A marketing agency in Elgin. South Elgin, actually.
Pondir is a performance-marketing studio run from South Elgin: paid media, creative, and the pages they land on, end to end. Most of our clients find us online, from all over the country. If you’re in Elgin or the Fox Valley, you can skip the discovery call and start with coffee.
- Customers in year one
- 25,000
- Day-one ad return
- ~10×
- Community members
- 140,000+
Based in South Elgin. Built for anywhere.
Local enough to meet at your shop on Tuesday. Set up to run the same work for a brand three time zones away.
If you’re nearby, work can start in person — a kickoff at your shop, a working session over coffee, a walkthrough of what the numbers actually say. After that, everything ships the same way it does for clients three time zones away: a goal we agree on, a plan you can read, a build you can watch, and results you can check without asking.
That’s the honest shape of it. No storefront, no account managers, no junior team learning on your budget. You work with the person leading the work — and he happens to live down the road.
For an Elgin service business that usually means Google Ads and a landing page that turns the click into a phone call. For a Fox Valley brand with a storefront, it’s more often identity work and the video that carries it. Either way the sequence is the same: the goal first, then the channel, then the build.
Where do you want to begin?
Two ways in. Not sure what the highest-leverage move is for your business? That's what the call is for. Already know? Go straight to it.
I don’t know what I need yet.
That’s the normal starting point. 10–15 minutes with Dylan, no deck, no pitch, and you’ll leave knowing the highest-leverage next move, whether or not we work together. If you’re in Elgin, South Elgin, or anywhere along the Fox River, say so and we’ll do it over coffee instead.
Pick a lane and we’ll take you straight to it.
The work, scoped for a business here.
Five lanes cover most of what an Elgin or Fox Valley business hires us for. Each one is fixed-scope, quoted up front, and run by the person who builds it.
Google Ads / PPC
When someone in Elgin searches for what you do, you want to be the answer — and know what the click cost. Campaigns built around the searches that actually convert, geo-targeted to the towns you serve.
Landing pages & websites
A fast page that turns the click into a call. Built, measured, improved — with the phone number, the service area, and the proof where a local buyer looks for them.
Meta / Facebook Ads
Reach the ZIP codes that matter, with creative made to stop a thumb. Useful when demand has to be created rather than caught.
Brand & identity
For the established business whose sign has outlived its look. Identity, marks, and the system that keeps everything downstream consistent.
Short-form video & content
Eight videos a month that sound like you, not an agency. Shot local when it needs to be, edited and scheduled either way.
Every service has a fixed scope and a timeline. The full list lives on the home page.
See the full scopeFirst, he ran it on his own money.
Upstart Epoxy, cofounded by Dylan, launched March 2020. 25,000 customers in year one, sold to a private-equity-backed manufacturer eighteen months after launch.
- Customers in year one
- 25,000
- Average order value
- $134
- Day-one return on the hero ad
- ~10×
- Original content pieces / month
- 100+
- Community members
- 140,000+
Before Pondir ran this playbook for clients, its founder ran it on his own money. The offer was engineered from competitors’ one-star reviews (no yellowing, no bubbles, no VOCs, made in the USA), then priced at $94.99 against a $69.99 category on purpose. The margin paid for the growth.
The first ad was a 60-second video of a real hobbyist doing a real project in his garage. It returned roughly $1,000 in sales for every $100 spent (profitable from day one) and carried acquisition for months.
Behind it: landing pages and bundles built to answer every objection before it was asked ($200+ bundles converted at the same rate as the single product), Facebook and Google ads scaled on premium margin, email flows and bundled courses that turned one project into the next reorder, and a content engine producing 100+ original pieces a month, much of it made by customers themselves.
Eighteen months after launch, a private-equity-backed manufacturer bought the company. It still runs today.
Landing pages. Paid social and search. Email. Content. Every lever in this story is a service Pondir runs end to end, by the person who used them on his own company first.
The person behind the work.
Dylan Pearson
Founder, Pondir
Dylan Pearson, known online as Dylan Pondir is the founder of Pondir. He started out as a software developer at E*Trade before leaving to pursue entrepreneurship: first in performance marketing, then building and selling a company of his own, then scaling brands for clients.
Along the way he’s grown a content following past 200,000, teaching founders and operators how advertising and e-commerce actually work, not the version that sounds good in a deck. His approach is goals-first, strategy-second: settle what the work is for before deciding how to do it. Pondir is where the engineering rigor, the marketing, and the building all come together: thought through, not thrown together.
Asked and answered.
The things a business here usually wants settled before booking the call.
Do you meet in person in Elgin or South Elgin?
Yes. Kickoffs, check-ins, or a first coffee anywhere around Elgin, South Elgin, or St. Charles. After that, most of the work runs remote — with everything visible as it ships.
Why is there no office address on this page?
The studio runs from a home office in South Elgin. You’re not paying for a lobby. We come to you, or we meet online.
Do you only work with local businesses?
No. Most Pondir clients are brands across the country who found us online. Local businesses get the same process: a goal, a plan, the work, the numbers.
What do Elgin businesses usually hire Pondir for?
Google Ads for service businesses, a landing page that converts, a brand refresh, or short-form video. Usually one of those first; the rest follows if the numbers earn it.
How does pricing work?
Projects are fixed-scope and quoted up front. Ongoing work is monthly. Ad spend goes to the platforms, not to us, and every invoice is itemized.
Who actually does the work?
Dylan Pearson. Senior work, modern tooling where it earns its place, and no handoff to a junior team.
Still holding a question this doesn’t answer? That’s a good reason to book the call.
Tell us about your goal.
Three short steps. We read every message and respond inside two business days.
Ready when you are.
One call. Thirty minutes. Leave with the highest-leverage next move, whether or not we work together.