Immersion Emerges

Edge Web Hosting Helps Immersion Active Improve Its Mission Critical Hosting Needs

About Immersion Active

Immersion Active is a mid-sized Web development and online marketing agency that bills itself as the only one in the U.S.that specializes in creating websites that reach the fastest-growing group of online users, baby boomers.

The company was founded in 1998 as an interactive firm for all types of clients, but in 2006, its principals, David Weigelt and Jonathan Boehman, recognized the need to specialize in reaching Americans older than 50, whom to that point had not been a primary target for online campaigns.

Immersion Active’s clients include AARP, Senior Lending Network, the Society of Certified Senior Advisors and Home Instead Senior Care.

The Challenge – Ending the 3 a.m.Wake Up Calls

David Weigelt knows all about mission critical hosting. He depends on it every day to deliver results for his clients who have entrusted Immersion Active to not just create quality websites, but also  make sure they’re always up and working properly. Unfortunately, he has also known the pain of seeing the sites his firm developed go down, forcing him and his staff out of bed at 3 a.m.to repair the problem before the workday for his clients began. 

That was all before 2005, when Immersion Active was hosting its clients’ sites using what Weigelt describes as a “rack, pipe and space provider” that offered no managed hosting services, at a location near the company’s office in Frederick, Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.

Weigelt admits the less-than-ideal arrangement worked for a while, but as Immersion Active added additional clients, including ones with more demanding hosting needs, this setup became a major liability.

“If I had to communicate what life was like before Edge Web Hosting, I would say it involved showing up at 3 in the morning with my developers, with hardware in my car, ready to swap something out,” says Weigelt. “We couldn’t go on operating like that if we wanted to grow the business.”

After one too many sleepless nights, it was time for change.

The Solution – Strategic Managed Hosting and Proactive Support from Edge Web Hosting

Weigelt and his team began the process of finding a managed hosting services provider in 2005 that could be an extension of the Immersion Active team, and he found that in Edge Web Hosting. He says at the time he was looking for several things in a hosting partner:

• Expertise in ColdFusion, but also strong knowledge of .NET and PHP.
• Predictable pricing, while still offering scalable solutions.
• A team of people who don’t just answer the phone but can take immediate action to solve a problem.

When asked to summarize in one word what he was seeking in a managed hosting provider five years ago, Weigelt simply says, “Proactive.”

“If there’s a problem that comes up, they’re pursuing it,” says Weigelt when speaking of Edge Web Hosting. “There have been times when the folks there have called me and said that their team detected a problem and addressed it.  But more importantly, they explained how it happened and how we can prevent it from reoccurring. You can’t put a price tag on that.”

Asked to cite a specific example of Edge Web Hosting’s proactive approach to managed hosting, Weigelt instead points to a worst-case scenario that happened to an Immersion Active client that hosted its own site.

“This client has an international presence, and its site was hacked; the homepage was defaced. It was a real eye-opener to us in terms of how important this stuff is and how much damage can be done to a client’s brand if you aren’t proactive and on top of that,” he says. “On the one hand, I love the fact that with Edge Web Hosting we have a company that has protocols in place when things do happen, because that is inevitable. But on the other hand, and probably more importantly, our servers are so proactively monitored that we’ve never had that kind of problem. It is absolutely mission critical.”

Weigelt says he sleeps well knowing this won’t happen to any sites hosted by Edge Web Hosting, due to its round-the-clock server management and attention to detail.

Results – Satisfied Clients and Continued Growth

Weigelt cites Immersion Active’s partnership with Edge Web Hosting as a significant driver of his company’s success, due to Edge Web Hosting’s ability to proactively deliver consistent, quality results. 

“It’s great to be able to be able to tell our clients that we haven’t been down in  years, and that has a lot to do with Edge Web Hosting’s proactive approach,” says Weigelt. “We are very transparent with our clients about Edge Web Hosting. Once our clients understand the solution we have with them, I feel like they sleep better and they see us in a more favorable light. It’s one less thing they have to consider.”

Working with Edge Web Hosting has also been a boon to new business for Immersion Active.

“We’ve had a prospective client’s CIO say to us, ‘Ok, Mr. Agency Guy, lead me to believe that what you’ve got in a hosting provider is better than what I have right now.’” says Weigelt. “That’s when the uptime and all of the other reassurances Edge Web Hosting offers are really important.” 

Immersion Active has grown by 400 percent during the past five years, and Weigelt views Edge Web Hosting as the perfect long-term partner for continued prosperity. 

“As we continue to grow, Edge Web Hosting will be there for us,” says Weigelt. “Whether we need to add to our cluster or move to a cloud, I know we have the perfect partner to make the critical proactive hosting recommendations it takes for continued success.”