Softline Solutions

Everyone was so nice and friendly. I really felt they could get the job done.

They couldn't get the job done. They advertised a 63% increase in ROI and instead my sales dropped 80%. Absolute catastrophe.

It's funny how on these reviews it's so simple for someone to get a family member or friend to write one for you. You should be cautious about the positive ones but the negative ones you know are true as the owners would not have a friend write them a bad review. Here is my experience with Softline from Sept 2016 to November 2016, not 2010 like a couple of the reviews..... It takes a lot for me to take the time to write a review but I feel that this company's misleading advertising and terrible performance warrant that. Before I continue, I want to emphasize this was my particular experience with them and I am not speaking for anyone else, but I can say that in the 22 years I have been in business, this company is the worst I have dealt with. Now, don't get me wrong. Everybody was very nice and everybody tried to achieve the goals they advertise but in business you don't get an "E" for effort or a "participation trophy." A business is rewarded by it's results and generally the better the results the more they charge, as they should. This could get a little lengthy so to summarize, AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE! Around the summer of 2016 I started getting these email ads from Softline Solutions advertising all kinds of good stuff. I have several websites for which I have been managing the Google AdWords PPC campaigns but their ads sounded so enticing that I figured I would give them a call. I mean, they said stuff like "We create PPC campaigns that deliver immediate results" (the only immediate result I got was a 90% drop in sales the first month...ouch!), they also mention a drop in the cost per click (mine doubled), or "63% more ppc conversions" (mine dropped 80% in 3 months) and, my favorite, they strive to make us an advertising unicorn which is a Google advertiser who achieves a click through rate in the top 1% of all advertisers. They say that in business terms that means 6 TIMES THE CLICKS AT 1/2 THE COST! Well, who doesn't want that. Only thing is I got 1/3 as many clicks as I was getting before which means if they are promising 6 times the number of clicks, I should have gotten 18 times the number of clicks I actually got. And on top of that, there was no disclaimer like "results may vary" or anything like that. Later on when you sign up they have you sign a boilerplate contract saying they are not responsible for anything that has happened, is happening or will happen...lol But the ads are so great and everyone there is so enthusiastic the concept or possibility of failure was never brought up by anyone, until we failed, of course. Anyways, I call them up at the beginning of August and I get this very friendly guy on the phone who I assume is sorta like a salesperson/info provider whose job is to answer any questions you may have and enroll you and who knows what else. Now, my website has around 45 pages so he looks it over and tells me that they have to do some pre-launch preparation on the site before the campaign could be launched and that the fee for that is $4000 and then my monthly management fee would be $350/month. Well, what he didn't know is I had been in touch with another Google partner that does the same stuff they do and they charge $399 for the set up and $299 monthly fee. Upon hearing this, he dropped the price from $4,000 to $899! Now this may seem great to some but it was obvious I was getting gouged. You don't just drop your price by more than $3000 unless you are overcharging someone. Maybe he was on commission, IDK, but that was the first red flag which I vapidly ignored. It is clear that prices are highly negotiable and vary frequently. From Nov 22-30 they were offering the set up fee for free and a 24% discount on the management fee. That was nice for Thanksgiving but makes me feel I didn't get much for my $900. But, as I mentioned before, results are what matter. I have no problem paying good money for good results but paying good money to have your sales drop 80% as opposed to increase by 63% as they advertise...that's just not right. This is getting too long. To make a long story short, my sales dropped about 80% from Sept to Nov, 2016. After viewing the catastrophic performance of my campaign for Sept and Oct, they were kind enough to give me one "AdWords friendly page" and charge me nothing for one month's maintenance fee. Supposedly these pages help your performance, and they may, but for me the page did nothing. And they cost about $175 each and as I have 45 pages on my site, it would have cost me almost $8000 to have them create them and they would not have worked for me. I can't speak for others. But had they told me about the $8000 for the AdWords friendly landing pages from the beginning, I would have moved on. In any case, I guess I should feel lucky that I didn't waste another $8000 on those. As I mentioned, they may work for other. This was MY experience which I would describe as a nightmare. Having 3 sales in the month of Sept when I should have 30 is upsetting but they say it can take 30-60 days to see real results. Well I stuck it out for 90 days and threw in the towel. I didn't get a unicorn...I got a burro, and a lame one at that!