I’m James Parnwell, Founder and Managing Director of TheOnlineCo.
It’s 2009…. I am at an interesting juncture in my life. After experiencing some challenging years, closing a previous business, welcoming our third child into the family with another on the way, I found an opportunity to venture into digital marketing. I completed my marketing degree in the 90’s where marketing was tv, radio print, billboards, etc… Little did I know that marketing would make an interesting shift….. Enter the digital marketing age – where most marketing efforts could be measured. This immediately piqued my interest for testing and data driven marketing activities. And so, TheOnlineCo was born.
TheOnlineCo. began to grow and I realised, that this industry offered me an unexpected gift… a flexible work-life balance. As a passionate family man, I had often regrettably worked late into the night in my previous roles. However, I now had an opportunity for flexibility, allowing me to work hard while still being able to spend time with my family. As we grew and we brought on team members, I discovered that this flexibility was a gift I could also extend to them. It became clear to me, that if people can do the things they love and spend time with the people they love, they end up enjoying their jobs and perform better—a true win-win situation.
This is when we introduced family as one of our values. We learned that a healthy workplace with work-life balance is a privilege, everyone gets to share, however, this is earned by looking after our clients well.
As we grew, we realised how crucial our partnership with our clients is. They needed us to bring clarity to their marketing, and we needed to help them continue growing. The performance of our campaigns and the quality of our work was making a significant difference. These values are mutually dependent—if one falls, they all fall.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw an opportunity to help hundreds of small businesses struggling to stay afloat. By giving away our intellectual property and time to support them, we added generosity to our values. We now constantly ask, “How can we help?”
Today, we are a strong mid-sized agency servicing high-quality clients with high-quality work, all grounded in the strategic planning piece we developed over the last 10 years called the Digital Marketing Playbook.
We’ve found a unique way to provide a mature and sophisticated service that makes a difference for our clients. Our story is still being written, and we’d love you to be a part of it.
our people
A dynamic team of experienced individuals, ready to bring their skillset to your marketing
We bring clarity to businesses marketing efforts that helps them reach their business goals. With the help of our Digital Marketing Playbook, we can deeply learn about your business and customers and create campaigns that deliver results in an ever changing marketplace. We aim to build long term partnerships with our clients and it gives us great satisfaction to stand with businesses as they reach their goals because of our partnership.