Since 1997, we’ve been driving business growth for our clients by building a team of experienced digital marketers. On average, our team members have over 10 years of digital marketing experience. By investing in our people and fostering a results-driven culture, we’ve created an environment where talent thrives, and clients succeed – a combination that sets us apart.
Every quarter, Straight North recognizes an individual who exemplifies these values by going above and beyond for the internal team and our clients. During the voting process, the team shares stories and experiences that explain their nominations.
Unlock 25+ Years of Core Memories…
Growing businesses is in our DNA. Over the years, we’ve helped thousands of companies generate leads and increase revenue. So, we asked ourselves, how can we leverage our expertise to start and grow a business of our own?
A lifelong hockey fanatic, our CEO, David Duerr, saw an opportunity to combine his passion for hockey with Straight North’s digital expertise. And with that, ProStockHockey.com was born.
Fast forward 10+ years, 100K customers, and 200K hockey sticks later – ProStockHockey.com is now one of the largest online hockey retailers in the United States. Straight North’s team continues to drive its growth.
To read the full story – from idea to launch to today – visit here
From day one, our biggest challenge was proving the real impact of our campaigns on our clients’ businesses. While leads and revenue were increasing, identifying what was truly driving success was difficult.
To solve this, our strategy and development teams created GoNorth! Leads, a platform that tracks the source channel of leads and assigns a unique identifier. This allows our clients to follow each lead through the sales cycle, providing a clearer understanding of the true return on investment for their campaigns.
We’ve had a lot of special clients, but every business has that one client that stands out – BluePay Credit Card Processing was ours.
In 2008, CEO John Rante and David Duerr met on a golf course and quickly realized that BluePay needed exactly what we specialize in – lead generation. Soon after, we partnered, and over the next nine years, we helped generate 100K+ leads for BluePay, contributing to its successful acquisition by First Data (now Fiserv) in 2017.
To this day, we take great pride in our role in BluePay’s growth and remain close with many members of the BluePay team.
Post-sale we continued our relationship serving Fiserv and their subsidiaries – First Data, Card Connect, and Clover.
In 2018, David Duerr had another idea. As the leader in the pro stock hockey equipment space, ProStockHockey.com always kept track of which products players were using – sticks, skates, gloves, and more. So, David wondered: What if we officially tracked this data and built a site to showcase it?
With that, GearGeek.com was born. Backed by the strategy and development teams at Straight North, GearGeek.com quickly became the go-to resource for hockey fanatics to research and influence buying decisions and to track the gear of NHL hockey players.
Years later, Straight North’s developers went a step further – building the technology and API to transform GearGeek.com into an affiliate marketing platform. By leveraging the popularity and influence of NHL players, GearGeek.com now drives traffic and orders to its partners, once again demonstrating Straight North’s ability to generate revenue through innovative digital solutions.
Despite the immense challenges our business and society faced, one positive change emerged—we embraced remote work.
With that shift, our team could work from anywhere, which meant we could hire talent nationwide, instantly expanding our talent pool. Going forward, we were no longer limited by geography, allowing us to bring in the best and brightest from across the country. Since then, we’ve welcomed exceptionally talented and experienced individuals from new locations who have helped take our agency to the next level.
As a full-service digital marketing agency, we’ve helped our clients grow through many channels. However, we recognize that sometimes they need support in areas beyond our expertise.
To bridge that gap, we created a vetted partner network – trusted professionals we can refer our clients and prospects to when they need assistance outside our core services. Since launching this program, we’ve built a strong network of partners who step in when we know we can’t, ensuring our clients always get the right solutions.
As digital marketing evolves, so do we. With AI playing an increasingly significant role in the search landscape, our service delivery has adapted, along with the KPIs that matter most to us and our clients.
Our GNR 3.0 reporting platform integrates tools such as Google Analytics, BrightEdge, Google Search Console, GoNorth! Leads, and CallRail, providing a transparent, all-in-one solution for tracking deliverables and gaining in-depth insights into key metrics that truly reflect campaign progress. GNR 3.0 enables us to make data-driven decisions that create a significant impact for our clients.
