Torro Media is a Boston-based web design and digital marketing agency renowned for delivering tangible results for its clients. When Matt Sullivan founded the agency in 2018, he was guided by the principle of “reputation over revenue.” He understands that every business is unique, so his top priority is to always provide the best value for money to Torro Media’s clients:
“Our daily activity is rooted in showing a return on any investment while we map out what future activity could come in a scalable phased approach. Whether we’re the right fit for you or not, we’re happy to have that conversation to explore a healthy partnership.”
Their holistic approach to digital marketing sets the Torro Media team apart. By working closely with their clients, they develop tailored strategies that meet each company’s unique goals. Their expertise includes SEO, PPC advertising, social media marketing, content marketing, website design, user experience and interface solutions, and video production.
“Known as ‘The Matadors of Marketing,’ our team audits the company’s digital footprint when assessing projects and campaigns. Anyone can build a website these days, but when you factor in SEO strategies, content creation, and advanced tactics on 3rd party platforms, there’s no better option.”
In our conversation with Matt Sullivan, he shares why powerful, managed WordPress hosting is critical to smooth day-to-day operations and agency success. Plus, he lets us in on a secret about how Torro Media lives up to its reputation for 100% customer satisfaction and guarantees Google PageSpeed scores of 90+ for all of its clients.
Snapshot
- Industry: Web design and digital marketing agency
- Business size: 12 team members
The problem
Managing multiple WordPress sites can be challenging, especially when hosted on different platforms. Each platform has its own set of tools and features, leading to inconsistencies that require extra time and effort to manage—tasks that are often automated and more efficient on Kinsta.
Matt Sullivan shares his experience: “Taking over management for several WordPress websites, it’s always a headache when hosted elsewhere.”
High cost of poor support
While Kinsta is known for its 24/7/365 expert support, other hosts offer generalized support that lacks in-depth knowledge of WordPress. This proved to be a problem for Matt – issues take longer to resolve with other hosts. But when managing multiple client sites, the amount of stress, time, and energy that poor support adds to the process is detrimental.
Compromised site performance
In addition to poor support, Matt struggled with slow WordPress sites. Not all hosts invest in state-of-the-art technology to power their sites and include it in all plans. With these providers, you either have to be on an expensive advanced plan to be on their fastest servers, or you’re stuck on a less robust one. In this case, you can expect slower load times and less reliable performance.
As Matt found in his journey to find a host that could support his goals and growth, he says:
It’s a night and day difference. The tools, features and services are just never up to the level of Kinsta, and that frustrates us so much. It’s always a challenge when a customer’s sites are hosted with another hosting provider. The overall speed and performance are noticeably different, especially compared to Kinsta sites’ speed with CDN.
The solution
For Matt, Kinsta is on a different level. The speed, reliability, and security of Kinsta-hosted sites using the fastest servers and premium tier of Google Cloud Platform, plus the added (and free) Cloudflare integrations, have set their standard for quality hosting.
Their confidence in Kinsta Hosting prompted them to join Kinsta’s Affiliate Program and then, after their exponential growth, to sign up for the Agency Program.
Customizable plans and white label hosting
Kinsta’s Agency Partner Program is tailored for agencies like Torro Media. It offers customizable plans that can accommodate multiple WordPress installations within a single MyKinsta account. This feature allows them to fully manage their clients’ hosting experience, including billing, under their own brand through white labeling.
Kinsta’s isolated container technology
Matt and his team at Torro Media can now ensure that all of their clients receive the best site performance and security available.
With Kinsta’s container structure, each of their client sites operates in its own isolated environment with dedicated resources so as not to interfere with one another. This means that Torro Media can efficiently handle traffic spikes without affecting the performance of other client sites.
MyKinsta dashboard with built-in advanced tools
The MyKinsta dashboard offers advanced management tools that simplify site transfers, renaming, and labeling, making it easier to keep client sites organized. Kinsta’s APM Tool allows Torro Media to monitor and optimize the performance of their client sites without any guesswork.
Additionally, each WordPress setup includes a staging environment that allows the Torro Media team to test site changes and new features safely before they go live. Plus, the Site Transfer tool simplifies project handovers. With just a few clicks, they can transfer a site to a client, even to non-Kinsta accounts.
High-performance CDN and Google’s top CPU servers
Upon migrating to Kinsta, Matt and his team saw a noticeable improvement in the client sites’ load times–they’re so much faster when on Kinsta. This is because their Kinsta-hosted sites run on Google Cloud Platform’s highest CPU machines on their fastest and most reliable Premium Tier Network, plus free Kinsta CDN powered by Cloudflare’s global network of 260+ locations.
The Kinsta Affiliate and Agency Programs
Some companies require you to jump through hoops to join affiliate programs. Matt loves that with Kinsta, it only takes about two minutes to get started.
The affiliate application process was very simple, and they have a very clear reporting dashboard. This made it easy to see exactly where our new revenue was coming from when we sent customers to them for hosting needs.
And while others offer one-time referral fees, Kinsta’s affiliate program is different. It offers a one-time commission ranging from $50 to $500 and a 10% recurring monthly commission for each WordPress customer referred.
Discovering Kinsta’s Agency Program
As Torro Media started getting more clients, they looked into Kinsta’s Agency Program to help manage their clients better and make extra money. This program lets them host their agency website for free and sell Kinsta hosting to their clients under their own brand or whitelabeling.
Sometimes you just want to point people in the right direction, which we did initially with an affiliate link. But once we built Kinsta into our web development requirements standards and started growing our client base, the Agency Plan was the only real option to manage properly.
Choosing between Kinsta’s Affiliate and Agency programs
At Torro Media, the decision between these two programs depends on the specifics of each project–its scope and the team’s involvement:
“If we’re building a site from scratch, we want them in our agency plan because we know everything about the site, and it’s easy to maintain. If it’s a site we’re helping to maintain and we didn’t do the original build, it probably makes more sense to do the affiliate hosting as a quick option without getting too involved–especially if it’s a more challenging client.”
Also, the Site Transfer Tool lets Torro Media add their affiliate ID to each site transfer. This ensures they receive affiliate commissions for sites not hosted on their agency plan.
The result
We’ve been using Kinsta for over three years now, and it’s by far the best option in the industry. As someone who has been building a WordPress website for over 15 years, I’ve seen every type of WP hosting available, and Kinsta is second to none.
With tools like the MyKinsta Dashboard, the Torro Media team now has a powerful management interface at their fingertips. Support extends to help them get the most out of these tools, from client site management and analytics to security and performance monitoring. This comprehensive combination of control and support ensures that they can efficiently manage client sites.
Kinsta also simplified testing with one-click staging environments, which allowed Torro Media to safely test updates, changes, or new features before going live. This has saved them from the horrors of breaking a live site and improved their project turnaround times.
High-performance client sites
With Kinsta, Torro Media’s tech stack is built on the fastest infrastructure on the market. Every site hosted by Kinsta is powered by Google’s top CPU servers and high-performance CDN with Cloudflare’s Edge Caching and Early Hints. By serving their clients’ content from locations closer to their site visitors, load times are reduced, which positively impacts page speed scores.
We now have a way to guarantee a 90+ score on Google Pagespeed because of Kinsta Hosting. Plus, the tools are super easy to use, and the support is phenomenal. We don’t know too many competitors that can make that guarantee.
Financial freedom with recurring passive income
Kinsta provides a strategic framework for agencies looking to establish a stable, recurring passive income through its customizable hosting plans and affiliate program. The financial security this provides has allowed Torro Media to make strategic decisions without immediate financial pressure. Matt is delighted with the program, saying: “Kinsta’s payouts are always on time and easily deposited into our company bank account.
With Kinsta, Torro Media can efficiently manage recurring client payments, ensuring a steady revenue stream. Automated billing reduces administrative work and minimizes the risk of missed or late payments. “When clients are on our agency plan, we have cards on file that allow us to upsell the hosting offering, which is always a plus. Both are great options, whether Kinsta does all the transactional work or it’s done in-house with a billing team,” Matt explains.
Peace of mind with 24/7/365 expert support
Torro Media appreciates the ability to get immediate help whenever they or their clients encounter issues. Kinsta’s expert support team ensures that problems are not only temporarily fixed but also resolved at their root.
Kinsta’s support is so helpful that it can be a big benefit for our clients to have that direct contact and relationship with them, so we don’t get bombarded with questions that should directly go to Kinsta in the first place.
Beyond the 24/7/365 support, Kinsta doesn’t just wait for issues to arise; its platform includes proactive monitoring of website performance and security. Our team monitors all Kinsta-hosted sites 480 times daily and has a 99.9% uptime guarantee. This approach allows Torro Media to stay ahead of potential problems, often resolving them before they impact their client’s site.
The conclusion
Torro Media can now guarantee 90+ Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) scores across all client websites with the help of Kinsta Hosting. This is made possible by Kinsta’s premium tier Google Cloud Platform, Cloudflare integrations, isolated container technology, and advanced management tools.
With Kinsta’s customizable plans and white label hosting, Torro Media can fully manage its clients’ hosting experience under its own brand. This partnership allows Torro Media to focus on delivering tangible results for their clients while leaving the complex site management to Kinsta.
Kinsta is the ultimate WordPress hosting service, and we wouldn’t be as successful without it.
