Published by Sue Johns-Chapman
Published Date 11.09.2024 
In the summer of 2021, Jared Belsky, former CEO of digital powerhouse agency 360i, and Sean Belnick, founder of the online furniture retailer Bizchair, came together with an idea to create Acadia. As long-time participants in the digital marketing space, the two friends had experienced first-hand the gap in the market for an agency partner who could serve mid-market challenger brands with all the sophisticated services needed to grow and adapt in a dynamic environment. The idea was scribbled onto a napkin at their local coffee shop in Atlanta, The Chastain.
Three years later, Acadia is now a modern digital agency full of experts across Retail Media & Marketplaces, Analytics, Paid Media, SEO, CRO, and Full-Service Social. We solve our clients’ complex data challenges and partner with them to ensure each dollar has the strongest and most impact across sites like Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, Kroger, Target, Google, TikTok, Meta, and beyond.
Our mission is ambitious, yet simple: Be an elite digital growth platform for the mid-market disrupter, in order to create opportunity and meaning for the communities we serve. We are over 200 people strong, with headquarters in Atlanta, but employees that work remotely from Toronto to Serbia and Perth, Australia, and all places in between. We proudly work on brands like California Pizza Kitchen, Fresh Thyme, Sky Zone, Rooms To Go, Magic Spoon, Sun Sweet, Orkin, Red Roof Inn, and Primo Water, and many more who trust us to help grow their brands and companies. We’re proud of the esteemed awards we’ve received in just a few short years from our inception, like Ad Age’s 2024 Performance Marketing Agency of the Year, MediaPost’s 2023 Independent Agency of the Year, and Ad Age’s 2022 Small Agency of the Year.
“We’re beyond proud to be shortlisted for the US Search Awards’ Best Use of Search – Travel/Leisure PPC, “says Jared Belsky, CEO. “This work with Sky Zone represents some of our best across search and going the extra mile for clients to uncover solutions to even their unknown problems. We were able to make a big difference in their bottom line.”
“This work is the result of a close client partnership plus smart folks putting their hard-earned experience into practice. But more than that, it’s the result of long hours putting in the time to fully understand Sky Zone’s business challenges, and then carefully craft and implement the strategy to act on those challenges. Award or no award, I couldn’t be prouder of this team,” adds Alan Carroll, Head of Paid Media.
Our work with Sky Zone is a story of exceptional data digging in order to find the best possible solution for our clients. In this case, Sky Zone had lost all of its data that had been held hostage by their previous agency. Through our process of rebuilding their audience segmentation and customer models, we discovered kids’ birthday parties were a compound growth area for Sky Zone, attracting higher-spending families who became members and would introduce dozens of other families to the park.
To grow Sky Zone as a top destination for kids’ birthday parties, our strategy was to improve Sky Zone’s SEO in birthday party searches, create an engaging and mobile-friendly website, and gather and use SkyZone’s first-party data effectively. To do the latter, we built the bridge to using first-party data effectively, organizing more than 150,000 customer files to support search efforts. And, importantly, we rebuilt SkyZone’s Google, Meta, Bing, and TikTok accounts so the brand owns its data and relationships. As a result, SkyZone now owns all of its first-party data and has the insights and ability to utilize their own data to target priority customers at the right acquisition price.
And now? As a result of our improved SEO and website, SkyZone is growing steadily while competitors decline. Year over year, Sky Zone’s business is up 22%. What’s more, we’ve tripled their AOV. Meanwhile, ROAS has steadily improved – by 596% at last count. The custom landing pages for birthdays had a 43% increase in conversion rate from 3.99% to 4.5%. And overall we’re selling 11% more birthday packages on the website.
We’d love to connect and see what Acadia can uncover to improve your business. Visit our website acadia.io or send an email to our CEO Jared (jared@acadia.io). You can also follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram.
