Digital Natives. Small Business Focused. Minnesota-Based.
Blue Ox Websites & Marketing is based in Minnesota, with remote employees across Central Minnesota and the Twin Cities. We love helping small businesses, startups, and nonprofits get found online so they can spend less time worrying about their website or marketing and more time serving customers.
We’re dedicated to strengthening our local economies and communities, which calls for resilient businesses. Most of our team members stay with us for 8 years or more, not just because we build great websites, but also because we value learning, teamwork, remote work, and family.
What Drives Blue Ox
Mission
We build innovative websites and honest marketing strategies to help small businesses and nonprofits grow—and make a bigger impact in communities.
Vision
We’re here to grow alongside local small businesses and nonprofits, building lasting partnerships that help communities thrive.
Guiding Values
Creativity: Custom solutions, not cookie-cutter.
Reliability: We show up and follow through.
Approachability: No jargon, no gatekeeping.
Community: We grow with the businesses and nonprofits we support.
Remote First
At Blue Ox, we prioritize flexibility and choice while focusing on making meaningful connections with our coworkers and clients. While we’re primarily virtual and WFH, our teams meet in person a few times per year to celebrate accomplishments and brainstorm big, new ideas.
Benefits & Perks
Flexible PTO & Company Holidays
Prioritized work-life balance, with flexible PTO and 23-25 observed days off.
Family Planning
Paid family and medical leave, including for adoption.
Employer-Matching 401K
50-100% retirement matching.
Perks & Stipends
Monthly internet and equipment allowances to support remote work.
Learning & Development
Mentorship from senior team members, conferences, certifications, and online learning opportunities.
And More!
Meet the Blue Ox Team
Meet the team! We’re a small, local crew of real people who care about helping businesses succeed online.
Employees
Logan Gruber
ReFounder / Marketing Director
Base: Sauk Centre, Minnesota
Tenure: 2016
Katie Carlson
Designer / Developer
Base: St. Cloud, Minnesota
Tenure: 2015
Kelsey Meyer
Designer / Developer
Base: St. Joseph, Minnesota
Tenure: 2017
Jonathan Gamble
Writer / SEO
Base: Cottage Grove, Minnesota
Tenure: 2024
Zeineb Kadhkadhi
Social Media / Designer
Base: St. Cloud State University
Tenure: 2018
Jen Gruber
Social Media / Designer
Base: Sauk Centre, Minnesota
Tenure: 2024
Careers At Blue Ox
Application
How Apple Set The Stage To Defeat Google’s Online Advertising Empire
/in Ads, SEOIt might seem like the digital landscape has always been dominated by big companies with big names. Google. Apple. Facebook. Twitter. But the landscape can change, and can do so rapidly. Recently, Apple has begun to take a bite out of Google’s supremacy in the online advertising arena.
Online advertising has been Google’s driving force, funding all of its other ventures for nearly 2 decades. As it turns out, this is both a strength and a weakness, and one which Apple will soon be in a position to exploit.
How Apple Set The Stage To Defeat Google’s Online Advertising Empire
Apple’s Safari Defaults To Google Search
It’s recently been discovered that Apple has a deal with Google to help bolster Google’s online advertising business. It’s estimated that Google pays Apple around $1 billion each year to be the default search option on Safari, Apple’s browser which is native to every iPhone sold.
In 2014, Goldman Sachs estimated more than 75% of mobile online advertising revenue for Google came from iPhones, which, based on public information, is estimated at $8.85 billion annually, about half of which is estimated to come from Safari searches, putting the value of Google being the default search option for Safari at about $4.4 billion annually. Online advertising revenue has only increased since 2014.
In 2014, Google reported more than $66 billion in total annual revenue, so Apple supplies/controls about 6% of Google’s annual revenue. This is a powerful bargaining chip.
Apple’s CEO Positions The Company As A Champion Of Privacy
Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, says on Apple’s privacy page: “We sell great products. We don’t build a profile based on your email content or web browsing habits to sell to advertisers. We don’t “monetize” the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. And we don’t read your email or your messages to get information to market to you. Our software and services are designed to make our devices better. Plain and simple.”
This is in direct opposition to the purpose and mission of online advertising companies like Google and Facebook. Apple is a hugely influential brand with hundreds of millions of devotees, and when they say online advertising companies don’t care about privacy, it holds weight.
Apple tries to remind users often that by using Apple products – which process commands locally on the machine and not in the cloud like Google – they’re making themselves and their data more private, safe and secure.
Apple’s Siri Stands As A Gateway To Vertical Search
Siri isn’t open to the developer community . . . yet.
Currently, Siri can handle basic queries (along with other functions, but we’ll stick with search for now). Queries like “What movies are playing near me” will return a result of films at local cinemas, but displayed natively and not in a browser.
This is an example of a vertical search – using a particular service to get a particular result, bypassing Google’s online advertising. While Siri itself is not a vertical search tool, it can be used in the future to access them. Current examples of vertical search engines include Amazon, where the number of product searches have overtaken the total number of product searches on Google.
When Siri opens up, users will be able to search vertically much easier than they can now. For instance, instead of using Safari:
The more vertical searches Siri can handle, the fewer searches Google gets on Apple devices, which directly cuts into their online advertising profits and brand recognition.
The stage is set, but it will be a long, slow, drawn out process. Should Apple continue to move in these directions – being a go-to source of Google’s online advertising revenue, championing privacy and opening up vertical search – this will limit Google’s online advertising growth and lower the company’s margins.
At Cohlab Digital Marketing, we’re passionate about online advertising. If you’d like to learn more about how to grow your business through Google’s AdWords tool, reach out and we’ll walk you through the process.
See All The Info Google Collects On Your Google ‘My Activity’ Page
/in UncategorizedWe all know Google has been collecting data on us for years. Now, with the Google My Activity page, you can see [most] of your data all in one place.
Google’s new Google My Activity dashboard allows you to see nearly every piece of data they have ever collected on you: websites visited, images viewed, videos watched, searches performed . . . the list goes on!
It may be terrifying, but it can also be a relief; Google is finally giving you insight into what it is tracking, while also giving you tools to control what they track and store, both in the past and future.
What’s All On The Google My Activity Page
If you’re a frequent user of Gmail, the Google suite of products [Drive, Docs, Maps, Search], YouTube, the Android operating system, the Chrome browser or other Google products, you will likely see a treasure trove of information on upon navigating to your Google My Activity page (you’ll need to sign into your Google account).
Depending on how long you’ve been using these products, Google may have nearly two decades of information stored on your Google My Activity page.
How To Control Your Data
All of the Google My Activity data is used by Google to improve its services for the rest of its users, and to give you a more personalized experience by autocompleting searches, serving you videos or ads you may be interested, and recalling your commute/travel patterns.
In light of this, you may or may not want to delete all or some of your Google My Activity data, as well as change how it is collected in the future. Google has given you the tools to do so.
Delete Past Data
You can delete all of the data Google has collected on you in one fell swoop. This may affect your Google experience, as noted earlier.
You can also be more strategic and delete certain data by keyword/search term, by Google product (Maps, Docs, YouTube, etc.) or within a date range.
Decrease (Or Increase) Collection Of Future Data
You can decrease (or increase) the amount of data Google collects from you in the future easily enough. Again, this may affect your Google experience.
Remember, if you don’t want to see any of your activity on the Google My Activity page, the only absolute way to prevent it is to not use any Google – or Google adjacent – products.
See All The Info Google Collects On Your Google ‘My Activity’ Page
/in UncategorizedWe all know Google has been collecting data on us for years. Now, with the Google My Activity page, you can see [most] of your data all in one place.
Google’s new Google My Activity dashboard allows you to see nearly every piece of data they have ever collected on you: websites visited, images viewed, videos watched, searches performed . . . the list goes on!
It may be terrifying, but it can also be a relief; Google is finally giving you insight into what it is tracking, while also giving you tools to control what they track and store, both in the past and future.
What’s All On The Google My Activity Page
If you’re a frequent user of Gmail, the Google suite of products [Drive, Docs, Maps, Search], YouTube, the Android operating system, the Chrome browser or other Google products, you will likely see a treasure trove of information on upon navigating to your Google My Activity page (you’ll need to sign into your Google account).
Depending on how long you’ve been using these products, Google may have nearly two decades of information stored on your Google My Activity page.
How To Control Your Data
All of the Google My Activity data is used by Google to improve its services for the rest of its users, and to give you a more personalized experience by autocompleting searches, serving you videos or ads you may be interested, and recalling your commute/travel patterns.
In light of this, you may or may not want to delete all or some of your Google My Activity data, as well as change how it is collected in the future. Google has given you the tools to do so.
Delete Past Data
You can delete all of the data Google has collected on you in one fell swoop. This may affect your Google experience, as noted earlier.
You can also be more strategic and delete certain data by keyword/search term, by Google product (Maps, Docs, YouTube, etc.) or within a date range.
Decrease (Or Increase) Collection Of Future Data
You can decrease (or increase) the amount of data Google collects from you in the future easily enough. Again, this may affect your Google experience.
Remember, if you don’t want to see any of your activity on the Google My Activity page, the only absolute way to prevent it is to not use any Google – or Google adjacent – products.