Finance-Specialist Digital Agency Creode Cuts Dev Time and Delivers Secure, High-Traffic Projects with Cloudways

About Creode

There’s no room for error when you work with clients in high-pressure, highly regulated industries like finance or tech. That’s why agencies like Creode need more than just good hosting; they need a reliable partner they can trust to deliver speed, security, and uptime, every time.

Creode is a full-service agency with a reputation for delivering strong results across brand strategy, websites, and performance campaigns. As their work with financial and tech clients grew, so did their hosting needs, and managing servers directly became a growing challenge.

In this case study, discover how Cloudways helped Creode streamline operations, speed up project delivery, and support strict compliance requirements for top-tier clients like Skipton Building Society. If you’re an agency serving demanding industries, their story will feel all too familiar and inspiring.

Cloudways: What inspired you to start Creode, and how has your team’s expertise in the financial services sector shaped your agency’s unique value proposition?

Guy Weston: Our three founders had spent years working across digital marketing, direct marketing, and branding, and saw an opportunity to create an agency that could deliver these as a joined-up service offering.

The three of us had broad experience across many sectors, from home improvements and DIY to travel and entertainment. Still, our combined experience working with financial services stood out. Over time, we built up a strong client base in that area.

There is a lot of overlap between financial services, tech, and professional services businesses, so we decided to focus on these sectors in 2022.

We combine our sector expertise with the results-focused pressures of working for retail clients and the UX skills associated with complex user journeys to deliver exceptional work across our focus sectors.

– The team that shaped Creode’s unique approach to integrated digital services, with deep experience in the financial and professional sectors.

Cloudways: How did your agency’s hosting needs evolve as you scaled, and what challenges did you face with previous hosting providers before switching to Cloudways?

Guy Weston: Reliable hosting has always been an essential part of Creode’s offering to clients, but as we have scaled and refined our sector focus, the importance of security, performance, and customer service has increased.

Before working with Cloudways, we had direct relationships with the major cloud hosting providers. This means you’re entirely on your own to define the architecture, patch servers, define the security approach, configure CDNs, etc.

The move to hosting with Cloudways has meant that we can now focus on our core skills and rely on our hosting partner’s expertise in managing servers and associated infrastructure to ensure we deliver the best possible outcomes for our clients.

Cloudways: What key factors influenced your decision to choose Cloudways over other hosting solutions, especially given the technical demands of financial sector clients?

Guy Weston: The two main factors were simplified technology and customer support. We wanted to move from disparate systems configured by our teams to a centralised and integrated platform to streamline the delivery of complex hosting solutions.

– The Cloudways Platform makes it easy for agencies like Creode to manage complex hosting environments without the DevOps overhead.

We also wanted excellent customer support when our requirements were slightly more bespoke or when we encountered something unexpected.

Having trialled several managed hosting solutions, none came close to what Cloudways delivered. Over the years, they’ve continued to add features that keep them ahead of the competition.

This means we spend less time managing servers and debugging hardware issues and more time developing platforms that drive our clients’ businesses forward.

Cloudways: How do Cloudways’ performance features align with the high expectations of your clients in regulated industries like banking or insurance?

Guy Weston: These days, customers expect digital platforms to work fast, be available 24/7, and be able to trust them. Anything else is brand-damaging in any sector, but when you’re looking after people’s money, it’s imperative.

Cloudways gives us confidence that our brand and marketing work is underpinned by digital services that deliver against customers’ expectations. It’s the foundation on which everything else is built.

Cloudways: Can you describe a project where Cloudways’ hosting capabilities directly improved client outcomes or streamlined your team’s workflow?

Guy Weston: Financial services institutions have strict rules about communicating with customers and investors. Compliance teams also need the final sign-off on everything before it is published.

The UK’s fourth-largest building society, Skipton Building Society, chose Creode to develop its group website, a platform targeted at regulators, the city, and financial journalists.

Hosting the group’s Home Affordability Index meant that the website would experience extremely high traffic during its feature on national news bulletins and in the national press.

– With CDN integration, secure staging environments, and autoscaling, Cloudways enabled Creode to deliver a reliable, high-traffic platform for Skipton Building Society.

By hosting with Cloudways, we could implement all security measures quickly and easily. This allowed access to third-party developers for updates to the data in the home affordability index without compromising security.

We created a secure staging environment for content to be made and approved by compliance teams before deployment to the live site.

With CDN integration, clearing the cache from within the WP admin area was a considerable advantage, reducing the need for developer involvement in the overall process.

Auto scaling has been an excellent tool for managing the bursts in demand for the application.

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Cloudways: Which Cloudways tools or features have been most valuable for your developers when handling complex, data-heavy projects for fintech or wealth management clients?

Guy Weston: We use so many features daily that it’s difficult to remember how we worked before partnering!

For Skipton Building Society, managing data updates to a secure staging environment before deploying live has been a considerable advantage, letting us preview third-party code and data.

Cloudways: How has Cloudways’ Agency Partnership Program supported Creode in managing multiple client websites while maintaining flexibility and cost-effectiveness?

Guy Weston: After joining the Agency Partnership Program, we received exceptional support from Cloudways regarding account management and technical support.

Access to beta features means we can familiarise ourselves with new features and have a say in how these features are developed before full release.

– Cloudways’ Agency Partner Program gives Creode access to early features, dedicated support, and tools to manage multiple client websites easily.

Working closely with the product team has helped us to direct the Cloudways features to align with our requirements.

Cloudways: What tangible business benefits, like client retention or faster project delivery, have you seen since joining Cloudways’ Agency Partnership Program?

Guy Weston: Project delivery has to be faster. We spend more time developing applications than managing servers and designing technical architecture.

Cloudways: In a fast-moving industry like financial services, how does Cloudways help Creode stay agile when adapting to sudden client needs or market changes?

Guy Weston: The platform tools give us access to many features to react quickly to client requirements. However, when we need technical support to resolve an issue, the Cloudways team is always responsive and happy to help.

Cloudways: Would you recommend Cloudways to other agencies serving regulated sectors, and what advice would you give them when evaluating hosting providers?

Guy Weston: The best way to understand how the platform works is to try it! Talk to them about your complex requirements, listen to their advice, and set up a project. You won’t be disappointed.