APL MediaReviews 

APL really understands my clients, the product and the demographic they want to attract, and so come up with great strategic media solutions for publications that are on brand, and focused at the very audience my clients want to promote to.

With quality titles in the portfolio I know my clients are happy with the publications, the reach, and of course the content look and feel is exactly how they would want to promote themselves.

Danny who manages my client portfolio is great to work with, he is creative, super speedy and very professional. He knows exactly what will work for my clients and is mindful of the budgets I have to work with.

Easy to work with and speedy in responses yet still professional. They are super helpful and give clear information about deadlines and specifications for any artwork or editorials.
Also after publications we are receiving a copy of the magazine without fail and if it for once does not arrive, they will assist in re-sending another copy without issues or follow-up.

Great team to work with!

It has been a pleasure working with Olivia and her team.I have found the work extremely rewarding.I have found APL very professional and they have good skills to bring out the best in the contents.
The approach to the finished product has been of the highest standard and I have been always impressed with the subtle changes they make to make the content stand out.
I look forward to working with this great team in the future.

Outstanding client communication at all times. Great heart and compassion made me feel like I was working with extended family. Thanks especially to Danny and Christopher!

Tired of being contacted almost weekly by their sales teams email. I have asked a few times to be removed from the mailing list but they refuse to do so or do not read their emails. The advertising in a newspaper does not work and is incredibly expensive for no sales leads. PLEASE REMOVE ME AND MY COMPANY FROM YOUR INCESSANT EMAILS

Tired of still receiving constant sales emails despite having asked not to be contacted anymore several times. No unsubscribe on their emails so I assume they are ignoring me. Always 'last minute deals' or 'late availability'. Always a different sales executive that contacts me and tries a slightly different tactic. If you have to try so hard an aren't listening, I'm sceptical of the service.

APL offered us a rapid turnaround and were hugely responsive and clear in the buildup to a Christmas campaign. It was a pleasure to work with Natalie and the team, and I would gladly recommend them.

Working with APL these past three years has been a real pleasure! The team are always professional, friendly and responsive and we have established a strong working relationship, leading to to good outcomes for my business.

I have a great working relationship with Kam Cherone of APL Media. He is very reliable and is always responsive. I enjoy working with him. :)

A really stressful experience - I've not used any other advertising companies before, so I have no benchmark to compare to, but I don't feel it should have entailed this level of phone calls and emails.

Background - I was approached by the company and after the first two calls straight after the other, I was left a voicemail saying that it was someone calling "with The Guardian". No mention of it being an advertising company, or the name of the company. When I called back, I was advised that it was for a mental health piece, and then given the costs for advertising with them. I realised then that it was a marketing call rather than someone writing for the Guardian as had been implied, but the person I spoke with was very enthusiastic and initially pleasant and I thought it sounded positive.

Less than 24 hours later, I let them know that I was unfortunately unable to go ahead with the work as we had just found out we had lost our funding for one of our projects due to budget cuts in the charity sector.

I received 3 calls, one after the other, several voicemails, and then an email stating I had to go ahead with the work as they work on a no cancellation policy.

I fully understand this policy, but this was before any work at all had been done on the piece as I had not yet sent them any materials. It wasn't so much the insistence of going ahead with the work, but the way the communication was carried out at what was already a very stressful time for our charity. No room for compromise, no empathy whatsoever.

Following that, I sent over the material, and then received several more emails about not forgetting to pay (this was before the deadline for payment had even passed). I emailed them to say I had paid and I have heard nothing since. No acknowledgement of payment, no thanks for working with them.

The irony of the supplement being for a mental health and wellbeing piece - I just found it a really unpleasant and intense experience.

Very disappointing experience. The traffic that came from the APL/Evening Standard campaign was just bad, with high bounce rates, low interactions and no conversions whatsoever. We were promised a catch-up and comprehensive report after the campaign was over. This also did not materialise, despite a couple of reminders from our end. I highly recommend taking your advertising budget elsewhere.

Everything was perfect - service, information, on time and great outcome. We were very happy and we will work with Maddie and her team again any time. Thanks for the great opportunity.

Jamie Marks at the APL Media team is fantastic to work with. Responsive, professional, and helpful. Can't recommend him enough.

AES Lawyers

Very professional and smooth cooperation, everyone involved was very friendly and helpful.

Really impressed by this company and in particular, Jamie Marks who was so good at explaining PR opportunities, talking through options and then communicating with me throughout the process to ensure we got the best outcome. He's also continued to follow up which is really nice. You can see that this company focuses on building positive relationships and isn't just about transactions.

John Clarke approached my small businesses to organise a peice in a travel guide.

He was very helpful in explaining the process (all new to me), getting it all turned around quickly and finding an approach suitable to our size and audience.

Now eagerly awaiting publication date!

Thanks John

Update: a few notes now publication date has passed.

Firstly, be aware any price negotiated is WITHOUT VAT - while you are given a "final price", the fact vat is added after this is hidden in Terms and Conditions (they claim this is 'standard', however I have never seen anything of the sort in any other industry)

Secondly, unfortunately we saw absolutely no benefit of the feature to date - on publication day we actually saw less web traffic than a standard day (not to say the feature reduced traffic, but certainly had no positive impact). Given - as a holiday rentals firm - we were told this is something you'd "expect to book out a whole season" from during the selling process, we are left feeling the money was poorly spent. Despite promise our business was a 'perfect fit' for the feature, we found ourselves featured amongst a wildly desperate and different set of businesses with little to no clear link to our own.

The peice turned out to be about "winter fun", while our business is shut every winter due to the nature of the industry... Entirely irrelevant to us.

On the whole, given the now complete experience, I've revised my score down - the company are nice to deal with, but I think overpromise and could be more transparent in sales tactics (we were given a two and a half day turnaround to work on our feature, with a sense of urgency which led us to possibly overlook T&C's etc, despite being a full month before publication date)

Overall as a first experience with a media / publication feature we're unlikely to do it again.

Further update: after explaining our issue with the feature we have heard no further communication. They have refused to give details of their complaints procedure, or engage in any way. Revised rating further as experience continues to deteriorate.

After much back and forth this was eventually resolved although the experience to get there was less than ideal.

Thank you for the great services John Clarke - very understanding, quick and professional. All of this without any stress! It was very nice working with you.

Great job also from the design team.

We've been working with APL Media over the past year. Our contact Lucian Howells is always very professional and thorough and great to catch up with. The options Lucian have presented to us have always been relevant and fit the brief for Marin. They responded quickly to my requests and provided everything that was required and promised.
Top work and would highly recommend