SmartBug Media™ Named a ‘Best Company for Work-Life Balance’ by Comparably

Leading Marketing Agency Credits Unique Remote Workforce Model and Healthy SmartBug Initiative for This Exclusive Distinction 

IRVINE, Calif., October 9, 2019—SmartBug Media™—a leading Intelligent Inbound™  marketing agency that assists businesses in generating leads, increasing awareness, and building brand loyalty through inbound marketing, digital strategy, design, marketing automation, and public relations—today announced that it has been recognized as a “Best Company for Work-Life Balance” by Comparably. The award validates the company’s unique remote workforce model and proves that its new Healthy SmartBug initiative—designed to ensure the company as a whole is happy, healthy, safe, and resilient—is having a positive impact on its employees. This is the tenth Comparably award earned by SmartBug Media in the past two years.

SmartBug™ was founded 10 years ago as one of the country’s few fully remote marketing agencies, and in that short amount of time, it has shown that it is possible to provide employees with challenging careers along with the flexibility to spend more quality time and make lifelong memories with their families. That had been a lifelong dream of SmartBug’s Founder and CEO, Ryan Malone. “I wanted to watch my kids grow up instead of being away at an office during most of their lives, and through this process, my hypothesis was that there were many people who had the same goals as me and that we could hire better people, faster. That hypothesis has proven accurate,” he explains. 

The model has brought the company much success, as SmartBug continues to experience rapid growth, expanding to represent more than 100 clients, employ nearly 80 full-time employees, and win prestigious awards such as being named to the Inc. 5000 list for the third year in a row and making the inaugural Adweek 100: Fastest Growing Agencies List just last month. In order to keep up with the growth and ensure its employees don’t fall victim to the fast-paced, demanding, and sometimes stressful working environment of most marketing agencies, Malone introduced a new initiative called Healthy SmartBug to help its employees remain happy, healthy, safe, and resilient. 

“My goal is to have one-on-one SmartBug Connect calls with every employee each quarter, where my only agenda is to find out how to improve SmartBug from their perspective,” explains Malone. “It is very important to me that our employees are happy and achieving a healthy work-life balance. The SmartBug Connect calls have already produced hundreds of ideas for our leadership team to consider, prioritize, and ultimately roll out in order to improve the health of the company. Receiving this great honor from Comparably is very meaningful to me, because it shows that the Healthy SmartBug initiative and SmartBug Connect calls are having a positive impact across our entire organization.”

Comparably, an online career, compensation, and workplace culture monitoring site, uses a data-driven approach to gather information about U.S.-based companies. Each year, it publishes lists of top companies in a variety of categories. Comparably establishes its rankings by gathering sentiment ratings provided by employees who anonymously rate their employers over the course of a year. There are no fees, costs, or nominations associated with participating. Comparably’s Best Companies for Work-Life Balance award winners are chosen based on how satisfied employees are with their work-life balance, whether or not they feel burnt out at work, average hours worked per day, and lunch break lengths.

“Comparably's annual Work-Life Balance list recognizes the Top 100 companies that provide the best flexibility, according to employees," said Comparably CEO Jason Nazar. "SmartBug Media workers praise the company’s unique remote environment that allows rewarding careers while balancing family life and personal hobbies."

SmartBug Media won Comparably awards for Best CEOs for Women and Best Places to Work in Los Angeles earlier this year. The company also won seven Comparably awards in 2018, including: Best CEOs for Women (Small/Mid-Size Companies), Best Managers (Small/Mid-Size Companies), Best Places to Work in Los Angeles, Best CEOs in Los Angeles, Happiest Employees (Small/Mid-Size Companies), and Best CEOs in the United States (Small/Mid-Size Companies).

To see the full list of award-winning companies and to learn more about the methodology used to determine winners, visit Comparably’s blog.

About Comparably

Comparably is a workplace culture and compensation monitoring site with a mission to provide more transparent and rewarding workplaces. Employees can access salary data and rate their companies, CEOs, and work experiences through the lens of specific demographics including gender, ethnicity, age, tenure, industry, location, and education. With nearly 10 million ratings from employees at more than 50,000 U.S. companies, Comparably has become one of the most used SaaS solutions for employer branding and trusted third-party sites for salary and workplace culture data. For more information on Comparably, go to comparably.com. For highly cited workplace culture and compensation studies, including Comparably’s annual Workplace Culture Awards, log onto comparably.com/blog.

About SmartBug Media™

SmartBug Media™ is a globally recognized Intelligent Inbound™ marketing agency assisting businesses in growing revenue by generating leads, increasing brand awareness, and building customer loyalty through content marketing, sales enablement, web development, marketing automation, and public relations.

As HubSpot’s 2018 Global Partner of the Year, SmartBug™ is the highest-rated HubSpot partner in the world. The company has not only been named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies three years in a row, but it has also been named to the Adweek 100: Fastest Growing Agencies List and won several Great Place to Work® awards. With hundreds of awards for client work—and a team with a combined 550 marketing certifications—SmartBug is fully dedicated to delivering client success and an unparalleled agency experience. For more information about SmartBug Media, visit smartbugmedia.com.

For SmartBug Media Inquiries, Contact: 

Jennifer Tolkachev
SmartBug Media 
949-236-6448 x865
jtolkachev@smartbugmedia.com