Good day, colleagues.
Under no circumstances should you engage with this company.
Let me explain everything in order.
Contract number AP-17-000172.
Olesya Bokareva handled the sale of services with us.
The project was managed by contact manager Maria Starodubtseva.
At the end of April 2017, we were approached by the company "CUBA," and during further discussions, it turned out that it was a group of companies "Ingate" and "Another Point."
We decided that the agency was large enough and valued its reputation, plus we didn't see any negative reviews about the company. We agreed to meet. We met at the "Ingate" office on Danilovskaya Embankment, building 4. The meeting was conducted by Olesya Bokareva.
Let me clarify that we entered with a budget of 250,000 rubles per month. During the meeting, they talked about how we are such specialists that you will not be able to keep up with processing requests, that our unique system developed for advertising and awarded by SKOLKOVO will optimize advertising channels from the second week and not a single ruble spent will go to waste. However, there were also oddities, such as 94,000 rubles allocated for a focus group that would calculate our business for years to come. We declined.
We had several key points for choosing a company: Control of advertising (personal account or access), timely communication with the contact manager, and most importantly, the profitability of the project. They assured us that all of this would be at the highest level.
All smiles and care disappeared after signing the contract and transferring the funds. The advertising campaign began preparations, which took almost two weeks. They sent us the results of the prepared ads, and at that moment, I almost had a heart attack. They prepared 377 requests, 80% of which were completely irrelevant (their queries led nowhere related to what a person is interested in) and were gathered very clumsily and programmatically.
We couldn't launch such advertising and sent it back for revision, to which they agreed and referred to the contract stating that each correction has a three-day deadline. They began to persuade us that this was a raw project and needed to be tested directly in operation. Time was pressing, and we took it upon ourselves to write landing pages with requests and sent them for confirmation. In the end, after much struggle, we launched the advertising by the end of May. Everything was okay! But when I asked when they would provide guest access or some admin panel for monitoring, we heard that there was no admin panel and they wouldn't provide access. So, we were going in blind? But no, Maria assured us that she would send a report every week. "Well, fine, if it all pays off," we thought.
We decided to trust and wait for results while simultaneously preparing advertising materials for expanding the campaign.
A week passed, 1500 visits but no requests. Confused, I wrote to Maria, and after two days, I received a response not to worry, that it was still being promoted and needed to be fully tested, EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE. I asked for a report, to which they kindly agreed, but I never saw it. For the next month, I asked every day for a report, and they kindly agreed, but I never received it. Another week passed, and I noticed that visits seemed great, but one fact troubled me: there were almost no refusals, and the visits to the site had the same number of page views and time spent on the site, with only minor fluctuations. I asked Maria what was happening and if they were inflating the visits, to which she indignantly replied that they were not scammers and did not engage in such practices. I AGREED WITH THEM AND CONTINUED TO WAIT.
In summary: Over the course of a month and a half, we spent 250,000 rubles on the advertising campaign, received 4 requests with an average check of 3,000 rubles. Attention question! How much did we earn from 250,000 rubles? Correct! A hole in a bagel. But what’s surprising is that no one was eager to communicate with us anymore or explain the situation; they only sent invoices for 250,000 rubles to extend the advertising campaign. According to the contract, everything seemed to be fulfilled. We later realized that this was a fiction, and they write it to suit themselves, and it is practically useless in practice.
If anyone is interested, I can send metrics data and anything else you request.
We have now found a freelancer for advertising, who requested 20,000 rubles for setting up the ads on our account and a budget of another 20,000 for the first week. And most importantly, he doesn't take any money until the setup is complete, and as a result, we earned enough in a week to pay him and recoup the money we deposited.
You need to think and decide for yourselves. But I repeat! Do not choose this company; it cost us 250,000 rubles!
