Advertising agencies have traditionally built their company culture around causal offices with fun amenities. But e-commerce agency Elumynt is proving success in the industry doesn’t require a bar cart and a ping-pong table to gain traction.
The firm grew its two-year revenue by 257%, making it the fastest growing ad agency in Minnesota according to Inc. Magazine. This rapid growth has all been achieved with a fully remote workforce and without sending a single cold email.
“We literally don’t market our business at all,” founder and CEO William Harris said.
Instead, Elumynt is fueled by referrals that come from its clients, which include e-commerce and SaaS firms such as HomeSpotter, GoDaddy and Sellbrite.
Harris said the company’s service stands out because he comes from a business background, instead of from an agency. During his tenure as marketing manager for When I Work, the Minneapolis-based workforce scheduling platform, Harris saw a lack of business understanding coming from ad agencies. While many agencies would optimize for soft metrics, such as return-on-advertising-spend, they paid no attention to a company’s P&L, he said.
Elumynt differentiates itself by optimizing its clients' advertising around directly boosting profits.
“Then we can actually say this made a difference to your business,” he said.
Elumynt was founded in 2013. But Harris didn’t take on any clients until after he left When I Work in 2015. Then the firm took off in 2020 when Harris hired a partner and pandemic lockdowns caused a boom in e-commerce.
Now the firm has 25 employees including part-time contractors. And as other local firms such as Minneapolis-based Drip find ways around using Facebook to drive revenue, Harris still sees a way forward on the social media platform. He’s bullish on what Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) will be able to accomplish with advertisements linked to users using virtual reality headsets, for example.
