The Kinase Story
How two PPC geeks with the philosophy “don’t be shit” grew Kinase to become one of the UK’s most advanced digital performance marketing agencies
Beginnings
In 2009, Richard and Chris, soon to be Kinase co-founders, were frustrated. They were a two-man band trying to run paid search within a larger ecommerce agency who saw it as peripheral to their bread and butter business, which was setting up and running ecom platforms. So Richard and Chris came up with a plan. They would quit their jobs and concentrate on what they did best - optimising campaigns and working with clients.
Now they just needed a name. “I really didn’t want the name to be generic so something like ‘The Search Co’ was never going to fly. When we won our first client and had to be registered as a company, the pressure was on so I went to my biochemistry background.”
Kinase (pronounced: Ky-naze), is a class of biological enzymes that speed up and optimise chemical reactions throughout life as we know it. The word kinase shares the same root as ‘kinetic’ – a perfect fit for a new search agency that would act fast and be really agile in order to get results.
Their first client was House of Fraser who signed up for a PPC rebuild and in-housing project, and Kinase was born.
Fast Growth
Powered by extra strong coffee and a mania for Microsoft Excel, Kinase hit the ground running in its first year. An office in LSBU’s Technopark incubator in Elephant and Castle was set up; a team was built; and the agency developed its crucial relationship with Kenshoo (now Skai) which provided industry leading management and optimisation tools.
Kinase culture developed into a close and collegiate relationship between team members, leading to high staff retention as people stayed to develop their careers, work on clients they loved, and help fashion the agency itself. In this phase, Kinase also began working with Oliver’s Travels, who offer luxury villas and accommodation, forming our longest ongoing partnership as both businesses grew.
Recognition
With an amazing track record building up, word of mouth drove growth fast, with the company doubling in size every few months. Key clients such as Dreams and Watches of Switzerland Group came on board. Kinase’s reputation as experts and maximisers of search potential got around at Google, who in 2014 worked with Kinase as a beta partner for Google Shopping (‘Product Listings Ads’ as they were then known), and producing a case study to highlight their success with Shopping and RLSAs.
In 2015, the agency began offering a wider range of digital marketing services as the Paid Social team was formed, applying its industry-leading training and knowledge-testing ethos across channels. This expanded subsequently to Data/Analytics, Video and Consultancy teams, all built around supporting the core concept of helping clients to grow faster.
The multichannel approach led to more integrated management, as demonstrated with the relaunch of Sharps where a cross-channel approach combined with better KPIs generated a 20% increase in profit. Recognised as experts in the field of lead generation, Kinase were invited to speak at Google’s “Mastering Lead Gen 23” event.
Kinase’s training programme, led by Chris, had always been key to building a company of experts. New starters must graduate from an intensive 3 month training course, enabling the agency to be confident that digital knowledge is built up and renewed. With new channels and services, the training team also expanded, offering new modules for everyone across the agency to develop their skills throughout their careers.
Kinase Today
Today, the agency consists of over 90 people, managing budgets of over $100M a year - and growing!
Kinase has grown outside of the UK with international markets now representing 35% of all managed spend. Data has become ever more important with Kinase constantly validating client performance and optimising the channel mix using robust experimental methodologies led by Richard’s thinking on the subject and now deployed as a standalone service. Meanwhile, the latest team and new service to join the Kinase suite is Organic Social.
Are Richard and Chris happy with all they’ve achieved since going it alone to do things right with their own agency? “There’s always more to do, and new challenges to solve,” says Richard. “Both with the recent economy and with the accelerating pace of technical change. Luckily, Kinase was built to evolve and constantly challenge assumptions, so I feel like we’re in the best position to keep on delivering expertise to our clients.”
“Don’t be sh*t,” says Chris. “That was our initial idea - and we’ve stuck to it admirably!”
