We built the agency we wanted to hire.
Digital Squad started in 2016 because we'd all been the client on the other side of a bad agency relationship: billed monthly for activity, reported to in metrics that never appeared on a P&L, and quietly locked out of our own ad accounts.
So we wrote down every practice that had frustrated us, inverted it, and made that the operating model. Ten years and 412 projects later, it still holds.
0+
Projects delivered
Since 2016
$0M
Revenue driven
Attributed client revenue
0.0x
Average ROAS
Across paid accounts
0%
Client retention
Year over year
Aggregate figures across active and completed client engagements since 2016, self-reported by our team, not independently audited.
Six things that make us occasionally difficult.
These aren't wall posters. Each one has cost us money at least once, which is roughly how you tell a value from a slogan.
Say the uncomfortable thing
Our most-quoted moments in client testimonials are all the same shape: we told them something they didn't want to hear. A hero product losing money. A spec that was 71 features too long. Ten categories that needed shutting off. Agencies that only agree get fired in year two.
Report the number that matters
Impressions, reach, and engagement are diagnostics, not outcomes. We report blended CAC, contribution margin, and revenue. That includes when those numbers are worse than the platform dashboards claim.
Scope before we quote
Every quote is built from your actual brief, not a rate card. It costs us the easy close of a generic package price, and it means the number we give you is one we can defend line by line.
Leave clients better than we found them
You own every account, pixel, audience, repository, and design file. Several clients have taken our work in-house and stopped paying us. That's a good outcome, and we'd rather that than a dependency we manufactured.
No bait and switch
The strategist who runs your sales call runs your account. If you're going to work with a junior, you'll know their name before you sign, not after.
Turn work down
If your ad spend is too low, your product isn't ready, or a specialist freelancer serves you better, we say so. We turn away roughly one in four inbound enquiries, and it's why retention is 96%.
Ten years, abbreviated.
- 2016FoundedThree people who'd been on the client side of bad agency relationships, starting the one they'd wanted to hire.
- 2018First $10M client outcomeNorthwind's predecessor engagement proved the full-funnel thesis: fix economics before buying more traffic.
- 2020In-house creative studioWe stopped outsourcing creative after concluding it was the biggest lever in paid social, and the one agencies control worst.
- 2022Killed the rate cardEvery quote gets scoped from an actual brief instead of a published price list. Contentious internally, obviously right in hindsight. Inbound volume fell, qualified inbound rose.
- 2024$40M+ in managed spendCrossed forty million in annual managed media across Google, Meta, LinkedIn, and TikTok.
- 2026412 projects deliveredFifteen disciplines, 57 verticals, and a 96% year-over-year retention rate.
Partnerships & recognition
Illustrative recognitions for this demonstration build, not verified certifications.
Trusted by teams at
The part clients actually remember.
Not the reports. The uncomfortable conversation that changed the trajectory.
We'd been quietly tracking diversion data for years because it was good practice, not because we thought anyone would pay for it. Turns out the properties we most wanted as clients had been asking every hauler for exactly that, and nobody was answering.
We'd been telling practices we'd get them paid faster for years. Nobody had told us that wasn't actually what was stopping them from switching. The fear of switching itself was. Once we addressed that directly instead of the speed pitch, everything else got easier.
Our counter reps were our entire growth engine for thirty years. Nobody had ever built a version of that relationship that worked online, and it turns out purchasing managers wanted exactly that. They just couldn't find us first.
We'd been an insurance agency for thirty years and had never once modeled what a retained policyholder was actually worth compared to a new one. That conversation changed where every marketing dollar goes now.
Every agency before this one pitched us a better template. Digital Squad started by telling us our own locations were our biggest competitor in search, which was not what we expected to hear about our own website.
We'd worked with three agencies who all wanted to spend more on ads. Digital Squad was the first to open our P&L and tell us our hero product was losing money. That conversation was uncomfortable and it changed the business.
Find out what your funnel is really worth in 30 minutes.
We'll audit your site, ads, and analytics live on the call and show you the three biggest revenue leaks. You keep the findings whether or not we work together.