More Traffic and Greater Authority
SmartBug’s inbound retainer with True Office Learning has delivered a significant boost across an array of traffic metrics. Among the highlights:
- Overall traffic: 19.9 percent YoY increase, and a 24.5 percent jump between 2018 and 2020
- Search traffic: 18.9 percent YoY increase, and a 58.1 percent jump between 2018 and 2020
- Blog traffic: 57.8 percent YoY increase
- Average time on blog: 28.6 percent YoY increase
- Unique blog page views: 65.9 percent YoY increase
- New organic contacts: 31.9 percent YoY increase, and a 114.9 percent jump between 2018 and 2020
These numbers ultimately contributed to an impressive increase in website-generated revenue. Across 2019, when SmartBug began its partnership with True Office Learning, annual contract value rose 135 percent.
In 2020, despite the pandemic, the website-generated ACV YoY gain remained strong at 60 percent. Although channels such as webinars and live events certainly contributed to these increases, SmartBug also was an integral force in helping bring people to the True Office Learning website.
Paid media proved to be trickier. After much work was put in optimizing results, SmartBug discovered that paid doesn’t lend itself well to the e-learning space and recommended True Office Learning devote its resources elsewhere. In this way, we gave a client valuable marketing intelligence, instead of pushing a strategy that wastes time and money.
The PR retainer launched April 1, 2020—but Tolkachev and her team were already working on landing expert source placements, even during our normal discovery and planning period with a new PR client. The goal was one placement a month for the first three months; SmartBug secured seven in the first quarter of the retainer, including one during the last week of March.
In less than a year, SmartBug netted 18 expert sourcing opportunities—byline stories and articles in which someone from True Office Learning was quoted in an article—13 of which were published. Those numbers don’t include the press releases we wrote and published during that time.
Some of the publications True Office Learning was featured in, either as an expert source or as full contributor, included:
- Tech Republic
- HR Daily Advisor
- Corporate Compliance Insights
- Training Industry Magazine
- Compliance and Ethics Professional Magazine
- Thrive Global
- Authority Magazine
Our PR efforts have greatly expanded True Office Learning’s reputation and reach in the e-learning space. In less than a year, share of voice—a metric on how much an organization is being mentioned by news sources compared with competitors—for True Office Learning stands at 22.8 percent, which trails just one key competitor. The previous year, True Office Learning’s share of voice was just at 8 percent, meaning this metric increased almost threefold.

“Live events went on hold in 2020,” Ozmer says. “The compliance community is really network oriented, so live events are a great way to meet clients and drive new business , but there hasn’t been a chance for the sales team to meet people. Having these articles as a way to engage has been a big thing for sales.”
True Office Learning’s Moz rank, as of January 2020, stands at 6.3, and its domain authority is at 63—respectable numbers for a PR program less than a year old and operating during a global crisis.
Both the inbound retainer and the PR program continue. Tolkachev and her team are working to expand True Office Learning’s reach into specific verticals served by the platform. In addition, the reputation and thought leadership of Gupta and her team continue to grow.
“SmartBug is an extension of the team, without me having to hire a functional head for each different thing SmartBug does,” Ozmer says. “There are a lot of small, mid-sized, and big companies out there that need a specific focus. At a big agency, it’s harder to get that—and get that efficiently.
“SmartBug really knows the space, and they’re not afraid to put a stake in the ground and say, ‘This is what we do.’”
