Has 2022 got you thinking about investing in some valuable training for your team? Maybe there were some SEO challenges that were brought to light in 2021, and this time you want to be equipped with the knowledge and technical know-how to make informed decisions when it comes to SEO.
To support you and your team, we are offering a series of workshops, dedicated to the fundamentals of search marketing involving Technical SEO, Google Ads, and Google Analytics. All of our workshops are aimed at beginners to help them gain more knowledge and confidence to drive their business to perform better online.
As much as we prefer hosting our training courses in person, we have to put the safety of the participants and our team first, so for now we are providing them via video conference. Our hope is that, as 2022 progresses our workshops may be able to be moved to our lovely office in the picturesque Bradford-on-Avon.
Our Technical SEO workshop aims to provide you with an understanding of the fundamental search engine optimisation elements needed to improve the performance of your website on Google and other search engines.
Our resident SEO professionals will be on hand to debunk common technical SEO myths and give you practical examples that you can apply directly to the session.
2022 Dates: Thurs 21st April | Thurs 21st July | Thurs 20th October
The Introduction to Google Ads workshop is run in partnership with our sister company, AdPilot. This training course aims to provide you with the know-how needed to research, build and manage a structured Google Ads account, as well as hints and tips that you can implement into your own Ad campaigns.
Google Ads and paid search marketing can be difficult to understand without the right guidance, so let our paid search experts break it down into easily manageable sections.
2022 Dates: Thurs 17th February | Thurs 19th May | Thurs 18th August | Thurs 17th November
Our Google Analytics training workshop will provide you with the knowledge you will need to set-up and manage a Google Analytics account, including the most effective ways to monitor, analyse and implement the best approaches to improve the performance of your website.
As with Google Ads, Analytics can be a daunting but necessary part of your SEO strategy so is important to get the right support from experienced professionals.
2022 Dates: Thurs 17th March | Thurs 16th June | Thurs 15th September | Thurs 15th December
Our workshops are limited to 8 spaces per session, so please book soon to avoid disappointment. You can book direct through the Varn training courses page or via Eventbrite.
For further details on training and how it could benefit you and your team, in lockdown and beyond, contact our team on 01225 439960 or at [email protected]k.
Global education service provider and brand owner of TopUniversities.com, QS Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) have appointed AgencyUK as social media partner. QS is the world’s leading provider of services, analytics, and insights to the global higher education sector and famed for its university rankings, which have become the annual benchmark for universities around the world.
AgencyUK were appointed following a three-way pitch, in response to a social strategy and brand awareness brief set by the QS marketing team. AgencyUK will develop the organic social media strategy for the higher education and student communities around the world and launch a new programme of social media content off the back of it.
The pitch was overseen by Tim Edwards, Chief Marketing Officer at QS. Its purpose was to find an agency team who can support, unite, develop and promote their mission – to empower motivated people anywhere in the world to fulfil their potential through educational achievement, international mobility and career development.
The first wave of activity undertaken by AgencyUK includes strategy and creative that is based on education sector insights gathered from their world-leading independent market research and data analysis. The strategy will extend into the development of a global strategy and social media content plan rolled out in partnership with the QS global marketing team.
Tim Edwards, CMO, QS, said: “We were looking for an agency with strong strategic and creative capabilities and a track record in disrupting competitive markets. QS has grown rapidly through a combination of new product development and corporate acquisition, but we remain focussed on maintaining our market leader position, and to do so means being closer to our target audiences and continually investing in channel marketing.’’
Amy Stobie, Commercial Director, AgencyUK, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have been appointed by QS. They are a well established brand with a host of well known digital properties and a continuing ambition for growth. Our social and creative teams are well placed for reaching out to these target communities and we’re keen to get going.”
AgencyUK are an independent brand communications agency with 32 staff based in the UK. The company has demonstrated 200% growth over the pandemic period, largely attributed to the expansion of their healthcare portfolio. QS is the fifth global account win in the past 12-months.
Every January the digital marketing industry is ablaze with talk of new trends that will shake up how we do PPC. 2022 is no different.
And the pace of change is, almost unbelievably, accelerating. 2022 is set to be a big year for PPC – keeping up with Google’s new-and-improved policies, like the removal of expanded text ads (ETAs), and the world domination of TikTok can seem near impossible.
So, to help 2022 feel a little less daunting, we’ve picked the top 5 trends you need to focus on this year and how to integrate these into your PPC campaigns.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest analytics tool from Google, and it’s better equipped for the future than the previous model, Universal Analytics.
This is because GA4 has more advanced tools and reporting such as predictive insights, cross-device measurement capabilities, deeper integration with Google Ads, and more granular data controls.
Google’s plans to phase out third-party cookies by 2023 shouldn’t be news to you. In a cookieless world, it will be even harder to track consumer activity. So, in response to this, Google is offering “Enhanced Conversions“, which will improve your conversion tracking.
If you haven’t been focusing on offline conversion tracking, now is the time to do so. Most brands today run both on and offline, and some businesses forget that customers still make purchases offline.
If you just use traditional conversion tracking methods, then these offline purchases would not be linked to your online ad campaigns. Without this knowledge, you won’t be able to accurately measure the success of your campaigns.
In 2022, Google will continue to create and promote AI, so it’s vital you keep up with these changes. One of the big changes we will be touching upon in a moment is the changes to expanded text ads.
AI and automation are still quite new to the digital marketing world, but they will be at the forefront of PPC over the next few years. They are particularly useful for those of you looking to automate certain menial tasks to free up your time.
AI combined with automation can help you create impactful advertising campaigns while also improving your conversion rates. These concepts can dynamically create your ads based on user intent and website content, automating the bidding process, and automating ad success reports.
The world of PPC will experience a big change in June 2022. When June arrives, you will not be able to create or edit ETAs in the Google Ads Interface.
Google’s solution to this change is responsive search ads (RSAs) and dynamic search ads (DSAs). These will become Google’s default search ad type.
The role of machine learning in automation is the cause of this change. And this is where Google’s RSAs and DSAs come into play. As you would expect, both these ad types rely on automation.
Google will take the reins and determine the most effective headlines and assets supplied by you. These choices will be based on an extensive amount of data collected by Google from advertisers.
June is not that far away, so you need to learn how to use RSAs and DSAs now. Once you allow automation and AI can take control, you’ll have more time to craft new ad campaigns.
When you use RSAs you are handing over a great deal of control to Google, and this can feel scary… especially if you haven’t trailed this type of ad before. So, test what works for your brand now while you still have time.
You need to provide Google with accurate information to choose the best ads for your campaign. And to do this, test and discover the data you need to run an effective ad campaign.
We’ve touched upon this lightly already, but it needs to be explored properly. One of the biggest trends for the whole of the digital marketing industry is the departure of third-party cookies.
Google is planning to ban all third-party cookies by 2023, and this is going to dramatically impact the digital advertising landscape…
Up until now, marketers have been complacent with how they collect their data, seeing as third-party cookies made the process of collecting data so easy.
The thought of advertising without third-party cookies is daunting. But you need to think of this as a great opportunity. It’s one that offers great rewards for those of you who have already been prioritizing privacy throughout your customer service strategy.
Today, first-party data has never been so valuable, and the success of your digital advertising will rest on how you obtain your own first-party data.
And you can start using first-party data as an integral part of new algorithms for Google, Facebook, and other large eCommerce platforms.
Right now, TikTok is the fastest growing social media network with more than 1 billion active users per month. And its reach will only continue to grow in 2022 and beyond.
Advertisers can’t rely on one form of advertising anymore; they need to diversify their ads. And TikTok is the perfect platform to experiment with.
The world of advertising is always changing, and you need to move with the times and adapt your strategy if you want results. In 2022, you need to look beyond paid ads and explore other avenues.
Today, influencer marketing is one of the hottest trends in marketing, and TikTok is the leading platform bringing influencers and brands together.
Organic content posted by influencers tends to be successful. For users today, videos are more engaging, and they are more likely to trust an influencer’s opinion over yours.
However, there’s more to organic marketing than just influencer marketing. Take the time to improve your Search Engine Optimisation, or explore the world of digital PR. It’s also worth diversifying your content marketing strategy and promoting user-generated content.
This year is set to change the world of PPC as we know it. So, if you want to be at the forefront of these changes, you need to start adapting your PPC strategies now.
Audience numbers are growing, and you need to innovate your offering to meet this audience’s needs. And now you have new tools to play with, you can experiment and implement new and effective strategies in 2022 and beyond.
WithinDigital is an almost monthly digital marketing podcast, featuring in-depth interviews with experts in digital advertising, SEO, social media, and everything in between.
Click here to listen and subscribe to WithinDigital on iTunes>>>
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In episode 10 of WithinDigital, Nick Livermore is joined by Incubeta‘s Head of Measurement Consultancy, Kate Jervis, to chat about the ‘first-party data renaissance’ of 2022.
Data is at the heart of everything we do in marketing. And first-party data has been around for a long time. So, why in 2022 are we talking about first-party data like it’s this new thing?
Together, they cover…
This podcast first appeared on the Adapt Website here >>> https://www.adaptworldwide.com/insights/2022/withindigital-episode-10-the-first-party-data-renaissance
But what appears to be a shiny new toy for some marketers has actually been the mainstay for specialist CRM agencies like Flourish for years. Since its inception in 2003 Flourish has used data to drive customer journeys that help brands to be more relevant with their messaging.
At the back of 2021 Flourish delivered a personalised end-of-year round up campaign for Twitch, the global streaming site. Over 45 million Twitch users, viewers and creators received the email campaign which was translated into 28 languages.
These uber-personalised comms didn’t simply include the customer’s name or what they just bought. We’re talking whole-email personalisation; with eight different creative variants, based on a contact’s level of platform engagement, each in-turn sharing cool and interesting personal stats based on their year with Twitch. The decision to allocate individual users to different creative variants was driven by real world data insights that identified the type of user they were, the relationship they had with Twitch and their future potential.
Every email was personalised to the recipient, reflecting their year with Twitch. Users and viewers could see the creators and channels they’d watched most, what they’d supported with subs and follows and even what their favourite emote was. Creators could see how many hours they’d streamed, how many viewers they’d picked up, how they interacted with them and who their biggest fans were.
The roundup was a big hit with recipients and saw 500K+ shares on social media. As the campaign landed Twitch saw a 67% increase in traffic to the site as users and viewers reconnected with their favourite content. So much so that there was a 971% incremental increase in the number of hours watched.
Rich James, Managing Partner at Flourish and Twitch client lead said: “We’re always striving to help Twitch be as relevant to their audience of users and viewers as possible. But we’re also conscious for the need to support the content creators that do so much to make Twitch what it is. The end-of-year campaign did both perfectly. Presenting a summary that hyped creators, helped them understand their impact and achievements, whilst viewers were given a timely reminder of everything they’ve loved on Twitch. The campaign was the perfect example of how every member of the Flourish team lives and breathes personalisation in everything they do. The project was led by the amazing Sanni Haltunnen (Senior Account Manager) and Glenn Carver (Technical Campaign Manager) with the wider support of the agency. We’re really proud of what they and the team have delivered for Twitch”
If you’d like help to take your communications beyond personalisation and into relevance, you can get in touch with Rich James. Alternatively, you can take a closer look at Flourish.
We all know the power data and reporting can have in forming campaigns, convincing clients and understanding customers.
So with the new Google Analytics update, it’s crucial to get your head around this completely new model – especially if you’re going to get the most out of your data.
Learn from Jill Quick of The Colouring Department, an analytics consultant who has been working in digital marketing for a very long time!
We’ll cover:
Like all Buisness as Unusual webinars you’ll also get a chance to ask any questions about analytics or GA4 that you’re stuck on.
Date: 20th January 2022
Time: 3pm – 4pm
Location: Zoom
Get access to an entire hour of free advice on analytics and reporting at this month’s Business as Unusual webinar.
Register here: mnky.bz/bau
Since Flourish began its life back in 2003, we’ve always had charities on our client list. We’ve worked with organisations of all sizes, gaining a vast amount of knowledge of donor engagement and development, particularly in the area of Legacy Marketing.
It’s why Guardian Angel Network invited us to speak at their successful ‘Leg up for legacies’ webinar series, and last week we had the privilege of passing on our insights around the theme: ‘Storytelling: how to write an engaging case study.
Legacy marketing is unique; there’s no immediate benefit for someone today. And they won’t be here to see what good their gift does. Remembering a charity in your Will is a purely altruistic act. But even a charity’s most fervent supporters aren’t guaranteed to become legacy supporters – legacy marketing is about inspiring supporters to take the next step and pledge a gift in their Will.
So, how do you inspire people through marketing? Stories. Through the telling of stories, you can make an emotional connection with a prospect and demonstrate that your charity reflects their values. In legacy marketing, stories are told through case studies.
To make sure your case studies are as engaging as they can be, they must connect to your audience. We’ve shortlisted the below criteria to help you make the most of your case study stories:
1 Know the frame in which you stories will appear
Legacy marketing campaigns tend to fit into a few ‘narrative frames’. Understanding these will make sure your case studies fit with the broader narrative of your campaign.
The frame you choose is all about the audience you’re going after. Older people tend to respond better to autobiographical storytelling / symbolic immortality. Younger people tend to respond better to connection with friends and family / aversion avoidance.
2 Choose your narrator wisely
The messaging you’re trying to support should inform the ‘voice’ you choose. It’s all about where the authority lies. Can the case study legitimately comment on the thing you’re using them for? Only a service user can tell you what it’s really like to be homeless, have cancer, or be affected by depression. But a relative can tell you how much it’s affected the wider family. Trying to norm legacy giving? Legacy Supporters, their relatives and solicitors might be a good choice. The impact legacies can have on the cause? A Charity CEO can talk with authority about the facts and figures.
3 Relatability is important
The closer your audience is to your case study in age and experience, the more relatable their story will be. The obvious exception to this rule is first-hand accounts from service users. Supporters often choose a charity because they have a personal link, but most of your audience will have no direct experience of the cause, be it blindness, cancer, homelessness, poverty, asthma etc.
If you have a case study that isn’t that close to your target audience, instead look for common ground. A 45-year-old man might not easily relate to a 75 year old women’s view of the world, but does know what it means to be a parent. Just as your audience might not know what it means to be homeless, they can still imagine what it must feel like like having to use a public toilet to wash in.
4 You have to be authentic
There’s no point nailing relatability if what happens in your case study comes across as inauthentic.
Look at these two case study excerpts:
“My wife started forgetting things. We were going on holiday and she packed the wrong clothes. It was terrible.”
“We’d packed to go to Cyprus. Vera had three cases. We had to pay extra for them. When we got there she’d packed fleeces, warm clothes – I said: ‘what have you done that for love?’ She just shook her head and said she was sorry. I knew then that this wasn’t just a bit of forgetfulness”
Both excerpts are true. But the first feels less authentic. The key is just enough detail. Too little and your case study will feel generic. Too much and it will feel contrived. Look for the nuggets of detail in a story and include two or three in your case study.
5 Understand the narrative arc
Case studies in a social post, online video or even a direct mail pack don’t exist in isolation. We should think of them as individual tales in a bigger story. Every case study should support the narrative arc of the campaign or the brand.
6 Consider a story strategy
We’re all used to content strategies to ensure our messaging doesn’t fatigue and we’re constantly providing engaging material for our audiences. Legacy marketing is no different. The lifecycle of a legacy supporter from prospect to pledger can take decades. You need to make sure that the stories you tell them are fresh and keep them engaged.
7 The perfect case study doesn’t exist!
You need to use the most relatable story for your audience, depending on the stage they are at in their journey from prospect to pledger.
If you have any views on these points, or any points you’d add to this list, just reach out, we’d love to hear from you.
Lockdown puppies. Admit it. You considered one. A little companion to keep you company working from home, a playmate for the kids and a reason to get out for your 10,000 steps each day. And if you did end up getting one? You’re not alone.
According to the BBC more than 3.2 million more pets were bought during lockdown. Veterinary charity PDSA’s research shows nearly 2 million of these were puppies, with many owners saying it was the first time they had owned a pet.
Over the same period 1.4 million more claimants registered for financial support as the pandemic effectively stopped people being able to earn a living. More pets, more first time owners and more economic uncertainty. A perfect storm for PDSA who treat the pets of owners who cannot afford veterinary treatment.
PDSA turned to CRM specialists Flourish to develop a campaign to raise awareness and money to meet the forecast jump in demand for their services. The resulting Give Pets a Fighting Chance campaign went live in late November 2021.
An initial priming film was shared on social and via email underlining just how much pets mean to us and have enriched our live during lockdown. This was followed by a fundraising phase on social, email and via direct mail to existing supporters.
The campaign celebrated pets, paying homage to just how amazing they are for our physical and mental wellbeing. This celebration provided the platform from which to ask for donations witch communications suggesting that: “For all pets do for us, they deserve a fighting chance.”
The response to the campaign has been incredible, with celebs including Ricky Gervais, Michaela Strachan, Alesha Dixon and James from the Vamps showing their support on Twitter.
Preliminary results are incredibly encouraging with the campaign being well on track to meet its financial targets to make sure any increase in need for PDSA services will be met.
Laura Tovar Senior Account Director at Flourish said: “The potential increase in need for PDSA services had to be addressed, and quickly. We’ve been working with PDSA for 3 years now and in that time our campaigns have always hit their targets and often smashed them. Our Give Pets a Fighting Chance campaign has been well-received and I have no doubt that many pets lives will be saved as a direct result of it”.
If you have a CRM project you’d support with, you can get in touch with Flourish by contacting Steve Davis. Alternatively take a look at some of our work.
Our Ops Director Mike Sharp gives his take on what to expect next year.
As we roll towards the tail end of 2021 it is that time of year where agencies and thought leaders start to roll out their predictions for the coming 12 months. In fact, a quick search online yields my own article from a previous life written six years ago. What did I predict then?
A change in attribution – the growth and importance of Data-Driven Attribution as it became mainstream
Year of the mobile continued – the switch to mobile-first and the growth of mobile-first formats
Hyper local search – A move towards Minority Report style ads thanks to improved accuracy in tracking
Google Shopping advances – since Google’s switch away from the free listings, Google Shopping would push forward significantly with new formats and local ads
It’s strangely comforting that even six years on these could still be relevant in 2022 – everything has changed in advertising, but also nothing has! Although hopefully everyone realises that ‘the year of the mobile’ prediction has definitely run its course.
So, what could be dominating the digital marketing industry over the next 12 months?
It’s safe to say that people are now more comfortable than ever talking to things around their house and expecting to get coherent answers – not something as a parent I can quite relate to!
Our industry’s been predicting voice search uptake for years, but now the interesting part comes with how these searches get monetised. From an SEO perspective the What, How or Who queries have long been valued as a way of owning these results, but over the next 12 months I expect to see more from audio ads with advances in Google’s existing YouTube Audio ads offering.
Android Auto penetration is also on the rise, which is further boosting voice searches, so there is another captive audience waiting to be advertised to by Google.
We take it for granted now that Smart paid media campaigns are the norm and will outperform most human-led ones. They’ve helped to free up Account Managers’ time with automation, allowing marketers to focus on strategy and creative processes to push our clients even further.
We’ll see the use of AI increase even further as companies big and small lean into it to help with predictive modelling and forecasting as part of the standard planning cycles.
The pandemic has also seen the rise of conversational AI in the form of bots and digital assistants – again, something that will continue to grow over time, helping with onsite conversion and customer retention.
Expected to surpass 1.5 billion users in 2022, TikTok is going to absolutely dominate social media in 2022 – bringing with it the continued captivation with influencers, memes, and trends.
TikTok has quickly advanced its ad platform to become more accessible for more brands. In the coming 12 months I think we’ll see smaller brands using the platform, moving it away from the playground of the mega brands and into a core part of the media mix. ‘Always on’ micro and nano influencers will also become more valuable as brands try to target their niche in an affordable way.
Between the impending death of third-party cookies, talk of first-party analytics and even zero-party data, much has already been said in this space, so I won’t dwell on it too much.
Given Google’s already delayed deadline of 2023 for them phasing out, we should expect to hear a more about the possible alternatives. No doubt Google will desperately be finding a way of protecting its revenue streams whilst tipping its hat to the more privacy-conscious consumers and advertisers.
So we can all expect to become more familiar with terms like Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoCs) and Unified IDs or Authenticated Traffic Solutions… exciting!
One of the biggest struggles in digital marketing is the constant battle to improve attribution modelling – especially cross-channel and cross-device.
Google spent many years teasing Google Attribution, only to pull it and pretend it never happened. GA4 is now stepping up to fill some of this gap as well as staying on the right side of the incoming privacy changes.
In 2017 Facebook pushed out its own attribution tool, which seemed to be gaining momentum – only for it to be pulled again this year.
So, my hope is the next 12 months will bring with it improvements in how we measure clients’ success and attribute that fairly across the channel mix – but a part of me suspects it will still be a hot topic for the next few rounds of predictions.
It should be another exciting year in the paid marketing sphere this year. After what’s been a fairly strange 18 months for everyone, these advances will allow us to drive forward our clients’ businesses and continue helping them capitalise on opportunities.
All the best for the festive season!
Children’s Hospice South West are one of the largest children’s hospice charities in the UK, providing Children’s palliative, respite, end-of-life and bereavement care for children with life limiting and life threatening illnesses and their families from the South West England region. Before the challenges of the 2020 pandemic, CHSW had already identified a need to boost fundraising income and grow their well established support base. Working with AgencyUK, the team have developed a strategy to raise brand awareness and start building a younger base of donors.
The first integrated campaign launches CHSW onto TV this Christmas, targeting the brand to potential new donors in the South West (Cornwall, Devon, Bristol). The strategy looks to connect CHSW with this new audience whereby a lasting relationship might be established.
“We wanted to create a campaign for CHSW which raises awareness of the brand, and the vital work they do. The sensitive nature of the subject matter meant the creative had to be researched and tested prior to final production and release. The advertising tells the story of families of children with life-limiting conditions, emphasizing their journey with the charity. Children’s Hospice South West is so much more than just end-of-life care associated with the term hospice – the charity supports their families to create times that matter; time to laugh, time to share, time to rest, remember, and most importantly, time to just be a family – something that any parent can relate to. Our creative approach therefore was to create a relatable campaign with an authentic narrative that was far more positive than a traditional charity TV campaign, that our audience feels good about supporting rather than guilt tripping people into giving,” says Nix Boulton, art director, AgencyUK
“As the creative work developed and more time was spent telling the stories of the families, the AUK team became emotionally attached to the work CHSW do. I don’t think one person involved in this production left the set without their life having been touched in some way,” says Amy Mansourpour, director, AgencyUK.
“We are delighted with the work we have created with AgencyUK, and the support the families have given us throughout this process. We’re looking forward to seeing the campaign go live, and the opportunity for us to build on it throughout 2022,” says Jess Patel, director of marketing and communications, CHSW.
“At AgencyUK we pursue opportunities to work with brands and organisations that we truly believe in and want to get behind as a team. We’re incredibly proud to call Children’s Hospice South West a client, as the work they do is truly remarkable. This isn’t just about a project or the next advertising campaign, this is about turning our skills as marketers and using them to make a difference each and every day. It’s about solidarity and human empathy,” says Sammy Mansourpour, managing director, AgencyUK.
The new CHSW campaign will be live over Christmas 2021, and will be launched on TV and YouTube, before amplification through broader social media channels and digital advertising formats.
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