Dan Huddart

Did you know 45% of people say they are more likely to notice a catalogue sent in the post than a marketing email? If you're in the planning phase for your Christmas activity take a moment, grab a cup of tea and discover more fascinating more stats and benefits for catalogues in our blog. ➡️

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I saw this on Twitter, and it really resonated. Apparently it’s from a 1979 IBM presentation. It speaks 100% to our offer at Two Ears One Mouth. At a time when too many agencies are trying to strip out cost by making Insight more automated, we’re doubling down on our core proposition offer of the smartest Insight brains doing what they’re best at doing…. Analysing consumer thinking & behaviour, to predict and influence how they will behave in the future. And we will always, always put our hand up, as an agency, to be held accountable for our recommendations. That’s what we’re paid to do. #insight #accountability #owntomorrow

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Gutted to be missing out on #measurefest at brightonSEO this Friday. Looks like some top notch speakers including Gareth Beck, Michael Fong, Natasha Burtenshaw-deVries and Anna Rowlinson. If you're gonna make it there feel free to shout out in the comments or drop a smiley below 👇 #fomo If, like me, you can't make it but don't want to miss out on similar events you can check out Zuko Analytics list of upcoming Analytics, Conversion, Experimentation and #ux events here 👉 https://lnkd.in/ezZGGzgQ If we've missed any events off the list then let me know in the comments and I'll make sure they get added. _____________________________________________ 👋 I’m Alun - MD of Zuko Analytics, the most in-depth form analytics software out there (plus our new form builder). I post mainly about form UX and optimization. For more posts and articles about the topic, follow me or click the 🔔 on my profile to make sure you don’t miss anything.

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You know they say that all conversion rates are created equal, but you look at me and you look at your website and you can see that statement is not true. See, normally if you go one on one with a CRO programme, you got a 50/50 chance of winning. But I'm a genetic freak and I'm not normal! So you got a 25%, AT BEST, at beat me. Then you add analytics and UX research to the mix, your chances of winning drastic go down. See the AB test on your site, you got a 33 1/3 chance of winning, but I, I got a 66 and 2/3 chance of winning, because your test KNOWS it can't beat me and it's not even gonna try! So website, you take your 33 1/3 chance, minus my 25% chance and you got an 8 1/3 chance of winning with this AB test. But then you take my 75% chance of winning, if we was to go one on one, and then add 66 2/3 per cents, I got 141 and 2/3 chance of winning this AB test. See Joe, the numbers don't lie, and they spell disaster for you at Sacrifice.

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There's probably never been a better time to hire senior eCommerce and/or digital talent than right now. If businesses are struggling to find C-level talent then I'd say it's probably because they aren't clear on what they're looking for, or want the experience but aren't willing to pay. If you're considering making a senior hire but have been holding off for whatever reason (very common recently, mostly due to uncertainty & cost saving) then you can probably steal a march on competitors by taking the plunge.... #recruitment #ecommercejobs #digitalcareers

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The latest development from Google is the new way they are using AI in search results to create more conversational responses, as opposed to lists of websites. It's being trialled in a few states in the US at the moment, so look out for the roll out in the UK some time soon! The new results are called "search generative experience" - here's WSI Centrals blog introducing the concept if you want to find out more, and how you can prepare for it. https://lnkd.in/ecMEjUat #SGE #Digitalmarketing

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Thanks for those who attended my talk today at brightonSEO The link to my slide deck can be found using the link below: https://lnkd.in/dyUHZT6H #BrightonSEO

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Tens of millions of visits, all squeezed into a very short window. How do you run all of the experiments you need to test, learn and optimise for conversion and revenue? I'm really looking forward to spending some time with Simon McDonald and Brett Wilson talking experimentation, culture and product at this years Optimizely One Summit tomorrow - where we'll tackle such curly topics, and more. I'd be surprised if there are any tickets left, but if there are run don't walk people! (link below 👇👇👇👇) #optimizelyonesummit #experimentation #cro

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The BBC has published a fantastic, to-the-point article about recent algorithm updates in Google Search. I recommend anyone interested in Search to have a read: https://lnkd.in/e--hjmB2 The last two years have been chaotic in SEO. The outlook suggests more of the same. With Google’s “AI Overviews” (ignoring the comical and outright dangerous content it produces), as an example, websites reliant on informational intent queries are likely to increasingly struggle. Why would users need to read an article if Google is just going to give them the information? There’s been earthquake tremors for two years, and over the past few months, it feels like the earthquake is approaching for some, if the tremors haven’t already got them. It will require the ability to adapt and more creative strategies to find ways to drive traffic from Search. Big brands and e-commerce have seen immense growth from these updates. Smaller websites and businesses have generally taken the brunt. On a professional level, I’ve always encouraged diversification in digital marketing. A good website or business acquires a good level of traffic/customers from predominantly one source (usually organic search). But a GREAT website or business will drive traffic/customers from several sources, and try to aim for a more even split. The problem with Google Search (or any search engine), is that an algorithm update can be launched at any moment. One day, an update might wipe out your traffic in the blink of an eye. Therefore, you need to have other sources that are working hard to acquire traffic/customers. While it would still be painful if you lost Search traffic, at least it wouldn’t be existential. From the BBC article,HouseFresh grew to 15 employees and has had to lay off the majority as a result of Google’s algorithm update. The internet is progressing through uncharted territory. Previously, creating good content usually led to good traffic. But now, the search engine is the content. Not only that, but for a lot of search terms, user-generated content sites like Reddit and Quora take up a significant amount of Search traffic. Suddenly, most websites are small fry, competing against Google, Reddit, Quora, and large, established brands. Prepare for what could happen. Don’t let a search engine control your website. Go look at your analytics. If your traffic is predominantly from Search - ask yourself, “if that traffic disappeared tomorrow, would my website or business collapse?” and the answer is “yes” - do something about it! Start growing traffic from social media. Work on your email marketing. Develop partnerships. Explore paid search (for lead gen or sales). Even if you do everything right, SEO has no guarantees, and it can change at a moments notice. As blunt as it sounds, Google owes you nothing. Focus on SEO, but focus on other sources, too.

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Wow! What a brilliant April so far for Apex Digital 🎉   Lots going on, and lots completing this week, so I think I've earned my morning coffee!   ▶ Coded a dataLayer schema for a growing e-commerce client on BigCommerce. The previous setup was inadequate leading to incorrect measurement. I fixed this with true ecommerce funnel measurement, Google Consent Mode, enhanced conversions, dashboards and cookie consent frameworks. ▶ Another BigCommerce implementation underway, defining dataLayers and tagging to ensure continuity of measurement during a new website launch. ▶ Produced an attribution report stitching together first party identifiers (user_id), CRM & GA4 data in Google BigQuery to provide true first touch acquisition sources for converted users for a property client. ▶ Data analytics project for a very interesting report around recruitment in tech (this one was very interesting to work on, and a little bit different). ▶ Full analytics setup of an online pharmacy website, with optimised Consent mode & cookie compliance framework. ▶ Setup full ecommerce funnel tracking for two clients (a distillery and a brewery), one on WordPress & WooCommerce and one on Shopify. Again, with the usual cookie compliance, consent mode & enhanced conversions. ▶ Preparations for a few new pitches, including a Server-Side tracking project, more ecommerce implementations & analytics audits. ▶ Became a Cookiebot Web CMP by Usercentrics premium implementation partner 🍪 ▶ Finalised a VERY exciting new retainer with a growing agency client - more on this in another post next week! ▶ I've also become a member of The Growth Community, a fantastic business networking group in Yorks & Lincs - would recommend them to any new business starting up. Get in touch with me if your business would like to explore any of these services, the link is in my bio 📈 I help Marketers looking to move the performance needle, business owners looking to grow their presence online & anyone who needs assistance with any data related issues. 📊

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What a brilliant way to start the week with THREE #ukdigitalgrowthawards wins for Metis and MediaVision 🤖 Best Use of AI in Digital 🤖 For our Metis Accelerate product, which supercharges hashtag #SEO growth for large hashtag #ecommerce brands 📊 Best Use of Data 📊 For helping New Look make the biggest SEO gains of any ecommerce brand in the market 🔬 Innovation Award 🔬 For our ability to unlock the potential of market hashtag #data using our flagship platform, Metis #proudmoment #opportunitieseverywhere

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One of the really interesting things about having both brands and agencies using Macaroni Software is being to able to compare the levels of activity for both. What we're seeing so far is agencies use it to deliver the same amount of work in a fraction of the time that they were before. Brands though are not limiting themselves. They are doing huge amounts of updates - sometimes more than 1k per week in terms of mapping keywords, on-page optimisation, creating new pages and content and building internal links. The results, unsurprisingly, are much, much better. Our goal now is to encourage agencies to not just do the work they were doing for their retainer in an hour each month, but do double or triple in 2-3 hours.

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In today’s issue of Untapped Potential by Digitaloft, I took a deep dive into the SEO opportunities that exist for Starling Bank. They’re doing well on the SERPs, but one of the most important skills in #SEO is knowing how to keep driving growth when things are going well! Check out this weeks issue below and make sure you sign up for next weeks… I’ll be looking at some huge content strategy gaps for a brand most of you will know very well! 👇 https://lnkd.in/grKnZuGN

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👀 Seeing double? Do not adjust your sets. Simon Horswell, Senior Fraud Specialist (and all-round celebrity) and Laura Noye, PR Director here at Onfido, gave a very real and very spooky demo of the rise of deepfakes and how to spot them 🕵️ It's not all doom and gloom though. Here's how Onfido is keeping businesses two steps ahead of the deepfake threat with AI: https://lnkd.in/e3y6-kjf

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We're playing about with the formats for #brightonSEO in the UK this October and wanted to get some feedback on topics and the ideas in general. *Roundtables* - we've run these for a few years focussed around sector and job title, like agency owner, in-house ecommerce, agency head of SEO etc, there's usually about 12 people informal discussions. - Any ideas for topics for these you'd like to attend? - Do you like roundtables as a format? - What makes for a good roundtable? *Masterclasses* - a new thing, thinking about a 60-90 minutes slot, about 20-30 attendees, more in-depth and interactive than our usual conference talks. Aimed at more experienced attendees, more discussion, maybe more "laptop open and try thing thing" Might be topics like agency growth masterclass, paid media for ecommerce masterclass, Google tag manager debugging masterclass etc Would this be a format you'd be interested in attending? Any ideas for topics or masterclass host ideas? Thanks in advanced my lovely Linkedin focus group/connections!

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Don't lose a bit of your company history! Save your old Google Analytics data before the end of the month. I've always been a bit obsessed with keeping bits of Attacat history. I have a box full of tat: old business cards, some early proposals and many other unshareables. One of my favourite "artefacts" though is this book. Some of the early Attacat team (Hannah Stephen amongst others) bought it for me as a birthday present many many moons ago, an act of kindness that has not been forgotten. Your old GA data may or may not turn out to be a treasure trove for a future company historian, but one thing is for sure: if you don't save it now, it definitely never will be. You'll never be able to pull up that graph to say to your existing team that you used to have a 5% conversion rate so no, lets not accept the current 0.5%! Or ever answer the question about what our customers used to be interested in and understand how that's changed over the long term or any other questions that you would only think about when its too late. So for the sake of 20 mins of effort, don't lose your chance! (I can also now just about stand up on a surfboard but a lot of work is still required!) https://lnkd.in/gtGQ83fY

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New findings from Quickfire Digital - Shopify Plus Agency reveal a staggering 55% of UK consumers abandon purchases due to accessibility issues, costing retailers up to £120 billion annually in lost revenue. Nathan Lomax, Co-founder of Quickfire Digital, highlights: "The results from our survey reveal that there is an untold cost of ignoring the accessibility market that is well in excess of Purple’s already shocking stats." Surprisingly, many who don't consider themselves disabled still face significant challenges: - 17% find the design journey illogical and complicated. - 16% struggle with fonts and colors. - 12% encounter a lack of personalization. - 9% miss audible information. - 7% find videos without captions difficult to understand. Prioritizing accessibility is not only a moral obligation but also a crucial business strategy. Starting in 2025, the EU's Web Accessibility Directive (WAD) will require all online shops and providers to ensure their digital products and services are accessible to people with disabilities. Non-compliance could lead to serious legal consequences. #Accessibility #Ecommerce #InclusiveDesign #Retail #CustomerExperience Contentsquare Foundation Ileana Marcut

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"You need to be spending £5,000+ on Google Ads in an industry this competitive to see results" This is something that a lot of clients tell me previous agencies/providers have told them before. When myself and Tom D'Arcy started Amstrad Digital we wanted to have the same values as the old Amstrad. Offering a top level service to those with a budget of any size. This is one of our smaller campaigns that started out with a budget of £1,000 per month operating in the furniture industry. When we started work on this campaign the client explained that the previous agency used this budget to bid on terms like "sofas". You don't have to be an expert to know that the competition on a term like this will be high so as expected, costs went through the roof and every month resulted in a loss of money. Having taken a break from advertising, the client approached us claiming to have saved up to "give it another go". However, what they didn't realise was that our team took the time to look into the client's specific niche and USPs within the industry and formulate a list of longer-tailed/less competitive keywords to target as well as testing other campaign types. We are now spending far more efficiently with the client noticing the uplift and giving us more budget to work with. Brilliant work from the team on this campaign and a great example of the benefits of starting small and scaling up. 👏

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