Here it is – one of the most widely anticipated announcements in the search industry!
This year’s competition was one of the biggest yet, with the addition of several new categories to recognize a wider swath of the industry’s best work. Our panel of judges and Clutch.co, our partner in evaluating Agency of the Year honors had the monumental task of pouring over hundreds of data points, in-depth campaign case studies, innovative strategies and tactics, client references, thought-leadership pieces and research studies submitted from around the globe.
Year after year, the submissions from around the world continue to impress and raise the bar — it is truly an honor to have earned a nomination among this incredible field of applicants.
Congratulations to all of the individuals, agencies and internal brand teams that have been named to this year’s shortlist of finalists.
GRAND PRIX AWARDS
BEST OVERALL SEARCH MARKETING INITIATIVE — SEO & SEM
- Blue Wheel Media for Monark Home
- LYONSCG for Pharmaca
- Milestone Inc. for The Don Cesar Hotel
- Reprise for TIAA
- Path Interactive for Orthology
BEST INTEGRATION OF SEARCH INTO CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING
- Back Azimuth for Absolut
- DAC Group for TaxSlayer
- Precis Digital for HBO Nordic
- Wolfgang Digital for DID Electrical
- Wolfgang Digital for Tesco Ireland
Grand Prix awards Sponsored by:
SEO & SEM CAMPAIGN AWARDS
BEST OVERALL SEO INITIATIVE — SMALL BUSINESS
- Infront WebWorks for Del-Immune V
- Living Online for HotCopper
- Milestone Inc. for Horseshoe Bay Resort
- Rocket Agency for Jamesons Strata Management
- SUSO Digital (client name withheld)
BEST OVERALL SEM INITIATIVE — SMALL BUSINESS
- AIS Media for Artisan Custom Closets
- Croud for BRD
- Docklin Digital for Skargards Hot Tubs
- Foster Ideas for NFHS Network
- TriMark Digital for Window World of Houston
BEST OVERALL SEO INITIATIVE — ENTERPRISE
- AARP
- Dreamscape Marketing for Beaches Recovery
- Ignite Visibility for WeddingWire
- MilliporeSigma
- Path Interactive for Buoy
BEST OVERALL SEM INITIATIVE — ENTERPRISE
- DAC Group for Bridgestone
- PMX Agency for Fingerhut
- Precis Digital for Cellbes
- Rise Interactive for Follett Higher Education Group
- Precis Digital for PriceRunner
BEST B2C SEM INITIATIVE – ENTERPRISE
- Adobe Systems
- iProspect for St-Hubert Rotisseries
- Nina Hale for TRX Training
- Precis Digital for Cellbes
- Wolfgang Digital for iClothing
BEST ENTERPRISE SEM INITIATIVE – TRAVEL & LIFESTYLE
- Acronym for Accor Luxury Hotels
- Acronym (client name withheld)
- Catalyst for Tauck
- Mediahub for JetBlue
- Merkle for CityPass
BEST RETAIL SEARCH MARKETING INITIATIVE — SEM
- Precis Digital for Cellbes
- Rise Interactive for Follett Higher Education
- Wolfgang Digital for DID Electrical
- Wolfgang Digital for iClothing
- Wolfgang Digital for Littlewoods Ireland
BEST RETAIL SEARCH MARKETING INITIATIVE — SEO
- Nebo Agency for Buy-Rite Beauty
- The SEO Works for MexGrocer
- SingleInterface for Pizza Hut
- SingleInterface for Ford’s Digital Drive
- Wolfgang Digital for Arctic Adventures
BEST LOCAL SEARCH MARKETING INITIATIVE — SEM
- AIS Media for Artisan Custom Closets
- Elite SEM for ShopKo
- iProspect for St-Hubert Rotisseries
- Jellyfish (client name withheld)
- TENSHI Advertising for Local Moving
BEST LOCAL SEARCH MARKETING INITIATIVE — SEO
- Brandmuscle for Sprint
- Infront Webworks for Garden of the Gods Self Storage
- Top Draw for JiffyLube Canada
- SingleInterface for HDFC Bank
- Path Interactive (client name withheld)
BEST MOBILE SEARCH MARKETING INITIATIVE — SEO
- Back Azimuth for Absolut Drinks
- Path Interactive for Buoy
- Acronym for Scott’s Miracle-Gro
- Edelman for the Florida Department of Citrus
- Wpromote for Cabot Creamery
BEST B2B SEARCH MARKETING INITIATIVE – SEM
- Caterpillar
- Hanapin (client name withheld)
- LSEO for Christie’s Spaces
- Mediative (client name withheld)
- MilliporeSigma
BEST B2B SEARCH MARKETING INITIATIVE – SEO
- AIS Media for Thrive Thinking
- Croud for Insureon
- MilliporeSigma
- Stone Temple Consulting for Arrow Electronics
- Wpromote for 1-800Accountant
BEST SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING INITIATIVE
- FSC Interactive for University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC) School of Nursing and Health Studies
- Nebo for FLOR
- Qiigo for Soccer Shots
- TriMark Digital for KOHLER®Walk-In Bath
- Wolfgang Digital for Tesco Ireland
TEAM & INDIVIDUAL AWARDS
BEST RESEARCH INITIATIVE – AGENCY OR INDIVIDUAL
- 360i – Voice Search Monitor
- Catalyst – The Age of Amazon: Understanding the Search Marketing Opportunity
- Stone Temple Consulting – Study Tests the Smarts of Top Digital Personal Assistants
BEST RESEARCH INITIATIVE – SOFTWARE TOOLS & PLATFORMS
- Acquiso – Unlocking New SEM Performance Standards with Acquisio Turing™ Machine Learning
- AdStage – AdStage Benchmarks: Google AdWords Costs Drop in 2017
- Adthena – Adthena analyzes 40 million ads from over 260,000 advertisers for Google Shopping insights
SEARCH MARKETER OF THE YEAR — FEMALE
- Sarah Dryden from Path Interactive
- Carolyn Lyden from Call Rail
- Heidi Smith from Marketing Mojo
- Stephanie Wallace from Nebo Agency
- Farah Sadiq from Acronym
SEARCH MARKETER OF THE YEAR — MALE
- Ilya Cherepakhin from Acronym
- Raymond Deschenes from AARP
- Chris D’Onofrio from Mediacom
- Kole Ogundipe from Croud
- Simon Poulton from Wpromote
IN-HOUSE TEAM OF THE YEAR
- Clearlink
- HomeToGo GmbH
- MilliporeSigma
BOUTIQUE AGENCY OF THE YEAR — SEM
- Docklin Digital
- FSC Interactive
- SS Digital Media
BOUTIQUE AGENCY OF THE YEAR — SEO
- Digital Third Coast
- Kubix Digital
- Victorious
LARGE AGENCY OF THE YEAR — SEM
- Acronym
- Elite SEM
- Northern Commerce
- Precis Digital
- Rise Interactive
LARGE AGENCY OF THE YEAR — SEO
- 1SEO
- Dreamscape Marketing
- Stone Temple Consulting
- Wolfgang Digital
- Women’s Marketing
The winners will be announced during the awards ceremony and afterparty taking place during this year’s SMX Advanced conference, on June 12th at MoPOP in Seattle. All SMX attendees are invited to attend and take part in the search community celebration of the year. This year’s awards event will celebrate all of the community’s SEO rockstars and SEM superheroes in attendance – it’s an event you won’t want to miss!
The 2018 Search Engine Land Awards program is sponsored by Google, Bing and Marin Software.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
About The Author
Search Engine Land is a daily publication and information site covering search engine industry news, plus SEO, PPC and search engine marketing tips, tactics and strategies. Special content features, site announcements, notices about our SMX events, and occasional sponsor messages are posted by Search Engine Land.