05 — KLIK

Founding the creative side of Adweek’s third fastest-growing agency

RoleFounding creative director

Years2021–2022

ScopeBrand, website, decks, owned brands, client creative

AgencyData-first performance marketing

The logoKLIK on its purple, with the cursor that clicks into the last K and repeats as the pattern.

KLIK was a data-first performance marketing agency, growing fast and adding creative to what it sold. As its founding creative director, I built the brand and the department that made the work. The logo, playbook, website and decks, two brands KLIK owned, and creative for its clients.

Ready Responders: we bring the doctor to you

Forage: want to experience back-end engineering at Lyft?

Forage: learn from top sales specialists at Red Bull

Bellevue University with Facebook: don’t let your marketing fall flat

Ready Responders: we bring the doctor to you, with an otoscope

UC San Diego Extension machine learning engineering

Forage: Walmart Global Tech software engineering virtual experience

upGrad: Purdue University Global MBA program

Grow Therapy: making mental healthcare affordable

SV Academy: $79K tech sales career-ready in 4 or 12 weeks

Bellevue University with Tableau: data analytics that everyone can do

Client creativePaid social and display for KLIK’s clients: Ready Responders, Grow Therapy, Forage’s programs with Lyft, Red Bull and Walmart, LSU Online, UC San Diego Extension, upGrad, Bellevue University, SV Academy and PYT Beauty.

01Brief

The problem

KLIK began as a performance marketing agency. It bought media for its clients and measured every dollar against the revenue it brought in. By 2021 it had grown to more than 40 people, with a second office opening in Chicago, and that fall Adweek ranked it the third fastest-growing agency in the U.S.

Creative was the newest thing it sold, and it had no creative director. The agency needed a brand that explained what it had become, and its clients needed creative that could keep pace with their media.

I joined as KLIK’s founding creative director to build both.

02Solution

The solution

A brand built on three words

The brand starts from one line: We create revenue. It is what KLIK did, said plainly, and the playbook grows from it. I built out the positioning, the mission and values, the three lines of business, and a voice for an agency that talks in numbers.

The identity had to be just as direct. KLIK’s work was measured in revenue, so the branding is bold and simple, with nothing to decode and the confidence to sit beside the numbers without competing with them. It reads in a second in a feed and holds up just as well in print or a pitch deck.

A website that leads with the proof

The site had one job: to win new clients. KLIK had a strong track record and a data-led method for creating revenue, and the site needed to sell both.

The challenge was that all of it was data-heavy. I broke it into bite-size pieces, opening on the Adweek ranking, leading every case study with its headline numbers and putting the services into three simple hexagons, so a potential client could stay out of the weeds and see at a glance what KLIK could do for their business.

One of those case studies was the website for City Light, the start of a client relationship that lasted four years.

The playbookStrategy, voice and identity in one book, from the positioning to the logo, palette, type, photography, patterns and icons.

The Adweek adA print ad for Adweek in 2021.

The KLIK print ad open in a magazine: we are a, crossed out, THE performance marketing agency

The KLIK home page: work with Adweek’s third fastest-growing agency, the services in three hexagons, the clients, case studies and a call to grow together — **KLIK website**

KLIK websiteCreative offering

The City Light case study, with the website KLIK designed for the fund — **KLIK website**Case study

A creative department, from nothing

There was no creative team when I started, so I built one: a senior designer I hired, freelancers when the work called for them, and me. Then I set up the process and standards it needed to run.

Performance creative runs on volume. A campaign needs many versions in every size, tested and replaced as the numbers come in, and each one still has to look like the client. Paid social, display, motion for TikTok and landing pages, for brands from fintech to higher education.

Mission LaneMotion for TikTok

Mission Collaborative landing pages for the MIT Alumni and UVA Alumni career design fellowships — **Mission Collaborative**Landing pages for its alumni career fellowships with MIT and UVA

Every version still has to look like the client.

Brands KLIK owned

KLIK’s third line of business was its own brands: sites for people researching a big decision, which in turn connected them with KLIK’s clients. I designed two of them from the ground up, identity and website.

Coding Bootcamps helps people find the right bootcamp. Bootcamps were everywhere at the time, so a site bringing them together had to stand out among them and still read as coding at a glance. Money Side Up is a personal finance newsletter for women, BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ readers, communities that traditional finance has underserved. The brand had to feel friendly and welcoming while staying professional enough to be trusted on a subject like money.

Coding Bootcamps color palette, icons and home page

KLIK’s own brandsCoding Bootcamps, its palette and site, and Money Side Up.

The pitch to investors

In January 2022 KLIK went to investors with a bigger idea of itself: an all-in-one growth marketing platform, with data, media and brands working together. I designed the deck that made the case, from what growth means and the problem with fractured marketing data, through the platform, to results for clients like United Way and Golden Gate University.

Investor deck cover: grow your business with KLIK, January 2022

Investor deck: an all-in-one growth marketing ecosystem, data, media and brands

Investor deck: awareness in action, United Way, a 6x increase in donations

Investor deck: the competitive advantage, question, explore, engage, act

Investor deck: efficiency in action, Golden Gate University, 10x increase in click-through rate

The investor deckThe cover, the platform, and results for United Way and Golden Gate University.

The clients who followed

When KLIK closed in 2022, several of its clients moved their work to me directly, City Light among them, and became the foundation of The Designory.

Global Spirits — Jack Daniel’s, The Macallan and Highland Park, held true from a neck tag to a bus shelter.

Read the case study →