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Premier partners having fun

By Alan Perkins, Managing Director, SilverDisc

THE last month has seen exciting times for SilverDisc, attending agency partner events organised by both Google and Bing.

The Google event was at Google’s brand new St Pancras offices, literally a two-minute walk from the station. This is perfect for Kettering-based SilverDisc – one hour on the train and we’re at Google’s front door!

We have a long history with Google, going back to 2001 when we worked with them to write the Google Webmaster Guidelines, the only agency in the world to do so. Soon after, we first started using their AdWords system. Nowadays, as a Google Premier Partner, one of only a handful in the East Midlands, we work more closely with them than ever. The aim of the Google 2017 Growth Strategies event was to look ahead to this year’s digital trends and prepare us as Premier Partner agency for what’s coming.

More than 50 per cent of searches are now on mobile and the average UK smartphone user checks their phone 150 times a day. Google’s advice when it comes to growing the amount of business you do through mobile is to be personal, reaching people in a more meaningful way; be actionable, with ads that help people; and be measurable, by connecting customer journeys across multiple devices, both online and offline.

One of the key advertising trends this year is automation, the use of scripts and artificial intelligence to reach your target audience, leaving you more time to concentrate on high value tasks. This allows creative to be auto-optimised to be served to the right user, on the right device, at the right price. For example, different ads can be served to mobile and desktop users, or new versus previous visitors to your website, in real time. The results have been impressive – when using these automated tools to assist expert humans, advertisers have seen 20 per cent more conversions at the same cost per action when compared to human-only campaigns.

The Google event was a full-on day with several presenters, lots of slides and videos, and furiously scribbled notes. The Bing event, by contrast, was an evening of cocktails and canapes at the top of the Gherkin as the sun set, a reward for favoured agencies and customers. Probably more like what you think agencies get up to! The truth is that there’s room for both, but at SilverDisc we found the Google event more fun – how about that?

Find out more about SilverDisc by calling 01536 316100 or visiting www.silverdisc.co.uk

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