What we learned from implementing AMPs

This week's big development here at Smart Insights is the implementation of Accelerated Mobile Pages for our blog. If you are reading this on the standard HTML version (looks the same as normal) visit this post as an AMP to see what we have done. Over the last year, we have published updates about how Google is implementing and utilising AMPs to improve everybody's mobile web experience.

A timeline of AMP

Let me recap the main developments of AMP: December 2015 Google announced that it was seeing 16,000 new Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs) every single day. This was an impressive rate of adoption and showed the extent to which publisher wanted to attract audiences of mobile devices. February 2016 Then in February we saw Google has started rolling out Accelerated mobile pages…

Leverage local SEO and influencers to boost your business's position in SERPs

If you’re a small business looking to get noticed on the organic search landscape with a limited budget, you’ll need to pick your battles wisely and arm yourself with a realistic and informed approach. Here are some useful things for small businesses and entrepreneurs to consider:

1. If you are a local business, focus your organic search efforts there first.

Traffic from local visitors is intentful and often more likely to convert – so it should not be overlooked. Also, the good news is that you’ll often find it much easier to dominate the organic SERPs for local search queries than you will do for broad, non-geotargeted queries. Google estimates that over 20% of all search has a local intent, so it’s worth pouncing on the opportunity.

2. From an SEO perspective, many claim that 2016 is the ‘year of the influencer’.

Influencer partnerships…

Western countries will see huge increase in the number of connected devices per person

New data forecasts show how the number of connected devices is set to explode, approximately doubling the rate seen in 2014 in just three more years. Interestingly, it is the areas that already have the most connected devices which will see the biggest increase. North America, which leads the world in connected devices per person is set to have over 11 connected devices per person on average by 2019. This mean a typical family home with four people in may have 44 connected devices! All these connected devices will be creating data, and lots of it. This raises privacy concerns, but also the possibility of understanding customers far better than we do now. Would you want your Smart fridge to tell advertisers that you are out of Yogurt, so all…

What is dynamic content and how can you use it to meet your objectives?

Any marketer will tell you that email marketing can be an excellent way of generating interest and revenue. In fact, almost three quarters of marketers (73%) think email marketing offers an ‘excellent’ to ‘good’ return on investment (Source: Email Marketing Industry Census 2016). But how can you ensure your email messages really stand out from the crowd and go that little bit further to help your organisation meet its marketing and revenue objectives?

Dynamic content…the future of email marketing?

So what exactly is dynamic content? In short, it is any type of content that adjusts automatically so it can add immediate impact and help to make your messages more interesting and memorable. Not only does it make it easier for your brand to stand out in the inbox, but it’s a great step towards one-to-one communication. If you ignore the…

New 'SimilarTech' service promises to help marketers compare martech stacks

We love any tool which helps marketers do their jobs better, which is why we created an infographic breaking down 150 of the best marketing tools into 30 different categories. But we aren't the only ones. Some of the folks at SimilarWeb also looked at how to help marketers decide on what marketing tools to use, and came up with a clever new service which they've dubbed 'SimilarTech'. We chatted to Daniel Buchuk, SimilarTech's head of brand and strategy about their new feature, what inspired it and how it works.

As someone involved in the marketing technology industry, what did you make of Scott Brinker’s latest Martech graphic? 

Scott Brinker's market landscape graph is testament to the extraordinary evolution of this industry, featuring featured 350…

Disscussing the advantages and pitfalls out outsourcing your lead gen

Do we outsource or keep in-house? That is the question. Let me specify in advance that by outsourcing lead generation I mean transferring the whole process to an outside supplier. You set goals and in turn, you get leads. In this chapter, I shall not speak about any intermediate steps such as pay per click campaigns, landing generation, or outgoing calls without clear results. After all, they have no guarantee that you will reap any potential customers.

Actually, the decision of whether to outsource searching and attracting potential customers is not a matter of cost. Total expenses per employee are significantly higher for a company than just salaries, as this includes taxes, office space, a workstation, IT, holidays, sick-leaves, etc. As a result, the price of outsourcing is comparable to the cost of keeping your work in-house.

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Retention strategy often takes a backseat in marketing efforts, find out what leading global travel brands are doing to combat this.

Performance Horizon and WBR Digital have recently joined forces to publish the Benchmarking Performance Marketing and Digital Strategy in the Travel Industry Report, which we got a sneak preview at. They surveyed a large range of executives representing leading global travel brands back in may to unearth their findings. The report brought up some interesting results. Email marketing is by far and away the most favoured channel when it comes to customer retention, followed by Social Media, which is used by 63% as their primary driver of customer retention. Bringing up the rear was Marketplaces and Comparison Shopping Engines with 8% and 11% respectively. This was of interest to me, particularly the lack of…

Important lessons from the Pokémon GO phenomenon

Did you ever think you would be waiting for the lift in work, and be asked “Are there any Pokémon in reception?” Thanks to an April Fool’s prank gone viral, this may now be a common conversation among your colleagues. The newest global phenomenon Pokémon GO succeeds in blurring the lines between the physical and digital, in a way never before seen, by using a combination of Augmented Reality (AR) and GPS to bring wild Pokémon to your front door. Niantic Inc’s brainchild captured the nation’s attention way before its official release in the UK. Now that it is finally here, it has effectively created a new benchmark for enhanced user experience. Falling tentatively along the line of augmented reality and location based gaming, Pokémon GO uses an AR interface that overlays 3D digital…

Rob McLaughlin, Head of Digital Analytics at Sky explains the importance of a data-driven approach to modern marketing

Q. You recently moved from agency DigitasLBi, to join Sky as their Head of Digital Analytics. Why the move?

It has been a great experience working with my colleagues and clients at DigitasLBi, the breadth and depth of our engagements ensured interesting and challenging projects which really helped me continue to develop myself. I have been incredibly fortunate throughout my career to have been given the opportunity to work with some fabulous brands and high -growth businesses, DigitasLBi continued to add to that but the human aspect of that agency is something special. The agency is a collection of exceptionally bright and diverse individuals and one can only benefit from sharing space and time with them, I highly recommend the experience! More than any other role I have…

Find out why email should be a big focus for you post-Brexit and get some tips on campaigns to implement

I was in the South of France when the referendum result happened. The enormity of it hit me quite hard while surrounded by such kind and engaging people, all trying to be sympathetic about the decision. Since that day, focus (at least in business terms) has turned to the impact it will have on companies. As an organisation that works with both Global and UK based companies, we have seen many different reactions to the vote, but the overriding emotion seems to be caution. Some companies are already in recession planning mode (just in case), others are holding off on non-essential projects and most are not comfortable making any big and expensive decisions right now. One thing we are seeing and hearing consistently is…