Google Data Studio is a brilliant tool that helps you visualise your data with customisable dashboards and reports. We first added to our repertoire of tools back in 2016 when Google introduced it as part of the Google Analytics 360 suite, and it’s been a firm favourite ever since.
It’s one of our most useful day-to-day tools, not only for supporting our own accounts management, but also for our client reporting. So without further ado, here’s 7 reasons why you should dive into Data Studio if you’re running paid media ads.
Spend a lot of time checking dull spreadsheets? It’s time for an upgrade! One of the key benefits of Data Studio is that it’s a highly visual analysis tool, enabling your data to easily be displayed via different charts, graphs, and tables at the click of a button.
For each element, you can choose which trends to highlight, how much information to include (e.g. ad image previews or just ad names) and which parts to make interactive in order to have the most visual impact.
Data Studio dashboards are fully customisable in every respect, meaning you can add company logos, colour schemes, and brand fonts to make your reporting a little more fun! If you’re a visual learner, the numbers are likely to make a lot more sense now too.
Most of our ambitious advertisers run campaigns across many different platforms at any one time, with each one likely having its own associated budgets, benchmarks and targets.
Data Studio has an incredible 500+ (and counting!) data source connectors so it’s the perfect place for all of your data from different places to be easily combined. You can pull in your latest engagement results from Facebook and Instagram, your average Google Analytics goal completion rate, and your company forecast spreadsheet to analyse your top-level performance at a glance throughout the month, or simply display everything you’ve got running alongside each other. Whatever you want!
Data Studio can be used for simple reporting tasks, but it also has powerful analysis capabilities. This is where calculated fields come in: you can manipulate the data to directly suit your needs.
Calculated fields can extend and transform your data by allowing you to apply calculations to create new metrics and dimensions. With calculated fields, you can answer questions that existing dimensions cannot answer. For example, whether you’re outpacing your monthly budget, or the average time on site for groups of custom geographic regions – super handy stuff.
It’s highly likely you and your team members will have different requirements for your data. You may want to simply check on how much that new Pinterest campaign is spending this month to date, whereas your colleague may want an in-depth overview of performance over the last quarter compared to the previous year.
This is no problem at all. Data Studio is easily shareable via a URL that can be opened on any browser, operating system or device. Once email access has been granted, it can also be set up to allow different users to easily flick between the views and date ranges they need to see – either at the entire report level or individual graph/table/chart level.
If attribution isn’t a consideration, Google Analytics dashboards can provide a useful starting point for data visualisation, but one of the key setbacks is that there are limits on the amount of widgets and properties you can use. So you can only have 12 graph/table/charts per dashboard and no more than 20 dashboards per property.
That may sound like a lot, but in practice this would be 2.5 each for your main source/medium paths, assuming you are only running on three advertising platforms; (all traffic), Google/organic, Bing/organic, direct/none, ‘email provider’/email, Google/cpc, Facebook/cpc, Bing/cpc.
Unlike Google Analytics, Google Data Studio has no limitations at all! So if you’ve got a lot of different data points that you need to keep track of, then Data Studio becomes your best bet.
If Data Studio seems like just one more thing you need to remember to check each day, week, or month, then scheduled exports might help reduce the load.
Data Studio can send a PDF report automatically on a regular basis via email, to up to 50 recipients, along with a customisable email message and link to the live dashboard. These dashboards can also handily be embedded into websites via iframe, as well as being fully integrated with work management platforms, such as Monday.com, to ensure your data is always close to hand when you need it.
Google Data Studio packs in a ton of useful functionality – especially for a free tool! So if you’re drowning in data and unable to see the wood for the trees, we’d highly recommend getting started with some dashboards today.
Need help getting set up on Data Studio? Contact us today and we can get your business running with reports and dashboards in no time.
Cerba Research, one of the world’s leading central, specialty and diagnostic laboratory services companies, have appointed AgencyUK to support their marketing communications effort from 2022. The appointment follows a competitive pitch that involved a number of agencies from around the world.
Cerba Research is owned by Cerba HealthCare,a €630m company and France’s national health service laboratory provider. The French group has grown on the five continents and draws on 50 years of expertise in clinical pathology to better assess the risk of diseases development, detect and diagnose diseases earlier and optimize the effectiveness of personalized medicine. Cerba Research plays a key role in this ambition to scale further as they become one of the world’s leading laboratory services companies as the industry moves ever closer to the human designer medicine model for drug discovery and development programmes.
Cerba Research has been operating for 35 years, with a global network of 450 clinical laboratories anchored in seven centres across the globe including in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia-Pacific regions.
Cerba Research’s expertise and track record them an attractive partner for government agencies and non-government organizations as well as pharma and biotech companies thriving to change the shape of their clinical development.
“We are delighted to be working with Cerba Research during an exciting period of growth. As they continue to scale we will help them with their brand strategy, the rollout of their marketing communications, their employer brand as well as their digital capabilities, through web, mobile app and CRM platforms. We have unique experience in the healthcare sector that has led to us doubling our pharmaceutical portfolio since 2020, and Cerba Research is another significant addition” says Sammy Mansourpour, MD AgencyUK.
“We were looking for an experienced partner that brought both creativity and technical capability and we found this in AgencyUK. They have a good reputation in the healthcare sector and have previously delivered many of the vital components needed when a company like Cerba Research is in fast growth. Their insight and guidance so far haves already started to help us shape our future strategy and we’re excited for this to continue” says Sofie Vandevyver,, Head of Business Operations and Marketing, Cerba Research.
AgencyUK has already appointed Amy Boundy as Head of Strategy previously of VML London to help lead the account. Amy joins the team bringing her experience of working with pharmaceutical and biotech organizations as well as managing clinical trial programmes for the NHS.
Amy works closely with the NIHR team to increase the numbers of research projects taking place in Primary Care.. Studies include those focused on treatments for Covid-19 in the Community, such as the Principle and Panoramic platform trials and chronic conditions such as coronary heart disease and diabetes.
“I’m fascinated by the work many biotech companies do in their search for the next therapeutic drug discovery, and this has been my passion when working for agencies and pharmaceutical companies directly. AgencyUK has a unique proposition, with a fast growing healthcare portfolio and an enviable list of global brands. I’m looking forward to joining the team and embarking on the next chapter with Cerba Research” Amy Boundy, Head of Healthcare Strategy, AgencyUK.
A recent Deloitte study into consumer attitudes to environmental and ethical sustainability revealed that more people are voting with their wallets when it comes to backing brands with a conscience. Nearly 1 in 3 of us have stopped buying certain products or dealing with certain companies because we had concerns about their ethical merits. Whether we have changed our buying habits yet or not though, most of us are in search of more authenticity in our shopping experiences.
Delve a little deeper
The question is, as a business owner, how do you show consumers you are ethical? A business blog allows you to tell your customers and prospects everything they need to know about you and your enterprise. While your company website is supposed to be a bit more sales-focused and therefore concentrate on the key features and benefits of your business, your blog can delve a little deeper and explore your thoughts, opinions, and feelings about wider issues and current market trends.
Blogs allow readers to gather information on a business or brand straight from the horse’s mouth. Over time, with a consistent and considered blog, you can show visitors to your site the real personality behind your offering. If it stays true to your core values and those values are on target, you will come across as authentic and someone they would like to do business with.
That is not to say you must always present a perfect persona. Authenticity is about being genuine with your readers and not many of us are perfect all the time. It is about admitting mistakes as and when they happen and explaining how you are going to fix them. It’s about putting your story out there, warts and all, and having faith that people want to work with people they feel are honest and believable – people they like and trust.
Stay true to yourself
I come from a background of Public Relations, which has a variable reputation itself. My personal experience has been a very fact-based approach, specifically using real facts, statistics, and accurate details to share knowledge and position companies as leaders in their fields. The PR industry has worked hard to overcome some of the negative perceptions and in fact, the industry body, the International Public Relations Association, has updated the very definition of PR to reflect this:
“Public relations is a decision-making management practice tasked with building relationships and interests between organisations and their publics based on the delivery of information through trusted and ethical communication methods.” IPRA
Don’t miss an opportunity
With consumers placing more emphasis on ethical and authentic action for companies big and small, business blogs should have renewed importance in any communications strategy. They provide a fantastic opportunity for you to engage with your audience in a truly authentic way and talk about a far more diverse range of topics than the rest of your website allows.
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.
There are thousands of cyber companies across the world. We ask: how do you stand out and differentiate your offering in this highly competitive market?
Independent third party media coverage gets your company in front of your audience, possible investors and leads.
What are renowned cyber security organisations doing great? Besides developing a great product or service, they are building their brand awareness and credibility through public relations. Using the power of their comms to inform their audience about solutions to existing problems, they have gained increased visibility in the cyber security sector and differentiated themselves from others in the sector.
So your product is excellent, and you know exactly how it can benefit your audiences. But do they know it?
You can’t sell your product if nobody knows you. The best thing you can do for your company is to build out your PR presence on credible platforms and in publications that your stakeholders recognise and trust; then they will be more open to consider if your products and services might help them solve their problems.
Without PR you’re just left with the sales department to generate leads, but they’ll face the barrier of lack of credibility and brand awareness, due to the absence of any public relations coverage.
We want to give you some tips to get started with PR for your cyber security company:
We’re happy to help with more advice on how to get landed in the press. Let’s talk.
“Emotional wellbeing for the next generation requires us to be there not just at bedtime but also across the day and in environments like classrooms. Our goal is that proactive development of EQ becomes as important as IQ. In order to reflect this, we have evolved from Moshi: Sleep and Mindfulness to Moshi.” – Ed Barton, COO, Moshi.
Moshi are on a mission to improve the health and happiness of the next generation by teaching them the fundamentals of mindfulness from an early age. The UK is facing an unprecedented mental health crisis, with children most affected of all. Today, 1 in 6 children suffer with poor mental health; from anxiety and eating disorders, to attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders and more. Through guided meditations, mesmerizing stories, and soothing sounds, Moshi aims to make mindfulness magical to young minds.
As Moshi expanded their content from sleep-only to round the clock mindfulness, they approached Fiasco Design to encapsulate the change via a new digital home. “We initially appointed Fiasco to rebuild our website. The project quickly became something much more and led to us sharpening our brand across platforms with the website at the centre.” says Ed Barton, COO, Moshi.
The updated brand colour palette now includes brighter hues, with accessibility in mind. The original main brand font, Calibri, has been replaced by Chromatica by Polytype foundry, a versatile sans serif type with a warm and personable tone.
Fiasco also helped to set the tone when it came to photography, introducing a vibrant set of studio shots that replaced stock imagery. Charming hand-drawn annotations add a sense of personal expression, as unique as every child.
The new website drives subscriptions whilst simultaneously capturing the magic of mindfulness. Moshi’s personality has been dialled up through playful UI design and motion. The result is a site that echoes the spirited nature of the app and ultimately champions the child.
“As a parent to a young child, I’ve had first-hand experience of how transformative the Moshi app can be to family life. It was a pleasure, therefore, to get the chance to work with the team at Moshi to help realise their vision for the brand.” – Ben Steers, Creative Director, Fiasco Design.
You can read the full case study here. Fiasco’s partnership with Moshi is the manifestation of their brand pledge to use creativity to inspire change. Working seamlessly across brand and digital, Fiasco creates extraordinary brands with heart and spirit.
First event: 10th February 1.30pm – 2.15pm
Bristol-based web design and development agency, Unfold has just launched a brand-new events series, Below the Fold. The series centres successful business people, giving them a platform to share learnings from their journeys. Hosted by Unfold’s founder, Harry Cobbold, these events aim to educate and inform attendees with insider knowledge and tips for success.
What it takes to get your business acquired
The first episode in the series will see Gapsquare’s Zara Nanu taking the guest seat, with Harry interviewing her on Gapsquare’s recent acquisition and what it takes to build and acquirable business.
You can catch the event on 10th February 2022 from 1.30pm – 2.15pm. All events in the series will be held virtually via Zoom for the foreseeable future. If you can’t make the date, you can register in any case and you will be sent the session recording following the event.
Register for the event here.
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
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