The Challenge: Proving Authority in an Oversaturated SEO Market
As a performance-driven SEO and content agency, elk Marketing has always focused on measurable growth—traffic, rankings, conversions. But as the search landscape evolved, those metrics stopped being enough.
AI-driven search results, zero-click SERPs, and a crowded content ecosystem left clients asking a harder question: How do we know our content is actually being seen and trusted?
elk’s team knew they had high-quality, optimized content, but they needed a way to show authority beyond keywords to demonstrate credibility and reach in channels that clients understood and valued.
“We could get content to rank, but clients wanted proof of authority—proof that what we were saying mattered beyond their blog.” - Danielle Work, Head of Content @ elk Marketing
The Solution: Scaling Credibility Through Earned Distribution
To bridge that gap, elk partnered with Stacker, integrating its earned distribution platform into their agency’s offering.
Through Stacker, elk could transform client blogs, reports, and data stories into newsroom-ready features distributed across a vast network of media outlets. Each story came back with verifiable metrics like pickups, readership, and domain authority ratings, that fit into elk’s client reporting framework.
This partnership allowed elk to:
- Scale earned media at speed. Stacker handled the outreach and distribution to thousands of publishers— no new hires or PR processes needed.
- Deliver proof of authority. Placements in high-DR publications validated clients’ expertise and strengthened SEO profiles.
- Strengthen client storytelling. Instead of abstract SEO metrics, elk could show tangible visibility and credibility through media coverage.
“Stacker became an extension of our team. It lets us deliver the kind of visibility that used to require an entire PR department.” - Danielle Work
The Results: 3600+ Pickups and a Reach of 377,000+
Since partnering with Stacker, elk Marketing has achieved results that have redefined what’s possible for a lean, performance-focused agency:
- 3600+ earned media pickups all-time
- 200 pickups in the last three months from publications with a Domain Rating of 75+, showing off elk's ability to place their brands with top-tier credibility
- Over 377,000 total readers reached through Stacker distribution.
- Coverage from more than 2,750 hyperlocal publishers, giving elk clients national reach with local precision.
These outcomes have empowered elk to demonstrate true full-funnel impact—combining organic performance with brand authority and visibility in trusted media ecosystems.
Why it Matters: A New Agency Growth Model
For elk, Stacker has become a strategic partner. The integration allowed them to stay lean, add new value for clients, and differentiate in a crowded SEO market.
By combining elk’s performance expertise with Stacker’s earned reach, the agency can now deliver outcomes that span the entire credibility spectrum—from technical SEO to real media authority.
“Stacker helped us bridge the gap between SEO and PR. It gave us a new way to talk about visibility—and a new way to deliver it.” - Danielle Work
The Takeaway
elk Marketing’s partnership with Stacker demonstrates what modern agencies can achieve when they treat earned distribution as an extension of their growth strategy.
Two key takeaways:
- Earned Media at Scale: 3646 pickups and 2,750+ publisher partnerships prove that credibility can be systemized—not siloed.
- Efficiency That Drives Retention: elk expanded client impact and retention without expanding headcount, using Stacker as a turnkey visibility engine.
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