Leadership, individuality, difference and standing out from the crowd. Unique thinking and creativity. Do not go with the flow.

Celebrating Our 2023 Wins + Planning for Our 2024 Successes

2023 brought 12 months of growth for our team. We welcomed four new employees and five new clients, putting in hundreds of hours building up our offerings.

As always, education and professional development are at the forefront of our company culture. Our team attended three conferences and exhibited at two, networking with new connections and expanding our skills in design and technology.

2023 was a website heavy year––our team built over 43 websites, spending over 1,000 hours writing, designing, constructing, and testing. We created nearly 500 digital ads and worked on 228 unique projects of varying complexities. Our data and tech team completed three extensive SEO audits and got the ball rolling on six more. We also launched two new Marketing Automation systems in Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud.

As we move into 2024, we are excited for the new opportunities on the horizon––including clients, design techniques, and innovative strategic methods––all delivered with the same quality and care we’ve prioritized for the last 11 years.

Visit our website for fresh ideas and upcoming trends on our Insights page, and take a look behind the curtain under Projects to see how we handled different client challenges. Follow us on social media for day-to-day updates or reach out through our contact form to chat with us directly.

At 5 Horizons we solve problems using creativity, technology, and data to help our partners grow. We look forward to being your partner in 2024.

– Pat Riley & Ben Sandman

Co-Founders, 5 Horizons

close up on man hand holding smartphone with futuristic of social media marketing icon for internet network technology and business concept

Why SEO Isn’t One-and-Done

There isn’t a single person in marketing who hasn’t heard of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or taken steps to implement an SEO strategy into their organization’s or business’ efforts. However, most people get stuck thinking that SEO is an item you can check off your to-do list. Instead, SEO is an ongoing process––a strategy that requires continuous attention, tweaking, and improvement. 

What Makes SEO an Ongoing Process?

Changes in User Behavior

In the past, it was challenging to keep up with the most popular keywords or keyword phrases. Now, that task is made even harder by Google, which is not just looking for keywords anymore—it is also reviewing the intent behind the search by compiling a user profile. Understanding the “why” behind your audience’s search is a long process but one that will tremendously help your SEO results.

Evolving Marketplace

New technology, products, media, trends, etc. are constantly entering the marketplace, shifting the trajectory of the audience’s interests, hobbies, and likes. Anticipating these changes is difficult, but you can learn to adapt, pivot, or enhance your strategy and language in accordance with the market demands.

Algorithm Updates

To avoid search engine results page (SERP) manipulation, search engines frequently update the way they evaluate and rank websites when it comes to search results. These updates can have an immediate effect on your strategy’s performance, heightening the importance of promptly incorporating the current best SEO practices into your efforts.

How to Keep Up with SEO Over Time

Generate High-Quality Content

Populating your website with content that is relevant to your audience requires constant content generation. Uploading a few blogs to your site when implementing an SEO strategy and never writing another one again will make you rank lower on the SERP and prevent people from engaging with your website. That’s why it’s necessary to keep creating content that your prospective customers, clients, or students would want to interact with on a regular basis.

Maintain Your Website

On-page SEO is easy to keep in mind when you start optimizing your website. But as time goes by and you create new pages, you might forget to write meta titles and descriptions, making it harder for search engines to index your content. Continuously keeping your site organized will help your page rank higher.

Monitor Trends and Competition

Staying in the know of the new approaches search engines and your competitors take when it comes to SEO will help you adjust your own strategy if needed. Learning from the victories and mistakes of others is just as important as learning from your own, and it will help you stay afloat when search engines inevitably release updates that can affect your rankings. 


It is vital to keep your SEO fluid and flexible to help your operations thrive and gather as many viable leads as possible. At 5 Horizons, we offer continuous SEO services that ensure your organization, business, or school reaches your target audience. Contact us today to learn more and follow along on our Demystifying SEO journey.

people on smart phones

5 Ways to Leverage Matched Audiences

Get More from Your Database

The power of digital marketing is its ability to maximize the efficiency of your marketing spend through precise targeting. Yet not enough marketers or agencies take advantage of the most efficient target, their own database. 

Current, past, or prospective customers are all significantly more likely to purchase than even the most finely targeted new audience. This is why re-targeting is so powerful: it targets prospects who’ve already indicated their interest by visiting certain pages of your website. Well, why not take that concept one step further?

Continue reading “5 Ways to Leverage Matched Audiences”

Don’t Get Stuck in Groundhog Day – Online Advertising Needs Fresh Creative

Groundhog Day isn’t just the day Punxsutawney Phil tells us when Spring is coming. It’s also a great (in our opinion) 1993 comedy featuring Bill Murray as a weather reporter keeps reliving the same day over and over and over again until he gets things right.

When it comes to online advertising, sometimes brands can get stuck in Groundhog Day. Are you showing the same ad over and over again? Is your creative, ahem, creative? Or just really repetitive?

Continue reading “Don’t Get Stuck in Groundhog Day – Online Advertising Needs Fresh Creative”

4 Reasons Online Video is a Must for Your Media Mix

1. What’s More Effective than a :30 second Video Ad? An Online Video Ad!

With online video you can target who sees your message. Traditional TV is great for reaching a wide audience efficiently, but wouldn’t it be better to show your commercial only to your target audience, limiting wasted impressions. Plus 1 in 4 Americans now watch video online1, which means more of traditional television’s audience is available to you digitally.

Continue reading “4 Reasons Online Video is a Must for Your Media Mix”