Surely the step away from this channel could have been better managed either on the Google+ page, by shutting it down or by a change in strategy, but without insider knowledge, I guess we’ll never know.

The part that struck a discord with me was to suggest that there must be ROI in Google+ activity just because other brands are doing it. “Well if ESPN & Ferrari are sticking it out, then surely we can use Google+ to punt a few pizzas!”

Every brand and business needs to have their own objectives. Those businesses that focus on what ultimately makes them money are the ones that will continue to grow. The objectives of ESPN will be wildly different to Domino’s and therefore the reason they take on any specific channel would be different too.

Choosing to compare a brand like Domino’s with their regionalised content, localised customer service issues and retail objectives to ESPN, a global content producer, is not really fair. Is the audience on Google+ right for this type of brand? Is there enough engagement from the Google+ audience to justify the resources? Is the audience big enough in their target locations?

The stats speak for themselves, only 8 percent of Americans aged 12+ have a Google+ profile page. Yet there are other nations where Google+ is hugely popular for example, 47 percent of Hispanic consumers use Google+.

With all social media activity you must go where your audience are. There is no advantage to having a social media channel just for the sake of ‘being there’ because other brands are. Resource must be invested wisely into the right channels in order to make them profitable marketing tools.

This isn’t just confined to non-competing brands, as what’s right for Pizza Hut today does not always correlate to what Domino’s will do tomorrow. This could be their social media strategy, their creative or even the positions in search.

Every business can and should learn from the wider media. This should include their peers, global brands and smaller niche operations. Learning from them does not mean simply following or copying them, but seeing how it can apply to the specific objectives in front of you, setting out a time frame to achieve those objectives, being brave enough to know when something isn’t working and calling time when it isn’t.

The fact is, if Domino’s was making money from Google+ then they would still be using it.

(Stats from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-honigman/100-fascinating-social-me_b_2185281.html)

Paul Goonoo, head of search & marketing

“RECENT comments by BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins raised more than a few eyebrows when he predicted the death of the tablet was just a few short years away saying they were “not a good business model”.

This may well be a stunt to drum up interest in BlackBerry’s new product offering – I’m hard-pressed to believe that he really has faith in what he is saying. But not acknowledging and ignoring progressive consumer traits makes the company look foolish.

Given the company was once at the helm of mobile technology, it seems BlackBerry is still reeling from its disastrous attempt at dipping a toe in the tablet water with the launch of its Playbook in 2011.

After selling a paltry 2.4m units of the device – which didn’t have an email function – it has since been lagging behind the likes of Apple, Samsung and Google which have understood the importance of screen size and touchscreens to their users.

The statement flies in the face of trends which have seen consumer use of tablets skyrocket – almost 20m people in the UK will use a tablet at least once a month, an eMarketer study showed BlackBerry has carved out a position for itself by keeping the “old-fashioned” keyboard, and this will certainly be enjoyed by those loyal to the brand. But BlackBerry needs to be bigger than just “niche” as it is not a niche brand.

While BlackBerry has remembered who its core users are and has continued to cater for them, the outlandish statement by its CEO demonstrates how out of touch with trending technology the company seems.

However, I agree. The tablet is a bad business model for a company that can’t do it right.”

The tool, which has already been adopted by a number of global brands, provides real-time actionable data that allows companies to improve their performance on Facebook and gain deeper levels of insight into fans.

Unique relationship

We began working with Locowise in 2012 to help our longstanding client Everton Football Club to maximise the potential of its social media strategy.

The success of this project and a shared ethos between the two companies for transparent, evidenced results has led to us becoming the only agency in Europe authorised to distribute Locowise licences and to sit on its client advisory panel – a unique position that allows our social media team to actively support product development.

Evidenced results

Commenting on the importance of the relationship, our social media manager Nicola Peate said:

“Social media is no longer just about having conversations with customers; it’s about focusing on wider marketing targets and achieving results. Locowise provides us with the data to make and justify recommendations that will improve our clients’ social media performance to achieve their objectives.”

To find our more information about Locowise or to arrange a demo, call 0845 803 8381 or email sayhello@rippleffect.com.

Not the easiest of names to remember but simply put, this means that advertisers are now able to quickly and easily generate banner ads that are dynamically populated with what Google deems to be the most relevant products from a site based upon that particular search, i.e. Dynamic Display Ads.

A single Banner template would be modified (for example with standard headlines or brand imaging), and the rest of the ad then populated with appropriate content (via integration with the product feed). Google claims that this means that it would now be possible to advertise all of a site’s products via a single ad unit.

Customised, contextual advertising opportunities

Although still in beta and available only on limited release, technically this promises to entirely innovate the way that Banner ads are now targeted – through providing the ability to (hypothetically) serve extremely targeted contextualised ad content to each individual.

Web users should be able to view messages customised to their location / language / currency and product preferences (based upon their previous browsing history). In addition, ads will be tailored according to which placement they are appearing on. Thus a clothing retailer would automatically display, for example, trainers on a sports related site but designer dresses on a high fashion blog. The positive repercussions upon ad-relevancy, and thus click-through and conversion rates could be substantial.

Welcome news for Adwords users

Even more excitingly, advertisers should now have the facility to up the ante with their remarketing campaigns and be able to deliver these highly personalised ads to non-converting site users by promoting the exact products that they had previously shown an interest in browsing.

Previously, this sort of bespoke marketing could only be proffered by dedicated remarketing agencies. Adwords users should now be able to compete with the likes of these agencies by offering clients a high quality, fully integrated paid search package.

Up till now, advertisers were only able to set up banner advertising campaigns by building a limited number of creatives that were at best a promotion of the highest selling or most seasonal items. Granular campaigns had to be built that needed separate content for each site category / product line. This was necessarily a very labour intensive task and was unlikely be an exact science in ensuring that the most pertinent products were being pushed to the right consumers.

Maximising the potential of advertising spend

For advertisers with large and ever-changing product inventories the prospect of keeping on top of marketing the most important and widest range of stock was a nigh-on impossible task. In theory, this advance means that with minimal work advertisers will now be able to generate customised ads for each site user, probably changing the display advertising landscape as we know it.

With the facility to easily create such powerfully-targeted advertising materials, conversion rates could well be dramatically boosted. Even the savviest of customers would be swayed when presented with such highly relevant ad content.

Advertising spend will be maximised, as wasted (irrelevant) ad rotations should be massively decreased. What’s more, specialist remarketing agencies may find themselves struggling to differentiate themselves in what will rapidly become an even more crowded marketplace, whilst all-round PPC agencies will now be able to add another great selling point when tendering to clients.

It remains to be seen how well this functionality performs in practise, due to the subjective nature of Google’s method of matching relevancy of ad-content with search queries – as is undoubtedly all too familiar to any advertiser who has used Broad Match on their keyword content, only to find a plethora of unrelated terms essentially burning up campaign spend.

However, if the promises pan out, the possibilities for display advertisers could be extraordinary.

Prachi Dwivedi, search executive

“Repeat customers are the lifeblood of any online business.

To keep the metaphorical bell ringing above the shop door, customers need to be persuaded to come back time and again.

In many ways online outlets have an advantage over traditional stores as they have direct access to information about their customer base.

Which is why, very much to my surprise, Barclays published research showing almost half of online businesses have no way of tracking their repeat customers either buying or browsing their websites.

Given that most marketers agree that personalisation is key to the success of a website, it would seem that far too many companies are using much of their marketing muscle to attract new customers with no effort made to find out who their customers are and get to know them.

This may actually be detrimental to the business as less effort is expelled to nurture loyalty leading to brands not offering the right product to the right people and missing out on potential sales. Customers will be going through the front door and straight out of the back with no incentive of a return visit.

Tesco is a shining example of a company which pioneered the tracking of customer data.

It pays attention to what is viewed and bought, subsequently giving offers tailored to that particular customer – for instance, someone buying pet food may be interested in pet insurance. By ensuring all opportunities are relevant, Tesco doesn’t let opportunities slip.

It may seem simple to overlook, but tracking repeat customers could transform many online brands.”

The groundbreaking new platform, which harnesses responsive technology, has been extremely well-received since its launch, prompting the publication’s editorial team to include it within the latest showcase.

Here’s what it had to say:

Arsenal.com is the home of the Premier League football team. It was recently relaunched by digital agency Rippleffect. Twenty per cent of traffic to the site now comes via mobile, so the team wanted to give those users a better experience.

“HTML5 allowed us to code cleaner and make the markup more accessible with the benefit of the new tags,” developer David Churchill explains. “It also allowed us to create a more data-driven site via the use of the new data attribute types, and this helped us to achieve our aim of serving the same markup to all devices.”

Churchill remarks that the site also uses a number of new form input types (such as tel and email) to aid UX and the video element on non-Flash enabled devices, and Churchill explains that “using a placeholder element containing a data attribute for each image size allowed us to determine which image to load on the client site, optimising bandwidth for visitors.”

You can discover more about the Arsenal.com redevelopment by reading the case study online or by contacting the Rippleffect team.

“I have heard it said many times that the email campaign has had its day – and that social media is the way forward for direct marketing.

This sentiment has been supported by recent research from the Econsultancy/Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census 2013, which suggests that almost two thirds of marketers rated their email campaign as “poor’ or average”. Just a paltry 4% rated it as excellent.

Brand awareness

But email marketing campaigns are a sure-fire way to directly connect with the target market, which is why they are still growing in popularity and are critical to brand awareness.

What makes an email drive successful is the strategy. This, coupled with appropriate design and content, can work wonders for any campaign.

With the research suggesting 12% of marketers spend no time on their email campaign strategy, it’s little wonder there is much displeasure with this tool – both for companies and their targets. People dislike receiving ill-thought-out spam just as much as businesses are reluctant to send it.

A good email campaign should inspire the end user to engage with it. Sending an email is simply communication – the objective is to persuade the recipient to open and read the email and act on it.

Adjusting the campaign to suit a range of devices will bolster the number of emails read and click-through rate.

This engagement is key to the success of the campaign, and crucial to creating an engaging campaign is to make the user feel like it is specifically for them.

The power of email is still extremely strong. But it requires a focus on the campaign details to really harness this power.”

The recent announcement by supermarket Morrisons of its plans to finally begin selling online was met with little surprise, but it begged the question “what took it so long?”

Of the four supermarket giants, Morrisons is the last to provide an online offering to its customers. The move follows the chain reporting a 7% fall in pre-tax profits to £879m, and the business admitted its weekly shoppers were down 400,000.

The online grocery market is booming and Morrisons’ position is in stark contrast to other supermarkets which have stormed ahead investing in their internet offering and are now reaping the benefits of a market worth £5.6bn per annum – Waitrose alone reported a 49% increase in sales for last year.

Morrisons has dipped its toe in the water with wine site Morrisons Cellar, which is allegedly enjoying good sales.

One of the main reasons the company is late to the online table is that it has previously questioned the profitability of selling groceries over the internet. By having customers come into stores to purchase goods, the cost of delivery involved in online sales is avoided.

But as the figures show, a company offering consumer goods can ill afford not to invest in its online market. With the rise in internet shopping, existing and potential customers may be put off if the online option isn’t available.

There is a lesson for all brands to take from Morrisons’ delayed decision to sell online – if you don’t sell online, there is always someone else who does. This can lead to existing customers switching brands and potential customers overlooking you.

Only time will tell if Morrisons is learning this lesson too late.

Ben Hatton is managing director of Rippleffect

The platform is part of a bold new digital strategy that will enable the Visit Kent digital team to focus all of its energies on promoting the appeal of the region to return and first-time visitors as well as Kent residents.

Showcasing the strength of the region

The fully responsive site showcases the strengths of the region via stunning photography and inspirational content; whilst new functionality provides visitors with relevant, targeted content based on their personal requirements.

Another new element is the site’s fresh and engaging tone of voice, created with the help of Lonely Planet journalist Belinda Dixon, which entices visitors to discover Kent – online and in person.

A rewarding and creative journey

Lynette Crisp, head of marketing for Visit Kent said: “This has been a long journey, but one that’s been extremely rewarding. Both Rippleffect and our own in-house team have invested many months of hard work, enthusiasm and creativity to ensure the site meets the needs of our users, whether they’re regular visitors to Kent or planning their inaugural visit.

“We’re absolutely thrilled with the new website and are immensely proud of what it says about the beauty and appeal of our region; from our world famous gardens to our growing arts and culture scene, shopping and stunning coastline. We’re excited about working with the Rippleffect team on future projects as we look to maximise the potential of our digital strategy.”

We’ll now be developing a number of digital campaigns for Visit Kent – including ongoing SEO, PPC and social media activity – which will support the organisation’s core objectives and seasonal campaigns.

10 years ago digital media was heralded as the saviour of ROI. It provided a clear connect between how much was invested and how much was made.

This got better and better with the development of site analytics, call tracking and cursor tracking; not to mention that all important mass audience. There have been some minor blips too, namely the EU cookie law, but mostly this has been a way for digital marketers and agencies to shine.

Preparing for the next challenge

Victims of our own success, we know we can depend on this visibility and understanding. We’ve shied away from broadcast media and instead favoured laser-targeted investment, so it’s difficult not to get smug about our huge ROI percentages.

Now there is a new challenge on the horizon. Multiple device usage is getting bigger; a staggering 90% of people move between devices to accomplish a goal. While this is great for the connected world, it creates a headache for digital marketers. Current analytics packages are not up to scratch when it comes to switching device.

Users may start the search on mobile, perhaps even in a showroom, looking at a couple of sites. This journey may then continue on a tablet in front of the TV, followed by the final navigation on a laptop when money finally changes hands. Unless that user creates an account on their first interaction, there is no way to determine which search term, medium, device or referrer has had the biggest influence.

Cookies cannot pass from phone to laptop to tablet, matching the fickle user usage, but there are some common credentials that do.

Is Facebook the answer?

Users can (and often do) log-in to Facebook across all of the devices they own and while they might not engage socially through each stage of their user journey, those credentials are there to be used.

Surely, it would only take the slightest modification to pass back information to an advertiser’s site by Facebook ID rather than session, browser or cookie.

I’m not suggesting we use a sneaky hack to use these credentials, but rather that Facebook creates and runs the platform as a tool.

This could genuinely monetise the social network’s audience, make a bit of a dent in its overheads and provide some helpful tracking information to digital marketers – as opposed to the heavy-handed ‘view through conversion’ metric of the current Facebook ad tracking.

How it might work

Using the previous example, visibility of the user would be maintained throughout each of the touch points, the Facebook app on mobile and tablet and the browser cookie on laptop. This could even be extrapolated out to include smart TVs and the commercials users have been watching.

This kind of data can help us to understand those influential factors, making it entirely possible to attribute revenue and calculate ROI across every step of the user journey.

Facebook is highlighted as it is currently the largest network in the UK, but this would work even better if every network contributed. Imagine the data available internationally with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Sina Weibo.

There are rumours that Google will apply something similar to Adwords conversions based on users signed in to their Google accounts, but a true social tracking solution would be far more interesting. Visibility of individual device usage, consumer journeys and second screening would all be evidenced, perhaps even combined with social engagement and graph as well.

Is it feasible?

One potential pitfall would be that there is simply too much info. Not in a data handling and crunching sense, but potentially in an ethical way.

This would be a great way for the social networks to monetise their subscribers, but conscience would have to play a part. Would policing the use of this data be even possible? Would the user backlash be enough to sink the titanic of Facebook? Would it ever get through the EU?

This would perhaps be a step too far towards big brother marketing, but there’s no question that it would provide digital marketers with some extremely useful data.

Paul Goonoo, head of search and social