

Twice a year we take a couple days to step out of the office with the entire team. Our latest retreat in November brought us to Seaside, on the Oregon coast. A healthy dose of Oregon coast weather didn’t stop the team from getting out for beach fun, good food & drink, and shenanigans around town. Retreats are perfect for team bonding and getting to know your teammates out of the office context. We celebrated some individual contributions and successes of 2017, and got to know each other and ourselves a bit better through a really insightful leadership skills mapping exercise.   

• 

• 

• 

4. PDX Robo Race

The ‘work hard, play hard’ mantra is certainly one we live by at roboboogie. We also embrace ‘adventure’ as one of our cultural tenants. With that in mind, we took a full day in July for an adventure-race scavenger hunt set in our amazing city of Portland. The agency divided into two teams (Eigoobobor (roboboogie backwards) & Team Skittles). Each team was given a series of time-released clues to activities and destinations around the city. The team completing the most challenges (photo documented), in the shortest amount of time was to be declared the winner. After 50 challenges, 8 hours and 13 exhausting miles of urban hiking and creative problem solving around town, we realized both teams were fiercely competitive and the challenge ended in “a draw.” It was an amazing day of competitive fun, exercise, and some serious team bonding and revelry. If you are up to the challenge, you can check it out here. Here are some of the challenges the teams completed throughout the day:

5. Newsletter, Blog, and Social Media

2017 was also a year of marketing growth. We exponentially expanded our content marketing efforts to build awareness for the agency. I am extremely proud of the discipline the team has shown in prioritizing this work. Their dedication and creative talents have helped raise awareness considerably, and has also helped us attract some amazing talent. Big props and thanks to the internal marketing team. Here are some stats from 2017:

• 5 monthly newsletters
• 31 new blog posts
• 17,107 likes over 233 Instagram posts
• 513,369 impressions over 2,270 tweets

We hope you’ve enjoyed what we’ve been sharing, and we are excited to build on this momentum in 2018.

6. Camp Optimization

Two years ago we started a local optimization meet-up. Since that first event in August of 2015, we’ve hosted 15 Camp Optimization events and met hundreds of smart marketers and designers. Each meet-up, we invite a guest speaker to talk about a topic relevant to design and optimization. This year we saw attendance consistently grow for each event. We learned a bunch from the talented folks who generously took time to speak and present – thank you so much for sharing your passions. We also made friends with some really cool people working in (or interested in) the field of digital design and optimization. In 2018, we plan to keep growing the event and would love to meet you. Come out, have a drink on us and network with some smart, like-minded folks passionate about design and optimization.

Learn more about Camp Optimization and get a recap of the topics discussed, or sign-up to be a presenter. Click the photos below for a full recap of each event:

7. Agency Partnerships

I often describe roboboogie as a right-and-left-brained organization. We love geeking out in customer data and analytics, but are also extremely passionate about design and creative. We know good design is critical to optimizing conversions, and look to data to inform our design decisions. So, it’s no surprise we love collaborating with other like-minded agencies.
In 2017 we had the privilege to collaborate with the amazingly talented creative agency, Struck. If you are not already tuned into them, Struck is an extremely strategic creative agency, with a killer portfolio of amazing work. Thanks, Struck, for including us in the fun and for bringing our data-backed wizardry to the amazing work you are doing for your clients.

8. Rockin’ Wacom

We’ve had the privilege of working with Wacom for the past three years. What started as a single engagement optimizing email acquisitions on their blog, has grown into an opportunity to optimize much of their digital marketing ecosystem across a number of business units including the Wacom eStore, Bamboo blog, and several landing pages and microsites.

In 2017 we had the opportunity to create customer journeys, conduct user testing, design and implement over 90 A/B tests, and design and optimize several content marketing campaigns. We’re extremely pleased to see so many folks at Wacom embracing the test and optimize culture, and could not have accomplished any of this without the close collaboration with the incredibly smart and creative marketers and designers we work with. We’re excited to build on the successes of 2017 into 2018 and beyond.

9. New Clients

Designing and optimizing digital experiences for any brand requires you get to know their target audience. That task is much easier when you are their target audience. 2017 brought two notable brands we’ve been long time fans of to our roster, Adobe and Yakima Products. While their products and businesses are vastly different, the majority of the roboboogie team frequently uses both their products. Sure one gets us outside to participate in our favorite outdoor activities, and the other keeps us productive indoors knocking out killer designs, but we love them both. We’re really excited for what we’ve accomplished in 2017 working with them, and looking forward to continued success in 2018.

10. One team, one dream

The team is what truly makes roboboogie great. We’ve got an amazing team, and I am extremely proud of all that we’ve achieved in 2017. We’ve got a lot of happy clients who love working with us, and are seeing great success with the digital experiences we’ve created for them. Check out our employee highlights to read more about our thoughts on all things optimization. Big thanks to the entire roboboogie team for your unwavering dedication, positive attitude, hard work, and incredible talent. You inspire me everyday, and make coming to work fun (even though my face in the this photo does not reflect that joy #alwaysgoofin).