Item: Conductor
Rating: 9
Author: Romy Ribitzky

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Conductor is primarily used by the Marketing Team's SEM specialist, with weekly reports going to Marketing & LOB leadership. The platform helps us quickly decide which pages to optimize (we have a website that hosts more than 800 pages) so we can be easily found on search. It also helps inform some of our paid search strategies.

Pros and Cons

Robust reporting that is easily customized
Excellent competitor reporting that is a must-have
Depth and breadth of information

The on-boarding process is less than ideal. We were on-boarded in an off-schedule manner, meaning that we had certain meetings go out of order. I do NOT recommend this approach as it had our team confused and we lost valuable time
Only use their managed services team if you have to. We did, as we were down an SEM specialist at the time, but we were rushed through the implementation, rushed to make decisions, and rushed to be off-boarded. The least positive experience with the team.
While the depth and breadth of data is positive, it can also be a negative as it is overwhelming, especially as the team is first getting up and running.

Return on Investment

Conductor has helped us efficiently prioritize daily SEO tasks and has helped reduce resource inefficiencies
More accurate reporting on SEO efficiencies
Beginning recommendations for new site architecture as we embark upon a website redesign

Data Integration

As mentioned in the previous section, at this point in our implementation, we are receiving more information than data from Conductor. While the insights we receive are prompting us to check landing pages and help us with prioritization as we're going about our day, we're interested in using the platform as we embark upon a complete website redesign. The data collected from Conductor will help shape our direction in terms of site architecture and technical SEO.

Strategic Collaboration

Conductor hasn't yet had an impact on our content team -- but we were very aligned ahead of implementation.

Support Rating

In addition, the interaction with managed services was less than ideal, with the project manager moving much faster than we liked, especially when it came time to an approvals workflow. She was pushing us into decisions we weren't ready to make and handing us off as quickly as possible. Finally, at the end of our last call, she asked us to rate her on the spot. That put my team in a very awkward position and we didn't feel comfortable speaking with her again.

Alternatives Considered

Prior to Conductor, we primarily used the Google Analytics suite of tools and Google Ads tools. We definitely lacked the competitor analysis and deep dive across domains that Conductor enables us to perform on-demand.

Likelihood to Recommend

There is no doubt that this platform is essential when your Marketing team hits a certain scale. However, in order for Conductor to be successfully integrated into the organization, it is best if you ensure that you have: 1) someone to check that the recommendations the engine makes are valid for your business, practice and industry. 2) someone to implement those recommendations in a timely manner. 3) someone to analyze the reporting and measure ROI. The data is only as good as the person you have using it.

Usability

The platform is intuitive to a point. We definitely needed the training from the Conductor team, and wish that the on-boarding process hadn't felt so rushed. While the sales process was attentive to our needs, the after-sales team wanted to get our calls on the schedule and completed as quickly as possible. As we were in the midst of hiring new team members and other changes, that didn't work for us, but we weren't given or offered any other recourse. As a result, we're now on-boarding new team members on our own, which makes the ease of use a little less obvious.

A great SEO platform, guidance needed

Overall Satisfaction with Conductor Searchlight