<\/p>\n
It all started when Atlanta natives Belsky and Belnick met for lunch at The Chastain Cafe. Belnick wanted a new company, and Belsky wanted to solve what he sees as a Faustian choice for digital marketers: get lost in the big agencies or struggle to manage 10 specialty shops.<\/p>\n
On the back of a napkin (yes, they really hung it on the wall) they sketched out a unified house of services that would include e-commerce, search, social, advanced analytics, business intelligence and database management.<\/p>\n
Briefly, Acadia has combined five rooms of the house through the acquisition of Imagine Media (social); Techwood Digital (performance marketing); Well Built (e-commerce); Lift 361 (analytics, database and strategy); and most recently Bobsled Marketing, an Amazon and Walmart agency.<\/p>\n
Acadia can now identify a brand’s best customers from its proprietary data, recommend a comprehensive approach from product to marketing, and deliver a media plan across digital and social channels. It also considers customers’ retail systems, from supply chain to media, and offers 24\/7 e-commerce management.<\/p>\n
This has attracted clients that include Greenlight, Bark, Natierra, Red Roof Inn and Alchemy Bikes.<\/p>\n
To build its workforce, Acadia puts values \u200b\u200blike curiosity and collaboration ahead of experience, then trains to close gaps. That means hiring former professors to run account and design functions and a member of Atlanta’s SWAT team as a search engine optimization specialist. And to keep them all together, Acadia has made limiting turnover to a single-digit percentage the top key performance indicator for executives.<\/p>\n