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Apocalypse Cookie 2024: Survive & Thrive with Privacy Embracing Tracking

For most, data privacy, consent, and the laws that govern it are about as appealing as watching paint dry. But are the tools we use every day that are designed to help control our consent really working?
Getting around the web is often a pain in the ass.
Newsletter pop-ups, display ads, and location alerts  &#8211; not fun.
And this pain manifests not least in the form of Consent Management Tools and their pop-up controls or Cookie banners. We&#8217;ve all been clicking, or at times ignoring some form of OK, Accept, Reject, etc almost every day for 5 years.
<h3>Consent with the GDPR</h3>
The GDPR is now 5 years old. It is a necessary and important EU directive that sets out laws and guidance on how personal data is controlled, stored and processed.
In front of that personal data sits the consent to have it in the first place, and that&#8217;s what this post is about.
<blockquote>&#8220;Most people are simply not thinking about their privacy or data rights. They just want to move on with their lives.&#8221;</blockquote>
<h3>Transparency</h3>
One of the core principles of the GDPR regulation is that it requires companies to provide consent notices to consumers in “concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language.”
But what are the design principles that ensure those notices and their user interfaces are clear and transparent?
Can organisations that design for a myriad of things &#8211; web, mobile, wearables, voice assistants, connected cars and every sort of IoT device really live up to these ever-changing laws and principles?
<h3 class="graf graf--p">Do consent tools even work?</h3>
As is our nature, we tested this out.
In a set of usability tests with 20 people on a compliant consent tool pop-up, we found that the majority of users, 70%, clicked to Accept cookies.
When asked why they chose their action, answers from those who accepted included &#8220;That&#8217;s just what I always do&#8221; and &#8220;&#8230;it&#8217;s the fastest way to get rid of it.&#8221;
The problem is clear. Human nature prevails, and as <a href="https://dictionary.apa.org/cognitive-miser" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cognitive misers</a>, through simple repetition, we follow the path of least resistance.
Most people are simply not thinking about their privacy or data rights, they just want to move on with their lives.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-14463" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/consent-accept-250x133.png" alt="" width="500" height="266" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/consent-accept-250x133.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/consent-accept-700x373.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/consent-accept-768x409.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/consent-accept-1536x817.png 1536w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/consent-accept-120x64.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/consent-accept.png 1586w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" />
&nbsp;
But do consent tools actually work?
We tested this too.
Out of a quick straw poll selection of 12 random websites (May 2021), we found that just 7 of them (58%) did not fire cookies when Marketing Cookies were declined.
<h3 class="graf graf--p">Good Cookie?</h3>
When it comes to content streamers and IoT stuff, many of these services need to collect data from you to give you a better user experience.
For example, Netflix.
When you’re milling around thinking about what to watch next, content streamers use first-party cookies and data to show you content that you might like based on your viewing history, gender, etc.
If Netflix kept showing you the same viewing options every day, including things that you’ve already watched that would get annoying.
While this use of personal data improves the user experience, there are other ways your data is used from deciding what content to produce to more grey areas such as <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/netflix-data-tracking-privacy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">how data is shared with 3rd parties</a>.
In the case of Netflix, the only opt-out is to stop using the service.
<div id="attachment_14461" style="width: 936px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-14461" class="wp-image-14461 " src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/path-of-least-resistance-250x131.jpeg" alt="" width="926" height="485" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/path-of-least-resistance-250x131.jpeg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/path-of-least-resistance-768x401.jpeg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/path-of-least-resistance-120x63.jpeg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 926px) 100vw, 926px" />The path of least resistance. (Michael Sankey)</div>
<h3 class="graf graf--p">Privacy by Design</h3>
Despite the clear challenges of getting consent, education for those who process and store personal data is critical.
I spoke some time ago at a webinar hosted by the brilliant <a href="https://fpf.org/">Future of Privacy Forum</a> who invited me to give a talk on consent transparency and designing for trust.
Interesting takeaways included:
<ul>
<li class="graf graf--p">The biggest challenge to increasing User Experience transparency may be encouraging people to make deliberate decisions from a UX design perspective.</li>
<li class="graf graf--p">Designers’ colour and shape choices in User Interface design can be subtle ‘dark patterns.’ These dark patterns might even prevent, e.g., colourblind users from understanding the options at hand.</li>
<li class="graf graf--p">Organisations should ask themselves whether they should be collecting certain data in the first place.</li>
<li class="graf graf--p">Organisations need to take steps to prevent user manipulation, both by UX/UI (e.g., cookie banners) and by algorithms.</li>
</ul>
There&#8217;s a link to the webinar at the end of this post.
<h3>What should change</h3>
This is usually the part where you get &#8216;the answer&#8217; but there isn&#8217;t a definitive one or at least one that will make browsing websites and apps a little less annoying.
Google plans to phase out cookies with its <a href="https://privacysandbox.com/">Privacy Sandbox</a> but consent banners are not going to go away soon, so they may continue to annoy.
But, the real message here is that regardless of what level of consent users and consumers give (or how engaged they are when they do it), as businesses, data controllers and data processors, the responsibility lies with us to ask for, use and store their data responsibly.
There are two things I would advise:
<ul>
<li>Understand where your greatest data risks lie and ensure that your processes around processing and controlling that data are airtight.</li>
<li>Educate and train your staff on the laws and best practices around data protection, particularly how they relate to your greatest risks.</li>
</ul>
&nbsp;
Thank you for reading.
&nbsp;
But wait, there&#8217;s more:
<ul>
<li>A piece I contributed to in the Sunday Business Post on the Death of Cookies: <a href="https://www.businesspost.ie/tech/will-google-kill-the-cookie/">https://www.businesspost.ie/tech/will-google-kill-the-cookie/ </a></li>
<li>You can check out a recording of my keynote with the Future of Privacy Forum here: <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://fpf.org/blog/event-recap-dublin-privacy-symposium-2021-designing-for-trust-enhancing-transparency-preventing-user-manipulation/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" data-href="https://fpf.org/blog/event-recap-dublin-privacy-symposium-2021-designing-for-trust-enhancing-transparency-preventing-user-manipulation/">https://fpf.org/blog/event-recap-dublin-privacy-symposium-2021-designing-for-trust-enhancing-transparency-preventing-user-manipulation/</a></li>
<li>Note: Consent Tool Usability Tests were conducted in May 2021.</li>
</ul>
And if you want to go full geek, check out this 30-minute piece on GDPR after 5 years from Voice of ESG. It has some sound advice at the end on engaging in training and awareness for your team.
<iframe title="Spotify Embed: Special: 5 years GDPR in the EU" style="border-radius: 12px" width="100%" height="152" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/5xXR5MvBjalaZOLOA2a1tW?si=x072yDeGTjWCT3Rlcfg1XQ&#038;utm_source=oembed"></iframe>

Clickety-click: 5 Years of Consent with the GDPR

In 2022, Irish businesses really should be on TikTok, just look at the Irish TikTok demographics later in this article. Can the average Irish brand leverage TikTok for business? Of course, but you&#8217;ll need to be creative, authentic and ideally fun. More on that later.
Smart brands understand the value of building a presence on a social platform while still in its early growth stages and taking that first mover advantage against their competitors. Think Facebook in the mid-2,000&#8217;s, that time is now for TikTok.
While some people still view TikTok as a social media platform that solely caters to its generally younger audience, that would be a misinformed view about who actually uses TikTok today.
If your brand has not yet engaged with TikTok, you&#8217;re missing out on a huge opportunity.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-14147 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Seinfeld-serenity-now.webp" alt="Seinfeld clip showing man shouting Serenity now" width="640" height="360" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Seinfeld-serenity-now.webp 640w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Seinfeld-serenity-now-250x141.webp 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Seinfeld-serenity-now-120x68.webp 120w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />
<h4>But we&#8217;re on Facebook and Instagram already!</h4>
So you should be. According to Facebook&#8217;s own Ad data, businesses can reach 2.7 M people on Facebook and 2.6M on Instagram in Ireland.
The Facebook Ads system is also one of the most effective and rewarding platforms a business can engage. It&#8217;s targeting capabilities and mass of collected data points are hard to beat.
While Paid Search Ads (Google &amp; Bing) are as exact as a surgeon&#8217;s knife for dialling into real user intent to convert by engaging your services or buying your product, Facebook is like the Swiss army knife of marketing tools. Facebook delivers many ways to engage and convert your audience.
As long as you take advantage of Facebook&#8217;s new tracking methods to help <a href="https://www.friday.ie/blog/how-to-protect-facebook-marketing-performance-cookie-free-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">combat visibility losses from Apple&#8217;s Privacy initiatives</a>, it will serve your business well when properly invested in, managed and optimised.
Though <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/facebook-usage-drops-in-ireland-as-tiktok-s-popularity-surges-1.4809994" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook usage in Ireland is dropping</a>, Facebook &amp; Instagram are still the most popular platforms for users in Ireland and most businesses should definitely maintain a presence there. TikTok is catching up fast though and is a serious contender for the Social throne.
<h4>TikTok user demographics in Ireland</h4>
We decided to look at the TikTok Irish user demographics to get a gauge of who exactly is using it in Ireland.
TikTok is now <a href="https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/tiktok-is-catching-up-on-instagram-and-facebook-with-its-irish-subscriber-base-41552010.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">used by 2.25MLN Irish people</a>, which shows rapid growth in the Irish market. That places it 3rd in usage behind Facebook and Instagram.
This means that your brand&#8217;s messaging could in theory reach 1 in 3 people in Ireland if using TikTok both organically and its paid advertising features.
While growing rapidly, data sourced from TikTok&#8217;s Ads Manager platform shows the Irish TikTok user demographic breakdown as of July 2022 as below:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-14159 size-large" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/TikTok-Blog-Asset-2-1-700x482.png" alt="Irish TikTok User Demographics Ireland Infographic" width="700" height="482" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/TikTok-Blog-Asset-2-1-700x482.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/TikTok-Blog-Asset-2-1-250x172.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/TikTok-Blog-Asset-2-1-768x529.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/TikTok-Blog-Asset-2-1-1536x1058.png 1536w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/TikTok-Blog-Asset-2-1-2048x1411.png 2048w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/TikTok-Blog-Asset-2-1-120x83.png 120w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
<h4>Is 2022 a good time to join TikTok?</h4>
2022 is definitely a good time to join TikTok, the sooner the better. TikTok is now 6 years old. Social platform years are almost like dog years so by those standards it&#8217;s quite a mature platform.
Since launching in 2016, TikTok has <a href="https://sensortower.com/blog/tiktok-downloads-2-billion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">grown rapidly</a>. The App has been downloaded globally more than 2 billion times. According to Cloudflare, in 2021 tiktok.com was <a href="https://blog.cloudflare.com/popular-domains-year-in-review-2021/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the most popular domain</a> for users, beating even google.com for visitors.
There can be no argument, TikTok is here to stay.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-14129 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Organic-reach-and-growth-on-TikTok-700x467-1.jpeg" alt="Lake in the shape of an upwards tending arrow in the middle of a forrest representing organic growth on TikTok" width="700" height="467" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Organic-reach-and-growth-on-TikTok-700x467-1.jpeg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Organic-reach-and-growth-on-TikTok-700x467-1-250x167.jpeg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Organic-reach-and-growth-on-TikTok-700x467-1-120x80.jpeg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
<h4>Organic growth on TikTok</h4>
When Social platforms first launch, there&#8217;s a period where they&#8217;re trying to gain as many users and as much content as possible before monetising the service with Ads. During this time, organic reach will be extended as your content will be pushed out by the platform to keep users engaged. That&#8217;s a golden time to join and invest in building a presence on a platform (if you believe it has a genuine future of course).
While that initial stage has passed as paid Ads are now available on TikTok and the organic reach is not as strong as it initially was, it&#8217;s still extremely strong. The <a href="https://www.marketingcharts.com/digital/social-media-225140" target="_blank" rel="noopener">engagement rates on TikTok</a> are much higher than on other Social Platforms and are likely to stay that way until the platform gets more crowded. Basically, it&#8217;s like Facebook used to be when you could reach your audience for free!
Smart brands are on TikTok already and doubling down both on organic content and paid Ads but there&#8217;s plenty of growth to be achieved for businesses only just getting started on TikTok in 2022.
<h4>TikTok is being used by younger audiences as a Search Engine</h4>
TikTok is not only taking some of Facebook&#8217;s audiences but even Google is feeling a little bit of a pinch though not a substantial threat. As mentioned above, tiktok.com was the most visited domain in 2021, usurping Google. This is no small feat.
Prabhakar Raghavan (Google senior vice president) <a href="https://fortune.com/videos/watch/Brainstorm-Tech-2022-Organizing-The-Worlds-Information/934585a6-7fb6-41a5-8ef3-e497f8ca2986" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told a recent Tech conference</a> that:
<blockquote>&#8220;something like almost 40% of young people when they&#8217;re looking for a place for lunch, they don&#8217;t go to Google Maps or Search, they go to TikTok or Instagram.&#8221;</blockquote>
While these local search terms from people looking for lunch spots only make up a very small portion of user Search volumes, Google is <a href="https://blog.google/products/search/search-io22/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">adjusting its platform</a> to appeal to younger users to defend their dominance of Search terms with a local intent to convert. However, Google remains the number one platform to dial into real user intent to convert into a customer across many industries.
The reality is that TikTok will never take over from Google for user journeys that require real research, price and service level comparison. It&#8217;s an interesting development in the world of Search Marketing though and something businesses serving local customers should be keeping in mind.
As global users become less and less patient, they&#8217;re seeking more visual ways to learn rather than reading blog content. Younger users use TikTok&#8217;s search facility to find the guides they want in a short easy to understand video format.
Mental health advice is unsurprisingly a popular topic on TikTok and often a go-to source for younger users as is legal and medical advice for users of all ages. TikTok content can be excellent for delivering a concise visual answer to those &#8220;how to&#8221; questions we all have.
Despite the lack of the same veracity to the information available on TikTok when compared to Google results, this looks like <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/could-tiktok-be-a-search-engine-for-many-users-it-already-is/452871/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a trend that will continue</a>. To help SEO your brand&#8217;s TikTok content to be discovered in TikTok search results, be sure to use the auto-captions over your videos and relevant hashtags.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-14133 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/TikTok-user-prepares-to-shoot-video-700x467-1.jpeg" alt="Irish TikTok user making video content with a smartphone and light ring" width="700" height="467" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/TikTok-user-prepares-to-shoot-video-700x467-1.jpeg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/TikTok-user-prepares-to-shoot-video-700x467-1-250x167.jpeg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/TikTok-user-prepares-to-shoot-video-700x467-1-120x80.jpeg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
<h4>Won&#8217;t I have to dance to create engaging content on TikTok?</h4>
No. While dance crazes certainly helped get TikTok to where it is today, the variety of content on it today is truly quite astounding. Users are on TikTok to learn, discover and also shop!
What&#8217;s important on TikTok is that your video content is creative, authentic and of course either helpful, visually engaging or funny. It&#8217;s not a place for any boring straightforward marketing creatives that have a strong sales approach. The users there will certainly let you know in the comments (if you leave them on) if they don&#8217;t like it. Your TikTok content needs to be made for TikTok.
One aspect of TikTok content is that it&#8217;s very much focused on trends and challenges. Keeping up on what your audience is engaging with and the topics they&#8217;re talking about will help make your content more relevant. TikTok encourages users to take on their content challenges. Targeting those challenges and using the memes and hashtags that your audience use will help you connect with the right people.
Some brands may initially struggle to conceive of what they might share but there are plenty of <a href="https://www.shopify.com/blog/tiktok-video-ideas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">great examples and ideas</a> out there to take a lead form.
<h4>What types of businesses can benefit from TikTok?</h4>
Pretty much any business that&#8217;s prepared to invest in producing fun and engaging video content will benefit from being on TikTok. Remember that needn&#8217;t be an expensive undertaking, all that&#8217;s needed is a bit of creativity, basic video editing skills, time and a smartphone.
If a brand is producing high-quality content around an area people want to gain knowledge in, they&#8217;ll quickly gather a following. From Lawyers to Doctors, there&#8217;s no shortage of smart professional service brands taking advantage of the free organic reach by producing helpful and engaging video content for their audiences.
More and more, <a href="https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/social-commerce-is-here-and-its-reshaping-how-we-buy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Social platforms are places where people shop</a>. Ecommerce brands will especially benefit from engaging with TikTok. Just take a look at <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/TikTokMadeMeBuyIt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">#TikTokMadeMeBuyIt</a> and you&#8217;ll see users posting about the influence TikTok had on their latest purchase.
The potential for eCommerce brands to benefit from user-generated content (UGC) is huge on TikTok. Getting your products into the hands of your target audience and delighting them can see your product go viral.
There&#8217;s also a plethora of tools and features built into the platform that will let you engage directly with your audience. These include Q &amp; A&#8217;s and Live streams to answer buyer questions and demonstrate your product&#8217;s benefits, driving sales in real-time. TikTok Shop is not yet available in Ireland but once it arrives it will add a Shop tab to your business profile, similar to Facebook and Instagram Shops.
<a href="https://influencermarketinghub.com/live-shopping-tiktok/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Live Shopping</a> has conversion rates 10 times higher than other eCommerce placements and formats. It&#8217;s set to be a major trend in eCommerce going forward and TikTok really delivers here.
Partnering with relevant Influencers that have already amassed a strong engaged following can provide a shortcut to getting the exposure a brand needs with its target audience. It&#8217;s crucial to ensure good alignment here between audience and brand though, otherwise, it can lead to wasted spending. A good place to start with finding the right influencer to partner with is <a href="https://creatormarketplace.tiktok.com/home" target="_blank" rel="noopener">TikTok&#8217;s Creator Marketplace</a>.
Another very interesting offering for brands is <a href="https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/introducing-tiktok-branded-mission-inspiring-brand-and-creator-collaborations" target="_blank" rel="noopener">TikTok&#8217;s Branded Mission</a>. Essentially brands can crowdsource their creative needs to TikTok creators. Content creators supply their proposed TikTok creative for your brand which you can then choose to place media spend behind if you like what you see. This could prove to be an excellent option for brands struggling with their own creative production for the platform.
There&#8217;s a lot that can be achieved organically on the platform with the right resources put into producing content. However, it&#8217;s when brands add paid media to the mix that the numbers can really start to get interesting.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-14131 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Rocketship-departing-the-group-1st-mover-advantage-700x456-1.jpeg" alt="Rocket ship leaving the group of other rockets representing first mover advantage with Paid Ads on TikTok" width="700" height="456" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Rocketship-departing-the-group-1st-mover-advantage-700x456-1.jpeg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Rocketship-departing-the-group-1st-mover-advantage-700x456-1-250x163.jpeg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Rocketship-departing-the-group-1st-mover-advantage-700x456-1-120x78.jpeg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
<h4>Paid Ads on TikTok &amp; first mover advantage</h4>
TikTok released its self-serve Ads platform in July 2020 and is very capable of delivering results for brands across many verticals. All the usual options are there that we&#8217;ve come to expect from a modern Ads platform making it suitable for driving on-site Conversions or App Installs as needed.
While large volumes of performance data are thin on the ground and of course it depends on each vertical, creative strength, the offer and many other factors including the friction of their user journeys, TikTok Ads can be a very strong option.
Media buying on TikTok is still relatively cheap when compared to Facebook &amp; Instagram. As with any Ad placement costs, supply and demand dictates pricing. TikTok still has a lot of supply of Ad space with less demand than on Facebook&#8217;s dwindling supply as not as many marketers are taking advantage of TikTok yet.
This presents yet another area of opportunity, as well as organic growth with TikTok, where there still remains a first mover advantage for businesses that act soon and start their TikTok journey both organic and paid.
If you&#8217;d like to take advantage of this exceptional marketing channel and engage an expert <a href="https://www.friday.ie/expertise/digital-marketing/social-media-advertising/">TikTok Ads agency</a>, talk with us today!

TikTok App symbol on smartphone screen with 99 notifications

TikTok’s demographics tell you why Irish businesses need to be there

When it comes to the metaverse there is a lot to unpack, so bear with me here&#8230;
Yes the metaverse is intriguing, but it&#8217;s not a new concept.
For a long time, people have been playing VR games and immersing themselves in life simulations like <a href="https://secondlife.com/">Second Life</a>, SIMs, and even fantasy role-playing realms like World of Warcraft.
In October, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the firm will undergo a rebranding that included a new name, logo, and ticker symbol. So this was a significant step, obviously.
The metaverse, according to some detractors, is just another failed effort at something that hasn&#8217;t succeeded before, largely by IT giants that didn&#8217;t provide enough uses for it to be of value to people.
There are many who believe it&#8217;s nothing more than an elaborate plot devised by the “powers that be” to control our lives and force us into the black hole of advertising. That&#8217;s a bit paranoid, really.
<h3>Wearable technology</h3>
Virtual reality gamers will know that the world of Ready Player One took some liberties in its depiction of the medium.
The technology just isn&#8217;t there to support what the characters were doing in the book or movie, and it might never be. Of course, this is science fiction, so it&#8217;s not a big deal.
However many people instantly connected this film to Facebook&#8217;s rebranding as Meta.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-13751 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/suit-up-suit.gif" alt="" width="498" height="320" />
Well I&#8217;m sorry to let you down, but that’s really not going to be the case.
Wearable technology is still not where it should be, but let&#8217;s hope that it grows in the right direction and provides us with some fun along the way too, because it won’t all be entertainment – monetisation is inevitable.
As part of their journey to make the metaverse more accessible to a wider audience, Meta is also developing it as a data-driven advertising platform.
<h3>Problematic</h3>
I&#8217;m not only referring to Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIxPRwgXFQg">questionable presentation abilities</a> when I say that the metaverse&#8217;s debut was problematic from the start.
The timing was also less than ideal. They already had a bad reputation for privacy, and the promise of a more intimate platform has further exacerbated that.
In any case, let&#8217;s take a look at some of the most critical considerations.
<h3>So what is it?</h3>
To put it in simple terms, the metaverse is a virtual world where people can communicate, game and shop online, see virtual concerts, and meet virtually. This may eventually lead to virtual cinemas, competing in sports, and much more.
Instead of relying on its <a href="https://www.oculus.com/">Oculus</a> VR platform to unleash the metaverse, Facebook claims to be working on wearable body sensors that users will use to interact with the digital environment.
But there are a number of problems that must be answered before this &#8220;groundbreaking&#8221; notion can be considered a success.
Is our privacy at risk as a result of this? In terms of digital marketing, what is its significance?
<h3>Metaverse advertising</h3>
Since early 2021, when <a href="https://www.roblox.com/">Roblox</a> went public and <a href="https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/">Nvidia</a> said that the company&#8217;s next step was to establish a metaverse, the word &#8220;metaverse&#8221; has been increasingly searched on Google.
To put things in perspective, in the spring of 1998, the first studies on VR/internet addiction began to appear. So no, this is nothing new.
While some big corporations are only just now starting to really investigate the metaverse’s possibilities, the notion has been around for quite some time. &#8216;Virtual worlds&#8217; and &#8216;an all-encompassing digital playground&#8217; have been anticipated for the internet for decades now.
This forecast was based not just on speculative fiction, but also on technology that was already in the works.
Platforms and content like Roblox, <a href="https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/home">Fortnite</a>, and <a href="https://decentraland.org/">Decentraland</a> are just a few of the numerous participants already in the metaverse ecosystem. They feature designers, avatar technology, social media, and VR technology, to name a few.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) issued by brands like Gucci and Coca-Cola are now being sold on metaverse platforms such as Decentraland.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="810" height="524" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13748" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/supergucci-810x524-1.jpeg" alt="" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/supergucci-810x524-1.jpeg 810w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/supergucci-810x524-1-250x162.jpeg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/supergucci-810x524-1-700x453.jpeg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/supergucci-810x524-1-768x497.jpeg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/supergucci-810x524-1-120x78.jpeg 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/supergucci-810x524-1-80x52.jpeg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 810px) 100vw, 810px" />
Small and big players are helping each other to develop a second world that mimics the actual world in the metaverse ecology, which is already taking shape. Again, this is nothing new.
From the perspective of advertising, it’s important to realise that just as the internet can’t be owned by a single business, the metaverse can’t be owned by a single brand or a small group of tech giants.
Of course Meta, on the other hand, would like you to believe differently right now.
Make no mistake about it, a large part of that re-naming was an attempt to become synonymous with &#8211; and attempt to own &#8211; a metaverse concept that already existed.
Advertising&#8217;s place in the metaverse hasn&#8217;t been thoroughly examined yet, at least not by a third party.
In the actual world, how will it perform? In the metaverse, can previous advertising research results and approaches be applied?
It&#8217;s not simply another new media like the internet; the metaverse has the potential to become a fully realised concept that changes the approach of advertising and marketing in profound ways.
The basic definitions of advertising may need to be revised to include consideration for avatars since the metaverse is interactive and incorporates embodied individuals via their avatars.
Metaverse concert merchandise will become more commonplace (this is already making artists millions!), firms like Meetings Booker may start supporting the platform that facilitates your team&#8217;s meetings… and these are just two examples of sponsorship advertising alternatives that will expand in the future.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="850" height="425" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13749" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Justin_Bieber_Make_Debut_Metaverse.jpeg" alt="" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Justin_Bieber_Make_Debut_Metaverse.jpeg 850w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Justin_Bieber_Make_Debut_Metaverse-250x125.jpeg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Justin_Bieber_Make_Debut_Metaverse-700x350.jpeg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Justin_Bieber_Make_Debut_Metaverse-768x384.jpeg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Justin_Bieber_Make_Debut_Metaverse-120x60.jpeg 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Justin_Bieber_Make_Debut_Metaverse-80x40.jpeg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px" />
We need to test, reproduce, and expand existing advertising ideas in this new universe in order to understand how advertising will operate in the metaverse, but this hasn&#8217;t happened yet.
In order to test and construct theories that can explain and forecast how advertising in the metaverse works, we&#8217;ll need both qualitative observations and empirical data (i.e., data collected by humans and machines).
<h3>Our everyday life</h3>
As with the internet and smartphones, proponents of the metaverse believe it will have a huge influence on our everyday lives.
Many younger people will find it easy to join a console chat and play a game with pals, but not everyone will be able to.
While certain components of the metaverse currently exist, contemporary online worlds are predicted to swiftly evolve, allowing us to not only mirror the real world but also to be and do whatever we choose.
There is a growing consensus that we will soon be wearing glasses comparable to the virtual reality headsets now on the market, but with fewer drawbacks, to access the internet.
Many more types of virtual reality gadgets and equipment, such as cheaper omnidirectional treadmills, will be available in the future to enable people to experience the virtual environment as if they were truly there.
This is the point at which we begin to enter a virtual world that&#8217;s a tiny bit closer to Ready Player One.
Many roadblocks remain in the way of this completely immersive vision being achieved anytime soon, even among those who embrace the metaverse.
Significant technological advancements are required in order for a metaverse to properly imitate the actual world.
Even while cloud computing, 5G, and artificial intelligence (AI) have all been around for some time, they have only lately begun to take off.
Even if the metaverse has all the technology it needs right now, it would still need to become more inexpensive and more widely accessible if it is to reach its full potential.
<h3>Privacy</h3>
In addition to technological issues, the privacy and security of individuals must also be considered. Many people already worry about what digital platforms know about them, even if they don&#8217;t really know what the issue is (my biggest gripe with this!).
Early versions of the metaverse are already in existence, and they are gaining traction. Global AR and VR tech sales are projected to soar now, and not surprisingly, but not without consideration for blocking of personal information.
Technology firms are taking note of how many people, particularly the next generation of users, have already come to terms with a big portion of their future being located outside of the physical world entirely…
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="640" height="640" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13750" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/this-is-issue-about-trust-and-privacy-stan-marsh.gif" alt="" />
Microsoft has also announced intentions to deliver software and hardware tools relevant to the metaverse in the near future.
For their <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens/hardware">HoloLens</a> mixed-reality device, they&#8217;ve created a platform called <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mesh">Mesh</a> on which other companies can build apps.
A platform for shared virtual environments dubbed Omniverse Enterprise, developed by graphics chipmaker Nvidia again, will also be launched, allowing groups of users to merge parts they have generated elsewhere into a virtual entity they can then work on together.
An avatar must have some of the cognitive abilities of a human in order to be useful. In this, AI technologies like NLP, optical character recognition (OCR), reinforcement learning (RL), and conversational AI will play a key role.
Virtual characters that are more advanced (and will even learn over time) will encourage users to return to a virtual environment, making the experience more enjoyable. Because otherwise, it would be too &#8220;samey&#8221; to stand out.
For the metaverse to succeed, immersion will be as important as website engagement metrics are for user experience and SEO.
In order for the experience to be compelling, it has to be able to do all of these things.
<h3>The healthcare sector</h3>
Psychologists are increasingly using Zoom to communicate with their patients instead of meeting face-to-face, so the sector is no stranger to digital engagement.
Aside from the obvious financial and entertainment advantages of a metaverse, there are also concerns about the mental health of those who use it.
Usage and enjoyment of this new world will bring both issues and rewards.
For example, according to research from the University of Oxford, virtual reality may be beneficial for people with schizophrenia. The results of the research show that virtual reality immersion might be beneficial in regulated settings.
Furthermore, it can be used to alleviate the symptoms of phobias and other mental health issues.
<h3>More accessible</h3>
It&#8217;s reasonable to worry about things like data leaks and malfunctioning technologies, but remember that the advantages often exceed the negatives &#8211; as we&#8217;ve learned from earlier technological advancements such as, well, the internet itself!
For example, we often discuss the necessity of home care and making therapy more accessible to more people. Now that the ‘homes’ of patients will be in the metaverse, the possibilities for outreach and better treatment are endless.
Behavioral healthcare professionals and academics will play a critical role in shaping the metaverse as we advance toward a fully collaborative online environment, both by providing guidance in its creation and by performing impartial research on its impacts.
<h3>Keep an open mind</h3>
As with anything, you&#8217;ll need to keep up with the latest developments in this space – it&#8217;s coming no matter what we do.
So keep an open mind and engage in healthy dialogue with others whose views differ from your own, even if it is unpleasant at times, because it will bring good things with it too.
In general, we&#8217;ve never been known to be early adopters. With the metaverse, we have the chance to change that.
Don’t be scared, let’s have some fun with it.

The Metaverse Advertising Privacy and Everyday Life

Advertising, Privacy and Everyday Life in the Metaverse

We create messages every day in order to influence others, often without even knowing it.
It may be one of the hundreds of emails you send to your coworkers, acquaintances, or clients on a regular basis&#8230;
Alternatively, if you work in a digital agency like I do, you can be developing advertising, content, a web page, metadata, or meeting slides&#8230;
Most of these things require a lot of mental work and even time/money, so have you ever considered how effective all of these efforts are from the viewpoint of people&#8217;s minds?
What kind of attention can you really get? How likely is it that you&#8217;ll be able to rewire pre-existing attitudes and opinions? Can you persuade your targets to make a purchase or persuade them that they require something?
As digital marketers, it&#8217;s neuromarketing that&#8217;s going to get us to that place.
<h3>Digital communication</h3>
Web analytics and data are now so easy to produce in the digital marketing field that marketers frequently use them to identify the real impact of advertising without any further science &#8211; and this is very powerful.
But what we&#8217;re actually seeing here are outcomes, which are great for analysis and have their place, but are not genuine causes.
Google, Facebook, and Twitter have spent millions of dollars trying to persuade us that their algorithms can uncover and anticipate the quality of each digital communication you send. For them, it is a question of life and death. They&#8217;ve gotten pretty damn good at it, too.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-13620 size-medium" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ig-pilates-250x250.png" alt="" width="250" height="250" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ig-pilates-250x250.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ig-pilates-700x700.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ig-pilates-150x150.png 150w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ig-pilates-768x768.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ig-pilates-120x120.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ig-pilates-80x80.png 80w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ig-pilates.png 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px" />
Recent events, however, have demonstrated how deceiving analytics may be. Worse, they frequently contain inaccurate definitions, dubious assumptions, and even mathematical mistakes.
They&#8217;re based on behavioral data that provides a skewed picture of how individuals react to messages. They are unconcerned with the unseen &#8216;unconscious&#8217; clicks that occur in people&#8217;s heads.
<h3>Precision targeting</h3>
Procter &amp; Gamble, the world&#8217;s largest marketer, curtailed its Facebook ad spend in 2016, arguing that targeting individual demographics was costly and did not result in a substantial impact.
Facebook (now Meta, of course) and Google both claim to be able to assist advertising in targeting specific audiences. P&amp;G, on the other hand, said that there was no proof that precision targeting was worthwhile.
We continue to see these platforms perform admirably as an agency. But, hey, to each their own.
Meanwhile, Facebook acknowledged in 2016 that it had been overestimating a key video statistic for at least two years. The average time of a video seen was calculated using only video views that lasted more than three seconds. As a result, advertisements&#8217; performance scores were greater than they should have been.
Many advertisers were furious, despite the fact that the social network stated it was a miscalculation of the average time users spent watching videos on its site.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="480" height="355" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13624" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/giphy.gif" alt="" />
Sure you do, Mark&#8230;
Google and Facebook don&#8217;t let outsiders evaluate their platforms, so they&#8217;re practically grading their own homework.
Without a doubt, Facebook&#8217;s error was an embarrassment. They issued an official apology and stated that the error in their algorithm will be corrected.
So be warned: online analytics are fantastic, but their utility is limited, and they can be inaccurate at times. However, they are frequently all we have.
<h3>Unseen decisions</h3>
In the near future, neuromarketing techniques will show the nature and effect of unseen decisions, making you a better buyer of digital advertising. As a result, the advertising industry&#8217;s big data players may not be as enthusiastic about neuromarketing as you should be.
And you most certainly should be.
Analytics does not provide a comprehensive picture of what happens when purchasers&#8217; minds are first exposed to advertisements; you must continually test headlines, change visuals, and generally adjust your message several times.
This makes it difficult to figure out why so much of your advertising isn&#8217;t paying off.
And, most significantly, you may choose an ad that is actually kind of unsuccessful but just happens to be the best performer in your test!
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="480" height="360" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13626" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/giphy-3.gif" alt="" />
&nbsp;
<h3>Brain persuasion</h3>
A/B testing is a trap that pays media networks billions without providing deeper knowledge of how ads influence the brain. The search for ideal messages through testing can get you to a better place but can also be inefficient, expensive, and contradicts the rules of brain persuasion.
When utilised to influence digital marketing initiatives, a lot of traditional marketing research falls short of its aims, especially when it comes to assessing the impact of the advertising message.
In their own right, surveys, interviews, and focus groups are powerful tools, but they don&#8217;t explain the neurophysiological mechanisms that underpin consumer behavior.
Nonetheless, our responses to most marketing stimuli are explained by the subconscious and preconscious regions of our brain.
That is why, when compared to traditional research methods, Neuromarketing may offer unique insights, a fact that is now widely recognised by marketing and advertising experts all over the world.
<h3>So what is it?</h3>
Neuromarketing employs a variety of methods, the most common of which being functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). It also utilises eye-tracking technologies, but most commonly in tandem with other technologies that read changes in brain functions.
The idea is to figure out which portion of the brain reacts to certain pictures, phrases, and slogans, and how that part of the brain reacts.
Integration of neuroscientific methodologies with digital advertising, in my opinion, will be one of the most crucial aspects of advertising and measurement of the same as things like the metaverse increase in usage.
It&#8217;s also known as Consumer Neuroscience and is the scientific study of how people&#8217;s brains react to advertising and other brand-related signals through the use of brain waves, eye tracking, and skin reactions.
It can employ brain imaging techniques like fMRI to show how the brain reacts unconsciously to what it perceives. This detects changes associated with blood flow. Basically, when an area of the brain is in use, blood flow to that region also increases.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-13623 size-large" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSC_8594-re-700x350.jpeg" alt="" width="700" height="350" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSC_8594-re-700x350.jpeg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSC_8594-re-250x125.jpeg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSC_8594-re-768x384.jpeg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSC_8594-re-120x60.jpeg 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSC_8594-re-80x40.jpeg 80w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSC_8594-re.jpeg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
<h3>Value and relevance</h3>
It is non-invasive and safe. Although there was some initial skepticism and opposition, the advertising industry has begun to realise the movement&#8217;s value and relevance.
Because neuromarketing technologies track the molecular, physiological, and neurological changes that occur in our brains in reaction to marketing, they go well beyond typical data collecting techniques.
These experimental settings will aid in the analysis of instinctual, emotional, and cognitive reactions without putting the interpretive weight on study participants.
You may not know it, but filling out a survey consumes a significant amount of your brain&#8217;s precious energy. Even getting paid to take surveys does not alleviate this stress.
<h3>Act like zombies</h3>
It is impossible to overestimate the value of cognitive energy. Using brain-based approaches eliminates the need for individuals&#8217; conscious and active engagement. You&#8217;re not asking them to act like zombies; all you&#8217;re asking them to do is relax and allow the messages to work their way into their heads.
There&#8217;s also no requirement for the subjects to say anything. The goal is for the stimulus to have an effect on their neurophysiology. The brain will activate and create its own narrative.
When was the last time you were asked what you thought of a movie you had just seen? It&#8217;s a simple question, but imagine how difficult it would be to respond if you had to use emotional measures to describe how pleased, sad, enthusiastic, anxious, concerned, intrigued, and so on you were.
The same may be said for how we react to digital advertising or even a website. We know these stimuli have an effect on us, but we can&#8217;t be sure how much of an emotional or cognitive influence they have on our brain.
<h3>Difficult to recognise</h3>
According to research, when people are asked to explain their moods on a daily basis, they use an average of three words, implying that emotions are difficult to recognise and express. This clouds user feedback.
There are a few essential research questions that only Neuromarketing can answer.
<ul>
<li>Will my message pique the interest of the brain&#8217;s subconscious?</li>
<li>Will that unintentional influence lead to a purchase or a brand interaction?</li>
<li>Is it possible for individuals to express their true feelings? (We have the ability to fool even ourselves!)</li>
<li>What emotions lead to decisions?</li>
<li>Which of your messages has the most impact on people&#8217;s minds, and why?</li>
<li>Can neuromarketing be used to demonstrate a product&#8217;s or solution&#8217;s unique value?</li>
</ul>
And, perhaps most crucially:
<ul>
<li>Can a brain-based persuasion model lead to improved Return on Investment?</li>
</ul>
fMRI scans have demonstrated that a variety of factors determine how and why customers accept specific brands and buy their items, even if they are more expensive than competitors.
It has little to do with logic or reasonable thought. Humans are sensory creatures that react to the way particular stimuli make them &#8220;feel&#8221;.
<h3>Added value</h3>
Its methodologies can investigate subconscious responses and monitor brain activity in persons as well as their reactions to advertisements that they are unaware of.
Ultimately it can also provide customers with added value.
There have been ethical concerns raised, with some referring to it as &#8220;mind-reading,&#8221; although in fact, it employs volunteer participants in a manner that is not fundamentally different at all from established research methodologies.
Furthermore, discoveries from this field are being utilised to investigate solutions and therapies for, among other things, compulsive online gambling and addictive shopping habits.
<h3>What&#8217;s Next?</h3>
Neuromarketing will become more accessible in time as datasets from earlier studies are utilised to develop tools that do not require the use of a lab or fMRI methodology.
Soon you&#8217;ll be able to submit an image of your ad, a video, product page, or piece of content, etc, and get immediate feedback on how it will affect the subconscious.
This technology has already begun to emerge. We have tested some and we&#8217;ll be first in line when these are more commercially available.

Neuromarketing: The Emotions Behind The Data

It&#8217;s obvious that consumers are now concerned about data privacy.
They are more aware of how their data is gathered, kept, and shared, and they want greater control.
This has somehow been accomplished without actually fully informing consumers about the risks of having their data exposed or exploited, and yet they have mostly decided to accept it. So here we are!
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="400" height="208" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13573" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/giphy-1.gif" alt="Consumer Rights" />
If you&#8217;re busy or simply decide not to read on then at least know this: you&#8217;re going to need some very compelling reasons for customers to give you their data.
Because data gathering has grown so inextricably linked to the current customer experience, brands now face a unique set of problems.
Would e-commerce have grown at the same rate without tailored ads and targeted promotions? Most likely not, because both customers and brands have grown to rely on customisation to improve the modern buying experience.
Could small and medium-sized enterprises have gained the same degree of awareness among their cohorts as the major spenders do without customised or targeted advertising? No, not really.
We <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/how-to-protect-facebook-marketing-performance-cookie-free-future/">recently discussed</a> how Apple has modified how it will manage customer data by strengthening privacy and safeguards for consumers&#8217; information. With such a global powerhouse embracing the trend towards enhanced data privacy, marketers must keep these developments in mind as they plan future initiatives.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-13570 size-large" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/imore-facebookprivacy_03-700x491.png" alt="Apple Privacy" width="700" height="491" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/imore-facebookprivacy_03-700x491.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/imore-facebookprivacy_03-250x175.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/imore-facebookprivacy_03-768x539.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/imore-facebookprivacy_03-120x84.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/imore-facebookprivacy_03-80x56.png 80w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/imore-facebookprivacy_03.png 812w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
Increased data restrictions will unavoidably limit the methods brands and marketers can use to get information about customers, altering how we design marketing campaigns and activities.
These obstacles can only be overcome if brands focus on the consumer&#8217;s unique and personal traits and make attempts to develop a meaningful relationship with them.
In many respects, these difficulties will benefit the marketing profession by encouraging innovation and adaptability.
<h3 class="p1">Personalisation in marketing</h3>
Aside from using the tech giants&#8217; aggregated predictive models to provide us with more detailed targeting like before, brands will need to focus more on personalised marketing, which is already gaining traction and has become a popular topic of discussion with the introduction of relevant and supportive technologies such as data management platforms, geotargeting, and varied forms of targeted e-mails.
Many individuals now feel that it is an unavoidable baseline for the future of marketing strategy and brand performance in competitive marketplaces.
Because the likes of Google and Facebook&#8217;s &#8220;workarounds&#8221; for data loss (due to fewer opt-ins) will be widely available to all companies, it will be your tailored advertising capabilities based on your earned datasets that will set you apart.
<h3 class="p1">Adapt to technological advancements</h3>
Companies will need to adapt to relevant technology if customised marketing is to operate as predicted.
They will need to get acquainted with new and popular forms of social media, data-gathering platforms, and other technology that not all existing employees and enterprises are likely to be familiar with or able to purchase.
AI is bringing predictive personalisation techniques closer than any other tech trend. Things like <a href="https://blog.hunchads.com/dynamic-creative">Dynamic Creative Optimisation</a> are already helping to relegate tasks like split A/B testing to the past.
Many companies that can afford it have already implemented machine learning, big data, and AI to automate customisation.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="480" height="480" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13572" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/giphy.gif" alt="Data Gathering" />
<h3 class="p1">Current business models are being restructured</h3>
Adopting a new marketing strategy customised to the most relevant technology needs budget, time and resources.
To successfully adopt customised marketing, companies will need to organise their planning and communication a lot better.
Some businesses will have to recognise that their present processes and marketing strategies will have to alter dramatically and often.
They will have to reassess how consumer data and information are distributed within the company and potentially beyond that.
Individuals&#8217; geographic locations, potential customers&#8217; prior purchases, and so on will be flooded into company databases, and there may be restraints in how that information is obtained, distributed internally and publicly, and used to improve revenues.
<h3 class="p1">Legal ramifications</h3>
Privacy is always a concern, and in certain places, it is more so than in others, so businesses must overcome any legal obstacles before implementing tailored marketing. In particular, the EU has established GDPR, and you’ll all have heard of that by now. 
GDPR limits the types of data that brands may gather on their customers and provides a means for them to sue companies for violating their privacy. In the United States, California followed suit and enacted the CCPA in 2018.
Now let&#8217;s discuss some of the first measures marketers and businesses must take in order to discover, contact and convert customers in the age of data security.
<h3 class="p1">Get to know your consumers better</h3>
We&#8217;ve all heard that the cookie is on its way out for quite some time. They have lost their charm as customers become more suspicious and privacy regulations become more stringent.
Consumers, in my opinion, have been far too ready to accept that cookies are evil, and yet here we are.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="480" height="384" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13574" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/giphy-3.gif" alt="Bad Cookies" />
However, this is beneficial in some respects since it will make some brands less lazy.
Many brands have traditionally depended extensively on background data collecting, which has produced some useful outcomes. With evolving data rules, we will need to get to know our consumers in new and deeper ways. This will have a huge impact on the marketing industry.
Brands and marketers must look beyond conventional third-party data, such as broad demographics or the amount of time visitors spend on a website, to understand their consumers&#8217; unique interests and objectives.
The next generation of marketing will be based on an intentional brand-to-consumer connection in which cooperation &#8211; most likely in the form of data sharing and incentives &#8211; will generate purchasing power.
Consumers want to have relationships with the brands they like, yet many businesses do not prioritise developing this sort of loyalty. Brands may build better consumer connections and loyalty if they strategise and accept these shifts in data privacy.
<h3 class="p1">Restore consumer power via customisation</h3>
Customers demand privacy from companies and advertising, but they also want goods and services that are tailored to their specific requirements. Because of this paradox, as well as new privacy regulations, marketers must understand their clients beyond their clicking and scrolling behaviours.
According to <a href="https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/pdf-77/accenture-pulse-survey.pdf">Accenture research</a>, 91% of consumers prefer to buy items from businesses that provide some level of personalisation. Marketers will find it more difficult to reach customers without third-party data than ever before, yet most consumers will still demand the same level of personalised suggestions, discounts, or promotions.
Personalisation is the answer. They will eventually have more power over which marketing activities they see or don&#8217;t see based on how they interact with a company as personalisation increases.
Brands will have to look for new ways to understand their customers, such as first-party or zero-party data collecting. These approaches will provide more focused insights than any third-party data source, but they will necessitate more effort on the side of brands.
<h3 class="p1">Make clever use of data and technology</h3>
Brands can solve data privacy issues if they use data wisely. They must utilise tools to understand and contact their customers as consumer data gets more difficult to access and marketing technology grows more expensive to use.
They will require technology that spans many channels, collects data in real-time, improves the user experience, and generates reliable data reports. More precise data (collected by first- or zero-party techniques) will necessitate a more sophisticated analysis.
Personalisation will be the bedrock of intelligent data utilisation. Segmentation will give way to direct engagement with the consumer, whether through an AI-powered platform or even things like simple quizzes, competitions or surveys.
Interactive material not only encourages increased involvement but also increases the user&#8217;s enjoyment. At the very least, it enhances the amount of time visitors spend engaging with you, which improves your shareability/linkability and possibly even your rankings.
People mostly want to be involved, therefore good interactive content nearly always enhances your user experience.
This move for interactive content will be part of a larger trend toward personalisation anyway; by allowing consumers to respond for themselves or have their opinions heard, they feel a more personal connection to the business.
Don&#8217;t forget that it may also be used to collect data about user preferences, for example, to enhance products or websites.
<h3 class="p1">Segmentation of customers</h3>
The concept is simple: rather than a limited number of major marketing efforts aimed at broad audiences, it is often preferable to have a large number of small marketing initiatives aimed at specialised consumers.
Customer segmentation is categorising your target customer based on specific characteristics or behaviours, such as demographics or purchasing patterns.
This allows you to more precisely tailor your material to their interests, such as having two separate email lists for large spenders and small spenders and sending various newsletters to each with different items.
You may segment your consumers anyway you choose, but the most frequent divisions are demographic, psychographic, geographic, behavioural, and customer journey.
This technique is excellent for customisation and consumer engagement because your followers will receive material that has been hand-picked just for them.
Aside from email lists, consumer segmentation may be applied to customised advertisements on other sites, categories of blog posts, and social media content for numerous different interests and communities.
<h3 class="p1">Start planning now</h3>
So despite the disruption of nasty and annoying cookie consent notifications, consumers increasingly believe that their data is one of their most valuable assets in the contemporary world, and they want to know that it will be handled properly. That’s not going anywhere.
So this barrier needs to be overcome by using personalisation to satisfy their remaining need for tailored advertising &#8211; and brands must start planning now.
Think about your overall content strategy, your e-mail marketing tactics, newsletter audiences, previous purchasers, social media audiences and website users… segment them all to start planning conversations that they will enjoy.

It’s Time to Get Personal

Protecting Facebook Marketing Performance From a Cookie Free Future & Apple’s iOS14

Traditionally, list building was an e-mail marketing thing. It still is to an extent, but there’s so much more that you need to consider now.
Now you can use your customer lists to target subscribed (opted-in) users across multiple platforms including LinkedIn, Google Display Network, Google Search, Facebook and Instagram.
The term ‘list-building’ in itself even implies a list of email addresses that is, at best, sorted alphabetically.
A few years ago, it typically amounted to a ‘Sign Up For Our Newsletter’ field on a website, after which you may – nor may not – get some useful stuff.
Customer lists are a very powerful tool that is under-utilised. It&#8217;s like blindfolded archery &#8211; you don&#8217;t know what you&#8217;re missing! Many of you will know this, but there are VERY few brands doing this right.
We&#8217;ll get to that, but let&#8217;s first take a look at how to get started.
<h3>Target them later</h3>
I’m not concerned about signing up for newsletters and I’ll do so when I’m pretty sure that I might get something of value. Privacy is not usually a concern for me because I’m not &#8220;offended&#8221; when I&#8217;m targeted with relevant ads. Or an irrelevant one, for that matter.
I’m also comfortable enough to unsubscribe when the first e-mail I receive begins with ‘Dear [NAME]’, or if it&#8217;s just plain rubbish.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="525" height="408" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10925" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Screenshot-2020-07-08-at-09.55.03.png" alt="" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Screenshot-2020-07-08-at-09.55.03.png 525w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Screenshot-2020-07-08-at-09.55.03-250x194.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Screenshot-2020-07-08-at-09.55.03-120x93.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Screenshot-2020-07-08-at-09.55.03-80x62.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px" />
And given that I am happy to take personal responsibility for my own privacy, you can assume that I am not alone. Users are comfortable to sign up. So be good to them, and then you can target them later across multiple platforms with very specific advertising.
I have personally worked with clients who had up to a 5% conversion rate for newsletter signups, so 1 in 20 people were comfortable enough to do so. But beyond this, nothing was being done to segment and target those as they went about their everyday.
These are people who have explicitly said: “Yes, I want to hear more from you.” That&#8217;s the strongest audience that you can get. That’s something valuable for anyone to achieve and it’s also very powerful. Yes, many brands will e-mail them. But most are not nurturing that relationship by taking it out of their Inbox.
Typically, a good basic e-mail strategy will adhere to several simple things:
<ul>
<li>Give a taster of what to expect</li>
<li>Give clear reasons for them to sign up</li>
<li>Be clear about what they will receive</li>
<li>Compose a beautiful personalised welcome e-mail</li>
<li>Do not surprise them by pushing products or services unless expected</li>
<li>Give them some <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/where-has-all-the-good-content-gone/">interesting, original content</a></li>
<li>Always be honest and sincere in all your communications, and you will always make a good impression with customers.</li>
</ul>
What&#8217;s usually missing is that once they have signed up, you will want to segment them based on the information you have about them. There’s e-mail marketing software for doing this but there’s nothing to prevent SMEs from doing this manually and in a way that is GDPR-compliant. And then you can target them with relevant advertising.
You will have a location, gender and any other information that you have asked for at signup, and you should also have their website behaviours. So if you want to show ads on Facebook to female prospects aged 25-35 in Dublin who are interested in buying necklaces but haven&#8217;t done so yet &#8211; you can do it.
It’s important to note here that having a tickbox next to your signup does not make you <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/gdpr-consent-knowledge-is-no-longer-power-it-is-risk/">GDPR compliant</a>. Only good business practices can do that. A tickbox does not get you out of jail for free.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="600" height="400" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10926" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/56_say_gdpr_one_more_time_v2.jpg" alt="" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/56_say_gdpr_one_more_time_v2.jpg 600w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/56_say_gdpr_one_more_time_v2-250x167.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/56_say_gdpr_one_more_time_v2-120x80.jpg 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/56_say_gdpr_one_more_time_v2-80x53.jpg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />
That’s enough about e-mail marketing. Those are the basics, the requisites that you should absolutely be doing anyway. If you’re not, then give us a call before continuing on to the next part.
<h3>The next part</h3>
So now you’ve got your list of newsletter subscribers and online purchasers. You’ve got them segmented nicely. Let the fun begin.
Firstly, you can upload these lists to the Facebook/Instagram Ads platform. This will allow you to re-target them based on their interaction with your brand &#8211; recency of purchase, non-purchasers, etc. This can be a very powerful cross-selling tool.
Using these lists you can also create <a href="https://www.facebook.com/business/help/164749007013531?id=401668390442328">Lookalike Audiences</a>. Facebook will find users with similar interests and behaviours to those you have uploaded and you can then target them. For example, you can find people just like those who have recently purchased from you. We’ve done this. A lot. It works very well.
There are other ways in which this can be useful. If you have properly segmented your customer lists then you can also use these to exclude those that you do not wish to target. This can prove to be useful when you know what category of products a user is interested in, so you do not want to show it to those who are not.
LinkedIn has also improved this functionality within their platform. In this case, you can upload your contacts list – in the B2B space, this is commonly a prospects list – and specifically, target them with ads.
Using LinkedIn, you can also upload a list of company names. Which means that you can target every company in your sector while you exclude everyone in your own from seeing those ads.
We are currently using these tactics on LinkedIn for a global client and maintaining a very healthy 7% conversion rate.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="480" height="342" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10928" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/giphy-1.gif" alt="" />
<h3>Great opportunities</h3>
On Google’s platforms, you can have control over which audiences see your ads across YouTube, Gmail, Google Search, and the Google Display Network through remarketing campaigns – and this includes the e-mail lists that you upload. This presents some great opportunities, including:
<ul>
<li>The ability to bid higher and be front and centre for prospects who have been in touch but did not convert yet.</li>
<li>You can exclude current customers from all targeting if you wish.</li>
<li>Promote your new app to current customers.</li>
<li>Only pay for brand clicks from new customers (note: this one is great)</li>
</ul>
Using these techniques. You can, in short, better tailor your Google campaigns to target more qualified and valuable users who are already aware of you &#8211; and get them over the line.
Your mind may be coming full circle here back to GDPR and privacy because I&#8217;ve covered a lot about targeting individuals. Well, that might be because that’s a topic that has been often misinterpreted.
As I mentioned earlier, your business needs to be GDPR compliant (there, I said it again), not just your website. And furthermore, these platforms use encryption on the information that you upload. In Google’s case, they use something called SHA-256. (designed by the NSA, no less), and your customer is matched using the encrypted data, not the uploaded email or phone number.
To be clear, you can do everything I’ve just talked about and be compliant. So there’s nothing stopping you.
<h3>So, what now?</h3>
Have a clear and enticing call-out on your website for users to subscribe.
Give them reasons to.
Now what you need to do is think about your content and your promotions calendar. Think about lining up 6-12 months of activity so that you can give users a reason to stay engaged.
The next step is simple…
Get in touch with Friday Agency and let us show you <a href="https://friday.ie/expertise/">what we can do</a>.

You Might be Ignoring your Most Powerful Marketing Tool…

Adapting Your Business to a Pandemic

Covid-19 Coronavirus Business Supports for Irish SMEs

COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Business Support for Irish SMEs

The art of effective persuasion in humans is a fairly rare quality. Those who possess it often have a natural balance of charisma, charm and authority. This generation has been brought up to question everything so effective persuasion is getting more and more challenging with time.
Fortunately innate powers of persuasion are not required for effective marketing or UX design, just a little bit of psychology. Persuasive design uses communication and design methods to influence human behaviour and increase motivation. When combined with good usability this can maximise potential conversions in a very powerful way.
All the way back in 1984 when Tina Turner was asking us ‘What’s love got to do with it?’ and Freddy Kruger was freaking us all out in the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie, Dr Robert Cialdini wrote a booked called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. This is widely hailed as seminal book on conversion optimisation in marketing. In the book, Cialdini outlined the 6 Principles of Influence that are more relevant today than they were 36 years ago. Let’s run through them briefly.
1. Liking
Most of the time we like people who like us — we react positively to genuine praise, rapport and common ground. A good brand that is honest, respectful, seeks empathy and is well presented will form relationships with its customers and have more perceived credibility.
2. Scarcity
We all understand FOMO or fear of missing out, this can be a powerful motivator. Research has found that loss language is far more effective than highlighting potential gains. This could be in the form of a time limited offer or limited product availability.
<div id="attachment_10550" style="width: 786px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10550" class="wp-image-10550 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1dFJz5tQ6JzDcKkXnUoCoTw.png" alt="" width="776" height="866" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1dFJz5tQ6JzDcKkXnUoCoTw.png 776w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1dFJz5tQ6JzDcKkXnUoCoTw-250x279.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1dFJz5tQ6JzDcKkXnUoCoTw-700x781.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1dFJz5tQ6JzDcKkXnUoCoTw-768x857.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1dFJz5tQ6JzDcKkXnUoCoTw-120x134.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1dFJz5tQ6JzDcKkXnUoCoTw-72x80.png 72w" sizes="(max-width: 776px) 100vw, 776px" />Limited time online offer creating scarcity</div>
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3. Reciprocity
This one is the simple principle of giving what you want to receive. There are many ways to have reciprocity work for you. Small acts of kindness will be remembered, be it treating others with respect, going the extra mile and doing a good deed can all win you points with other individuals.
As an organisation you could enhance the customer experience by giving customers a discount, gift, free shipping, being environmentally aware or not having limiting return policies.
<div id="attachment_10549" style="width: 1420px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10549" class="wp-image-10549 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1oA6fDZ_ovju3Sbs8tBY5bQ.png" alt="" width="1410" height="734" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1oA6fDZ_ovju3Sbs8tBY5bQ.png 1410w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1oA6fDZ_ovju3Sbs8tBY5bQ-250x130.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1oA6fDZ_ovju3Sbs8tBY5bQ-700x364.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1oA6fDZ_ovju3Sbs8tBY5bQ-768x400.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1oA6fDZ_ovju3Sbs8tBY5bQ-120x62.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1oA6fDZ_ovju3Sbs8tBY5bQ-80x42.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1410px) 100vw, 1410px" />Reciprocity is demonstrated for those who are environmentally aware.</div>
4. Social Proof / Consensus
We are usually open to things that have been tried and tested by those we trust — friends, family, media or the influencers that we respect. One of the most powerful persuasive techniques online comes in the form of social influence…because it works.
<div id="attachment_10548" style="width: 1344px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10548" class="wp-image-10548 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1HRp4-NNkXmcPOez0ze3Leg.png" alt="" width="1334" height="1174" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1HRp4-NNkXmcPOez0ze3Leg.png 1334w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1HRp4-NNkXmcPOez0ze3Leg-250x220.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1HRp4-NNkXmcPOez0ze3Leg-700x616.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1HRp4-NNkXmcPOez0ze3Leg-768x676.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1HRp4-NNkXmcPOez0ze3Leg-120x106.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1HRp4-NNkXmcPOez0ze3Leg-80x70.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1334px) 100vw, 1334px" />Independent reviews provide social proof.</div>
5. Consistency
Customer loyalty is hugely important, if a customer has made a commitment to consistently do something with you there is a good chance they will stick to it as they will need to make a counter decision to stop doing it. Look at a service like Spotify, users signup and in a lot of cases unless they have a very good reason and make the effort they are unlikely to cancel the contract.
6. Authority
When it comes to convincing someone about something it’s important to establish yourself as an expert or reference someone who is when making a statement. You can see this in a lot of online marketing with headlines that include phrases like “research shows”, “experts say”, or “scientifically proven”.
After all, these 6 principles have been developed by Dr Robert Cialdini, the Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University!
Let’s not forget about ethics, Cialdini is clear that these principles should come from a place of good, with influence being authentic, genuine, and leading others to making positive decisions, not only for themselves, but for everyone else. Use these principles the right way and reap the rewards.

How to be Persuasive: The 6 Principles of Influence

I’m Dave, the UX director at the Friday Agency. Sitting beside me is Gavin and Martin, good guys and both very experienced digital marketing professionals. Naturally, we work very closely together and like to have the occasional laugh at the expense of each other! They provide me with a wealth of statistical information around user behaviour. I like to think I provide them with more attitudinal research-based user insights. This brings up all kinds of great discussions around usability. While we interpret data differently from our own perspectives, we all have the same goal in mind — to gain user empathy through research and not assumptions.
<h4 class="graf graf--h4">Office banter</h4>
A good discussion started last week about the use of title case vs sentence case in both digital marketing and UX design. Before I go into how I think the lads are wrong let me explain a couple of things.
Title case means that the first letter of each word is capitalised, except for certain small words such as articles and short prepositions. With sentence case, only the first word and proper nouns have initial capitals, the Queens English so to speak!
Title case: 
Gavin and Martin Think They are Right, Dave has Other Ideas.
Sentence case: 
Gavin and Martin think they are right, Dave has other ideas.
Spending a lot of time working in Google Ads, Gavin and Martin need to write attention-grabbing headlines in 30 characters or less. Research has found that using title case for Google Ads is more effective for getting users attention, fair enough. The issue I have is that the lads seem to apply the same logic to almost all titles, subtitles, headings and sub-headings, lists and bullet points. This willy nilly approach upsets me, its all over the place — no rules, no control — it&#8217;s literary anarchy!
There is no doubt that title case works well online for headings, it gives a visual hierarchy to different text elements and helps guide the reader. You don’t want users starting with a sub-heading. My feeling is that title case works when there is less than 10–12 words, after that it just gets messy and hard to read. To my horror Gavin suggested that sub-titles should also be in title case, this is where I draw the line. There is no way the sub-text legibility in the Google Ad below benefits from being in title case… no way, sorry Gav!
&nbsp;
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="750" height="143" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9342" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1gKbN40Wahe3K0qkQJo0ZmA.png" alt="" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1gKbN40Wahe3K0qkQJo0ZmA.png 750w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1gKbN40Wahe3K0qkQJo0ZmA-250x48.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1gKbN40Wahe3K0qkQJo0ZmA-700x133.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1gKbN40Wahe3K0qkQJo0ZmA-120x23.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1gKbN40Wahe3K0qkQJo0ZmA-80x15.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />
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<h4 class="graf graf--h4">A/B testing</h4>
So, being the research nerds that we are, we decided to do some A/B testing around this. We created 2 almost identical Google Ads for our UX services. The only difference was that the sub-title was title case in one and sentence case in the other. We wanted to see which ad had the highest click-thru rate.
<div id="attachment_9340" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-9340" class="wp-image-9340 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1jYvY4FzLSVSihw5qZN0MtA.png" alt="" width="600" height="78" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1jYvY4FzLSVSihw5qZN0MtA.png 600w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1jYvY4FzLSVSihw5qZN0MtA-250x33.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1jYvY4FzLSVSihw5qZN0MtA-120x16.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1jYvY4FzLSVSihw5qZN0MtA-80x10.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Sub-title in title case</div>
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_9340" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-9340" class="wp-image-9340 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1jYvY4FzLSVSihw5qZN0MtA.png" alt="" width="600" height="78" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1jYvY4FzLSVSihw5qZN0MtA.png 600w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1jYvY4FzLSVSihw5qZN0MtA-250x33.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1jYvY4FzLSVSihw5qZN0MtA-120x16.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1jYvY4FzLSVSihw5qZN0MtA-80x10.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Sub-title in sentence case</div>
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To our surprise, there was only a 0.5% difference in performance between the two ads in favour of title case, marginal and inconclusive for most but huge for the likes of Amazon. This may hint that title case will grab slightly more attention but doesn’t offer us any insights into legibility. To be fair to Gav and Martin, we do it not because everyone else does — but because it gets higher click-through-rates and therefore more revenue for our clients!
This got me thinking about what the ‘rules’ are around this for marketing or UX. I did a bit of reading on the subject and it seems there are no rules. It’s highly subjective. There is a general consensus that titles do get more attention in title case but the jury is out on whether longer titles or sub-titles in title case are easier to read. Studies have found the difference in reading efficiency between title and sentence case is actually quite minimal. My views might be based on aesthetics, it looks choppy and for me it is harder to read but you may not agree.
<h4 class="graf graf--h4">Laying down the law</h4>
The hypothesis that I offer is that title case has a high level of prominence but the legibility suffers as a result, you’d never read a full book in title case, would you? The use case depends on what you want to achieve, do you want attention or have easy to read text.
I found a great example below. These are different notification popups on iOS and Android screens. As you can see on the left Apple have a policy of title case on titles while Google uses sentence case throughout. While they are different messages, you can’t tell me the iOS message is easier to read, can you?
<figure class="graf graf--figure"></figure>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="735" height="604" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9339" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1JK5LEHfHgufxivS9AMmD0w.png" alt="" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1JK5LEHfHgufxivS9AMmD0w.png 735w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1JK5LEHfHgufxivS9AMmD0w-250x205.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1JK5LEHfHgufxivS9AMmD0w-700x575.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1JK5LEHfHgufxivS9AMmD0w-120x99.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1JK5LEHfHgufxivS9AMmD0w-80x66.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 735px) 100vw, 735px" />
While there are plenty of well-established rules for how to use title case, there are few rules about when to use it. Everything seems to be subjective and based on assumption. It’s the wild west out there! Somebody needs to take charge and make decisions.
I am going to do what no UX designer should ever do, I’m going to make the rules based on my own opinions and assumptions. From this day forward I will be known as the self-appointed Sheriff of sentence capitalisation.
<h4 class="graf graf--h4">Sheriff Dave’s 4 Golden Rules for Sentence Capitalisation</h4>
<ol class="postList">
<li class="graf graf--li">Only use in main titles</li>
<li class="graf graf--li">Only use in titles shorter than 12 words</li>
<li class="graf graf--li">Never use in sub-titles, lists, bullets or anything that is not a main title (see point 1)</li>
<li class="graf graf--li">Digital marketers may not be the best guide on the appropriate use of title case</li>
</ol>
Take it or leave it.
What do you think? Am I the Sheriff or are Gavin and Martin entitled to put a bounty on my head?
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="400" height="308" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9347" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/giphy.gif" alt="" />

Making the Case for Using Title Case or sentence case in UX Design and Digital Marketing

<h3>Consent, Compliance &amp; the GDPR. What&#8217;s going on?</h3>
With the GDPR&#8217;s arrival, there was still plenty of confusion out there about marketing consent and handling customer data.
And with the recent scandals at Facebook and Independent Newspapers, businesses and marketers are freaked that they&#8217;ll have their pants pulled down for non-compliance. Or worse, a hefty fine.
I met with MB Donnelly, Head of GDPR Awareness &amp; Training with the Data Protection Commissioner (Ireland) to help get clarity, and give some of our own guidance around consent.
<h3>Confused.com?</h3>
At Friday there is one question we were being asked all the time: &#8220;What&#8217;s going on &#8211; are we compliant with GDPR?&#8221;
That was usually followed by &#8220;Can you help us get compliant?&#8221; and finally; &#8220;I hear we&#8217;ll need to get opt-in consent for all of our mailing lists.&#8221;
So there&#8217;s plenty of confusion. And with some experts directing marketers to seek consent or throw up crazy opt-in pop-ups, that confusion is natural and understandable.
<blockquote>
&#8220;If you&#8217;re not following existing regulation you are breaking the law now, so you don&#8217;t need to wait until May 25th to panic.&#8221;
</blockquote>
The GDPR is not just about consent, granted, but consent and how to handle it is the area where we see the most misinformation.
In short, what GDPR relates to is a set of rules for organisations on how they collect, use and store personal data. Organisations must now be fully transparent about how they are using and safeguarding personal data and must demonstrate accountability for their data processing activities, particularly for marketing communications.
Assuming that you are doing the above correctly at the moment, you only need to move from compliance with the 1988 and 2003 Data Protection (Ireland) acts, to GDPR compliance by updating your Privacy and Data Retention policies.
If not, you are already breaking the law now, and you don&#8217;t need to wait until May 25th to panic.
<h3>Some Clarity on GDPR</h3>
I met with MB Donnelly, the Head of GDPR Awareness &amp; Training at the Data Protection Commissioner Office in Ireland.
We&#8217;ve delivered a number of marketing and engagement campaigns for the Commissioner&#8217;s office over the past couple of years, particularly aimed at driving awareness on the GDPR in Ireland for individuals, and we knew she could help bring some clarity.
What&#8217;s the most popular question that you&#8217;re asked in relation to the GDPR and consent?
The question I am most asked is &#8220;Does the GDPR really apply to me?&#8221; The simple answer is that it does, for every business.
Personal data, and in particular &#8216;special category&#8217; &#8211; i.e. race, gender, medical records, sexual orientation &#8211; require special obligations. And if you rely on consent, you need to be very careful that you have the correct obligations.
If there is one simple piece of advice you would give businesses on GDPR, what would that be?
Knowing your data. People need to know their own data and understand where it is stored and what it is used for.
Knowledge is not power, it&#8217;s actually a risk. Review your data, know what you keep and why, and be able to show proof of how you came to hold it. There is a handy downloadable checklist on the <a href="http://gdprandyou.ie/resources/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GDPRandYou.ie</a> website.
When people hear words like &#8216;risk&#8217; and the penalties that can be imposed for non-compliance they take notice. But do you think that the GDPR initiative will ultimately have the impact it is designed for?
Absolutely I do. There are risks and penalties for non-compliance of course, but organisations should actually see the GDPR as a genuine opportunity.
We are living in a generation of digital (and now privacy) natives. Generally, today’s consumers are more informed about the risks of digital life and, where that trust has been hurt, we see a knock-on effect in terms of falling customer numbers.
So it is in every business&#8217;s interest to demonstrate that they care about their customers&#8217; information and how it&#8217;s used.
Trust the thing that you&#8217;re building. And it&#8217;s those who are pushing the trust and demonstrating that they take consent and privacy seriously that will ultimately stand out.
&nbsp;
<iframe loading="lazy" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mCpUS-wpxAk" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
A video we produced as part of our GDPR Awareness Campaign.
<h3>Audit your Data</h3>
A big part of the drama is that many marketers don&#8217;t have the information needed to make a call on the correct (and compliant) reasons for having and processing customer data.
Getting to that point might take a bit of work, but the process is pretty straightforward &#8211; you need to perform an audit.
Doing a data audit:
<ul>
<li>What personally identifiable information do you hold, and what is it used for?</li>
<li>Do you keep that information longer than is necessary?</li>
<li>Do you hold more information than is necessary?</li>
<li>Can you demonstrate that the user asked or expects that it will be used in the way that you are using it?</li>
</ul>
At least you will know why you are making the decision, which will help you in updating your privacy notices and consent statements. Whatever basis you choose at this point will need to be applied to your current data as well as new data added to your database.
Legitimate Interest 
In the case of legitimate interest, you will need to communicate to your current customers that you have new privacy and data retention policies and give them the opportunity to object to marketing. These should be included on your website and also highlighted on your news or social media channels.
You will need to record what you sent, to whom and when. You should only use data that you have permission to market to, this is a marketing communication, not a service one, so choose the right channel to reflect the permissions you have.
<h3>Getting Consent</h3>
If you know that you cannot demonstrate that all or some of your existing customers have given consent, then you will need to get them to opt in. That will mean advising them of the reasons you&#8217;re using their personal information so that they can then be fully informed before they opt in.
You can use a layered approach, where the communication content (e.g. email), or the website landing page they&#8217;re sent to includes the full detail of the marketing comms. Then direct them to your Privacy and Data Retention pages which should set out your comprehensive policy details.
It&#8217;s important to make sure that people are given enough information to help them to make an informed decision on what they are signing up for, and what marketing comms they&#8217;re likely to receive from you.
You do need to record who opted in, and what they were informed of at the time they opted in, and include a form of verification (e.g. double opt-in) so that you have an audit trail.
<h3>SO</h3>
You need to decide which way suits you best. If consent is the right way for your organisation, it should be because your use of information presents a risk to the rights of the individual.
You don&#8217;t need to put your business or your customers through unnecessary hassle if you don&#8217;t need to. But do an audit, get informed and take the opportunity to show that you take data privacy and consent seriously.
For more concrete detail on the GDPR, have a look at <a href="http://gdprandyou.ie" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GDPRandYou.ie</a> which has a lot of helpful information and resources.
Graham is the Head of Strategy and a Co-Founder at Friday Agency. 
If you want to check out more of his posts go <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/author/graham/">here</a>.
&nbsp;

GDPR & Consent: Knowledge is no longer power, it is Risk.

Display advertising has come a very long way since it was seen as the online equivalent of a print ad. But not everybody has moved with the times.
In the past few years, I’ve seen many display advertising plans for my clients, and they’re not cheap.
Your brand will be on some very popular and respected websites. That&#8217;s great.
It looks good for your brand to be there. It looks great internally that you’ve secured these placements. Your brand, product or campaign will be out there with one million eyeballs on it.
It&#8217;s sort of like this, except you&#8217;re on a great website:<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5390" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/billboard-advertisement-1.jpg" alt="" width="494" height="363" />
Everyone knows about you. Job done.
But&#8230;
Then it doesn’t convert.
And you don’t get a report that’s in any way useful or insightful.
So what happened?
The plan was lazy. In fact, it wasn&#8217;t a plan. It was just an outline of who you&#8217;re going to spend your money with and how many times your ad will be shown.
Your agency did what was promised. They managed to “deliver 1 million impressions to all online readership at the lowest CPM possible.” And to be fair, perhaps you hadn&#8217;t asked for more than that.
There was no strategy.
<h2 class="graf graf--h3">Your money has been spent poorly</h2>
When your campaign didn&#8217;t have the desired impact, your response might have been “But who were these readers and what’s a low CPM? Wait, you never even asked me exactly who we were trying to reach!”
But it’s all hindsight. Your money has been spent, and spent poorly.
To put this in perspective, let’s remind ourselves of some facts. Click-through rates for display advertising are relatively low. Most users don’t think they are relevant. Display ads are more ignored than TV, radio and newspaper ads. Many users don’t trust display ads.
So to put it simply, you need: engaging creative, audience relevance, impact, and trust.
<h2 class="graf graf--h3">Knowing your audiences</h2>
A good display advertising plan is not enough, you need a strong display advertising strategy. It&#8217;s about knowing your audiences; where they are, what they are doing, what they’re interested in, at what stage of the cycle they are in, what life events are affecting them, and much more. Through knowing this, you can create relevancy.
By looking at your own business and customer base, you can create profiles. And research helps too.
Then, by knowing who you are targeting you can produce creative that’s engaging. You can show creative that speaks to them.
You will now also know where their playground is. If it’s Facebook, Twitter… then video may be a good choice because short, succinct, relevant and engaging video can be very powerful if targeted to the right people. And on Facebook and Twitter, it’s not hard to find the right people.
Segmenting your audiences is not a far cry from psychographic segmentation, as used for election campaigns.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5399" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/pyschographic-segmentation.png" alt="" width="698" height="400" />
When you do find the right people, you will need to know your Goals. What, exactly, do you want users to do when they get to your website? It may sound simple, but tracking even the smallest of engagements can be beneficial.
<h2 class="graf graf--h3">Be better equipped to ask the right questions</h2>
Know your website. Is it fit for purpose? Where will they first land, and is the journey to conversion up to scratch? This is hopefully a conversation that you’ve had well before you’ve even considered paying for display advertising.
If you want broad impact, like placements on a major newspaper website for example, then that serves its purpose. But you need to be better equipped to ask the right questions before agreeing your budget, and even your campaign dates:
<ul>
<li class="p1">Who is most likely to be on that website on those dates?</li>
<li class="p1">Within the ABC1 18+ audience, have they done further research into how engaged they are by site section, how more likely they are to be engaged by advertising by site section, therefore affording you more value?</li>
<li class="p1">Is there anything happening offline that may drive more visitors to that website on those dates, so that you might expect extra visibility and value for your investment?</li>
</ul>
<h2 class="graf graf--h3">&#8220;Won&#8217;t that just annoy people?&#8221;</h2>
I’d hate to not give retargeting a mention here. It’s a very powerful support to any campaign.
If you’re spending this money and sending users to your website, then you should be increasing the size of your retargeting audiences and lists with relevant people.
Retargeting is often referred to in negative ways. For example “Oh, it’s those ads that follow me around…” or “Won’t that just annoy people..?”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5392" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/retargeting-ads.png" alt="" width="550" height="395" />
But if done right and creatively, this is still a highly effective technique that can provide ancillary revenue, particularly if your creative is consistent with your campaign.
It’s not just a matter of placing a tag on your website and following people around with ads. I’ll admit that if done that way, it could be just plain annoying. There’s a strategy needed here.
Firstly, segment your audiences by how they have interacted with your website, either throughout the year or while in campaign.
<ul class="ul1">
<li class="li1">If someone has only viewed the home page, then serve them ads displaying a rotation of the different products or services that you offer.</li>
<li class="li1">If someone has viewed a specific service or product, then remarket them with ads specific to that.</li>
<li class="li1">If they’ve added a particular product to their cart then show them this product &#8211; and if you can fulfill it, you could even offer a discount on that product if they return to purchase.</li>
</ul>
All of this depends on one core thing &#8211; you need to know when a user has converted. Without this, you’re serving them ads for a service they’ve already engaged with you for.
And very importantly, you may be serving them an ad offering a discount on a product that they’ve already bought!
<h2 class="graf graf--h3">Remarketing and cross-selling go hand-in-hand</h2>
But the journey doesn’t end when someone has purchased.
So, you’re Carphone Warehouse. Consider someone who has purchased the latest mobile phone from you &#8211; perhaps they may also consider complementary add-ons such as wireless charging pads, a cube speaker, headphones… or even broadband. Remarketing and cross-selling go hand-in-hand.
Even at that, your journey is still not over. If you can tie this into a user’s account data and their upgrade eligibility, then you may be able to eventually sell them a new mobile phone.
Another common myth is that you can only retarget users who have clicked on your Google AdWords ads. Not true &#8211; you can remarket anyone who has visited your website.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-5384 size-large" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/retargeting-1024x697.png" alt="" width="1024" height="697" />
Lastly, remember your custom audiences. Create a matrix of those users who have visited one page or site section but NOT another.
For example in the B2B space, you may have website visitors who have read all about what you do, they may have even looked at your pricing. These are keen potential customers. So the next time you have a Webinar, use retargeting to let them know about it!
See? We told you it’s come a long way. So, the next time you see a display advertising plan, read this again. You may notice a few gaps.
<a href="https://friday.ie/contact/">Get in touch</a> if you’d like to see how we can help create an engaging campaign for you.

We Need to Talk About Strategic Display Advertising

We are delighted to have picked up an award at the 2017 IIA Net Visionary Awards for Best use of Video in Digital Marketing.
The award went to the &#8216;Know your Rights&#8217; video and campaign we created for the Data Protection Commissioner.
<h3>The Campaign</h3>
The campaign was launched to create awareness amongst individuals and businesses in Ireland around rights in relation to electronic marketing messages and the opt-in / opt-out system.
The campaign was a huge success, with our video reaching 350k watches in the first 4 weeks of it&#8217;s release.
A big thanks in particular go to Robin and Mary who put a lot of work into the production of the video. Watch below.
<iframe loading="lazy" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CMsfK-G6AFM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Friday is has been working closely with the Data Protection office on a number of new digital marketing campaigns, including the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (<a href="http://gdprandyou.ie/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GDPR</a>) which will come into force across Europe in May 2018.
The GDPR is the most important change in data privacy regulation in 20 years and brings significant changes for B2C marketing.

Friday lands award for Best use of Video in Digital Marketing

It&#8217;s well proven that remarketing can help achieve better ROI. In this post I talk about how you can improve your ROI using Facebook Lookalike Audiences.
Your customers or subscribers are the best audiences you can target because they’ve already shown some interest in your products, your brand, your website, your sales process, delivery and everything else. 
It is easier, safer and cheaper to target them over finding new customers.
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.wheelhouseadvisors.net/5-reasons-why-customer-retention-is-better-than-customer-acquisition/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The probability of converting an existing customer is 60-70%</a> compared to 5-20% for a new prospect.
</blockquote>
That said Facebook offers something even better by giving you both &#8211; it essentially takes your existing clients and audiences and finds new ones with similar traits and demographics. 
<h2 class="p1" style="text-align: center;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-2781 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Facebook-lookalike-audiences.png" alt="Facebook Lookalike Audience &amp; email lists" width="767" height="267" /></h2>
<h3 class="p1" style="text-align: left;">How it works</h3>
If you have an email database, and we are sure you all have at least one or two, what you can do is upload that list into the Facebook and create a custom audience from that list. 
But here&#8217;s where things become interesting: you can take that custom audience and turn it into the lookalike audience. 
What that means is that Facebook will connect your emails with real Facebook profiles and take their interests, demographics, age and other parameters to find new people similar to them. 
And as we all know, Facebook has a lot of data about each one of us and it&#8217;s not hard for Facebook to find people with similar interests. 
You can determine how far are you willing to go when it comes to the similarity. Facebook allows you to choose a sliding scale of similarity from 1% to 10% when building Lookalike audiences. 
However, have in mind that the broader you set your bar the broader results you will get. 
It all depends on your type of business, but we would recommend somewhere between 1-5% to get an accurate result. Everything above 5% will be too broad. Again it depends on your business type and your advertising objective.
Now when your Facebook Lookalike Audience has been created you can start serving your ads to the people who are more likely to engage with them and convert.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-2791 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/my-advertising-budget.png" alt="my-advertising-budget" width="1228" height="560" />
The possibilities are endless. You can set up several different audiences depending on your customers buying cycle/product, interests/countries etc… if you are selling different products you can have different lists for different types of products and so on.
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Conclusion</h3>
As marketers, we are interested in reaching the right kind of customers, people who are more likely to engage with our ads or convert. What Facebook offers is exactly that. 
From reaching the right kind of users to re-engaging existing customers Facebook&#8217;s advertising services help us stay in front of current and prospective customers while they browse their favourite social network. 
If you need help with Facebook marketing or Social Strategy, <a href="https://friday.ie/contact/">get in touch</a>.

Improving ROI with Facebook Lookalike Audiences

We&#8217;ve done some thinking at Friday, and have come up with our thoughts and predictions for Digital Marketing trends in 2017.
Some trends have stayed popular, however, there are a couple of new ones, and as a digital marketer I am excited to see where we are going and where we could be in 5 years time.
<h3>AMP</h3>
I wrote about the introduction of <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/what-is-amp-and-how-to-get-started/">AMP pages</a> last year. Accelerated mobile pages are mobile pages (websites) that load instantly on your phone. You can sometimes see them as a carousel in Google’s results.
What’s happening is that the content behind the headlines is loading in the background before you read it, and when you open an article it loads up to 85% faster than normal old school websites.
We predict that AMP pages will see a big spike in uptake in 2017 &#8211; stay tuned for more info.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2544" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Google-AMP-v2-1.jpg" alt="AMP Pages" width="767" height="246" />
<h3>Social Recruitment</h3>
We have found a growing trend in organisations using social channels as a key tool in their recruitment process. It is a powerful way to connect with potential employees and recruit them.
Unsurprisingly, <a href="http://www.linkedin.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LinkedIn</a> is number one for obvious reasons but, <a href="http://www.facebook.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook</a> is fast becoming a popular platform to drive recruitment.
Audiences can be reached more accurately and closely than any other platform. You can target by demographics, location, age, interests, education, etc.
Here are some stats:
· 86% of people in the first 10 years of their career are likely to use social media in the job search 
· 14.4 million job seekers have used social networks to find a job. 
· 59% of recruiters rated candidates sourced from social networks as “highest quality” 
· 94% of recruiters are active on LinkedIn, but only 36% of candidates are. Job seekers, by a wide margin, prefer Facebook; with 83% reporting they are active there, compared to just 65% of recruiters. 
· 79% of job seekers are likely to use social media in their job search.
Find more stats <a href="http://www.wepow.com/top-10-recruiting-stats-you-should-know-in-2016/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.
&nbsp;
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2643" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/1-uCIFmcfeRMHimNM58BjG2Q.jpeg" alt="2017 Digital Marketing Trends" width="800" height="580" />
<h3></h3>
<h3>Mobile wallets</h3>
No more wallets, no more bank cards &#8211; pay with your phone.
Install <a href="https://www.android.com/intl/en_ie/pay/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android Pay</a> or <a href="http://www.apple.com/apple-pay/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple Pay</a> or any <a href="http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/digital-wallets/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">other mobile wallet option</a>, and you’re sorted. However, if you lose your phone, well… that could be a problem!
Other parts of Europe are still waiting for this step to be completed, however in Ireland we are ready. Mobile payments here we come.
<blockquote>· The number of mobile shoppers in UK will reach an estimate of 40.1 million-nearly 89% of the digital shoppers. 
 · Retail mobile sale (m-commerce) will leap to £25.74 billion ($39.34 billion)</blockquote>
Make sure your business is set up to accept mobile payments for your goods and services by having NFC enabled terminals/card readers.
<h3>Quality Content</h3>
<a href="https://friday.ie/blog/content-marketing-and-page-quality/">Content, content, content</a>! It’s long past time when people were writing content for search engines.
You should always think of your users. Have a <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/mixing-a-great-content-marketing-strategy/">Content Strategy</a> &#8211; be relevant, be informative, be educational. Try answering “who”, “what”, “when” and “how” questions, and search engines will reward you.
However, if you’re still doing the same thing you were 5 years ago; writing content for search engines, keyword stuffing and link building campaigns without any strategy… be prepared for a dramatic drop in ranking or manual actions.
There will always be new algorithm updates as Google will continue to perfect their search engine, and with that we have to continue perfecting our <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/seo-so-you-want-to-be-number-1/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SEO skills</a>.
Always have people in mind when it comes to content or <a href="https://friday.ie/expertise/digital-marketing/search-engine-optimisation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SEO</a> and the rest will follow.
One more search and content change that will be hugely popular in 2017 is voice search. This was initially started as a help for the blind, but as always with Google it developed into something greater, they managed to perfect something that was never meant to be so popular. Thank you Google :)
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2644" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/1-_gdNaejNLJJtIOBAHk5xwA.jpeg" alt="SEO" width="800" height="572" />
<h3>JSON Schema</h3>
You won&#8217;t need to remember this but JSON stands for “JavaScript Object Notation.”
In simple terms, JSON helps showcase parts of your website you&#8217;d like to highlight in search results &#8211; phone numbers, social networks, recipes, reviews, product listings, executives, founders and more.
As I mentioned in our <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/what-is-amp-and-how-to-get-started/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">AMP Pages post</a>, Google is doing everything it can to keep you on their network &#8211; the aim is to provide you with all of the useful info you’re searching for, without having to leave the Google platform.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-2645" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/JSON-Schema.png" alt="JSON 2017 Digital Marketing Trends" width="686" height="1085" />
<h3>Conversion Rate Optimisation</h3>
Conversion rate optimisation is nothing new &#8211; it&#8217;s the method of using analytics and user feedback to improve the performance of your website through testing and iteration.
The end goal is always a conversion, the action you care about the most such as leads, downloading e-book or a good old sale.
If SEO is all about getting traffic to your website, CRO is what converts that traffic into the leads/customers.
CRO as an essential part of the eCommerce process will be more popular in 2017.
There are some powerful CRO tools out there for you to use such as <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Optimizely</a>, <a href="http://unbounce.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Unbounce</a>, or even the free <a href="https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1745152?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Analytics Content Experiment</a>.
<h5>You can find more <a href="https://klientboost.com/cro/cro-tools/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CRO tools here</a>.</h5>
<h3>UX led design</h3>
UX design is the process of designing products (websites, apps or softwares) that are useful, easy to use, and delightful to interact with.
It’s all about how a user feels when interfacing with a system.
Lately we are seeing more and more companies <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/design-led-companies-winning/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">embracing UX</a> in their journey, and it will only continue to grow. B2B and B2C companies finally realised that having just a website is not enough anymore. It needs to be user friendly.
As a UX agency we couldn’t be happier about that. If you’re ready to take your business to the next level <a href="https://friday.ie/contact/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">drop us a line</a> and we’ll do the rest! If you need some inspiration check out our blog on <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/5-e-commerce-design-trends-2016/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UX trends.</a>
<h3>Live Video Streaming</h3>
Both YouTube and Facebook introduced 360-degrees videos, and we have live videos on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
Video has shown to be the best way to reach your customers, as it is creative and entertaining. It builds trust, you can explain everything in few seconds, and not to mention that Google LOVES videos.
I have something to get you even more excited: <a href="https://www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics-2016.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">76% of business say that video provides good ROI.</a>
Are you using video in your marketing efforts?
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Video Kiosk: Video Marketing in 2017 - Video Marketing for Businesses 101" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5ZU3vxGkKw4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<h3>Wearable technology &amp; The IoT</h3>
Wearable technologies are slowly taking their turn. It’s all about accessories as a girl might say. ;)
We witnessed the development of smart <a href="http://www.apple.com/ie/watch/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple Watches</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Glass</a>, <a href="http://www.loreal.com/media/press-releases/2017/jan/kerastase-and-withings-unveil-worlds-first-smart-hairbrush-at-ces-2017" target="_blank" rel="noopener">L’Oréal smart hairbrushes</a> and there is much more to come.
I would like to see a wearable technology that can teleport me to work on Monday morning. Soon hopefully.
Check out the video below.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Innovative Start-ups focused on IoT and Wearable Technologies" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ssGzEmcLA7g?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<h3>Snapchat for marketing</h3>
Snapchat is my favourite! I don’t want to be bias, but this is the platform I couldn’t live without.
There are so many opportunities for marketers yet to be found on <a href="https://www.snapchat.com/en-GB" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Snapchat.</a> Geo-targeting, filters and instant communication with their audience are just some of them.
In the future Snapchat could create different branded filters, like the existing filters for cities that show where are you, soon we could see someone posting his/her picture with the Coca-Cola logo to show they were in the Coca-Cola factory.
There are endless possibilities with Snapchat, you just need to be creative and find them.
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So in summary, there are some old trends that are growing in importance and popularity and some interesting new technologies that we expect to see more update in.
If you need help with your digital marketing, let us know, we’re always ready for a new challenge at Friday.

2017 Digital Marketing Trends

Getting your organisation&#8217;s tone of voice and personality across online is vital to achieving that personal and friendly experience.
A customer&#8217;s first impression of a business most often comes through their website or social media channels.
Creating your organisation&#8217;s tone of voice starts with your target audiences. Once you understand your customer or market you will maximise your sales proposition.
Who are you selling to or trying to appeal to? Why should they come to you for your service or buy your product? What do you do better than the other guys, your competition?
I&#8217;ve taken a look at a selection of brands and businesses that have mastered their tone of voice online and connect with their audiences on a personal level and in a consistent way.
<h3>AYR</h3>
<a href="https://www.ayr.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Ayr</a> are a women’s fashion brand who have established a fun and conversational personality online with their cool, informal language.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2609" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/1-KfL3Ne0VK3NrHZAtIc2aKA.jpeg" alt="Brand personality online" width="1400" height="791" />
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AYR’s cool, laid back tone of voice carries through onto their social media. They communicate with their followers using a casual writing style, which adds personality and value to what they&#8217;re selling.
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<h2 class="graf graf--p graf-after--h2" style="text-align: center;">DOG STUDIO</h2>
<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="http://www.dogstudio.be/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" data-href="https://medium.com/r/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dogstudio.be%2F">Dog Studio</a> aren’t shy when it comes to conveying their mission statement and messages online! The Belgium based digital agency has adopted an off-the-cuff tone of voice that feels like you are talking to a friend. They don’t take themselves too seriously with the odd expletive thrown in for shock value.
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Their ‘ballsy’ lighthearted personality goes further in their ‘Join the team’ section where they communicate with the user in a very down to earth manner:
<blockquote>
We already crave you crazy motherf*****&#8230;
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Their contact page features a series of ‘drop us a line’ messages that appear as if someone is typing them to you as you watch. Staying true to their personality they feature some hilarious and tongue in cheek lines.
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Interestingly, they don’t carry this tone of voice into their social media posts where they have the most interactions with followers.
<h2 class="graf graf--p graf-after--h2" style="text-align: center;">PADDY POWER</h2>
<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="http://www.paddypower.com/bet" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" data-href="https://medium.com/r/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.paddypower.com%2Fbet">Paddy Power</a>, the Irish bookmaker’s have set themselves apart from the rest of the crowd with their distinctly laddish, cheeky and witty personality and tone of voice. This success is down to the company knowing exactly who its target audience is, young men.
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They keep their punters entertained with topical, ballsy, and controversial content to keep them engaged and coming back for more. Paddy Power’s global marketing director, Christian Woolfenden was quoted saying
<blockquote>
“…if we don’t get complaints we’re quite disappointed.”
</blockquote>
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True to form, their social media is just as controversial and provoking. This tweet below in response to journalist and TV personality Piers Morgan.
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So, who are you?
Whatever type of brand or business you have, the important thing is that it has its own personality that is recognisable and memorable so that people respond to it. Once you’ve established your brand’s tone of voice, keep it consistent from your website through to your social media and even your emails, they should all follow the same tone.
Does your website need a makeover or an injection of brand personality? <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://friday.ie/contact/">Give us a shout</a>, we’d love to help.
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Brand Personality Online

The IIA Net Visionary Awards celebrate what is most effective in digital technology &#8211; showcasing work that has transformed brands and organisations in Ireland.
Friday are delighted to have won in all 3 of our nominated categories at this year&#8217;s highly entertaining awards show in the RDS.
We picked up awards for Best Website for our work on the <a href="http://www.stpatrickscathedral.ie">St Patrick&#8217;s Cathedral</a> website, Best Social Media for the satirical General Election &#8216;Tinder&#8217; app, <a href="http://www.tder.ie">TDer.ie</a> and Best eCommerce for our work on the new user experience for <a href="http://www.iclothing.com">iClothing.com</a>.
<blockquote>&#8220;We&#8217;re delighted to get recognition in the 3 categories, and especially against the calibre of other nominees.&#8221; said David Jackson, Director of User Experience. &#8220;We have to say particular thanks to the teams at St Patrick&#8217;s Cathedral and iClothing for trusting Friday to deliver the vision&#8221;.</blockquote>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-2372 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/IMG_9760-e1476102588498.jpg" alt="IIA Net Visionary Awards Winners 2016" width="1276" height="1116" />
IIA CEO Joan Mulvihill was worthy winner of the Net Visionary of the Year 2016. We congratulate Joan and wish her the best of luck as she steps down from 7 great years at the organisation.
Friday&#8217;s winners on the night were:
<ul>
<li>Best Website &#8211; &#8220;Most joyous to look at and splendid to use&#8221; for <a href="http://www.stpatrickscathedral.ie" target="_blank" rel="noopener">St Patrick&#8217;s Cathedral</a>.</li>
<li>Best Social Media Campaign &#8211; for General Election satirical online campaign &#8216;<a href="http://www.tder.ie" target="_blank" rel="noopener">TDer</a>&#8216;.</li>
<li>Best eCommerce Execution by a Retailer &#8211; for <a href="http://www.iclothing.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iClothing.com</a>.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>Graham Carroll, Client Services Director at Friday added: &#8220;Part of our manifesto at Friday is to change the fortunes of the organisations we work with. It&#8217;s brilliant when our work is recognised &#8211; proving the effectiveness of user experience and creativity is really important to us and our clients success.&#8221;</blockquote>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2376" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/FullSizeRender-1.jpg" alt="IIA Net Visionary Awards Winners Friday Agency" width="640" height="640" />
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
The <a href="https://twitter.com/bonkers_ie">@bonkers_ie</a> Best eCommerce <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DotieNetVis?src=hash">#DotieNetVis</a> award goes to <a href="https://twitter.com/iclothing">@iclothing</a> ! <a href="https://t.co/YScz1bNFo1">pic.twitter.com/YScz1bNFo1</a>
— Irish Internet Assoc (@iia) <a href="https://twitter.com/iia/status/784499785189494784">October 7, 2016</a>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Congratulations to <a href="https://twitter.com/FridayAgency">@FridayAgency</a> winner of Best Website Design for <a href="https://t.co/JxIk9GxXD5">https://t.co/JxIk9GxXD5</a> at the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DotieNetVissponsored?src=hash">#DotieNetVissponsored</a> by <a href="https://twitter.com/blacknight">@blacknight</a>
— IE Domain Registry (@IEDR_dot_ie) <a href="https://twitter.com/IEDR_dot_ie/status/784497099740151808">October 7, 2016</a>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
The <a href="https://twitter.com/blacknight">@blacknight</a> Best Website Design goes to <a href="https://twitter.com/FridayAgency">@FridayAgency</a> at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DotieNetVis?src=hash">#DotieNetVis</a> ! well done guys ! <a href="https://t.co/pKHXXd1W6f">pic.twitter.com/pKHXXd1W6f</a>
— Irish Internet Assoc (@iia) <a href="https://twitter.com/iia/status/784497128680857600">October 7, 2016</a>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Friday score hat-trick at the IIA Net Visionary Awards

I’ve written before about our capabilities in <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/doubleclick-qa-certification/">display advertising</a> (and sung my own praises in that respect), so I thought it was high time I put my money where my mouth is and showed you some examples of what we can do with your campaigns online.
I use many tools here to create display ads, the chosen one is dictated by the particular campaign. The Media Agency will often request formats to be built for certain platforms, i.e. Double-click, Sizmek, Celtra etc., which in turn will reflect the chosen tool. For standard banners, we have more freedom to choose how we build the ad, and we’ll choose the best tool based on the creative.
There are a range of HTML5 authoring tools available and they all have their pros and cons. Here, I’ll go through some of the tools that we commonly use. If you have an ad-blocker enabled, you won&#8217;t be able to see the examples below, so please disable any ad blockers temporarily to see what we can do!
<h3 class="graf--h3" style="text-align: left;">1. Adobe Edge Animate CC</h3>
In 2011, Adobe announced the release of Edge Animate CC as a new authoring tool for HTML5 content that would replace Flash as it’s online animation tool. They’ve since taken a U-turn, and as of November 2015, Edge is no longer actively developed, in favour of Animate CC, (the new name for Flash). I’m still holding onto this app though. Why? It’s simple and clean.
The biggest advantage for me is the handling of images. Images are much more easily replaced and compressed in Adobe Edge than in Animate CC.
For banners with relatively simple animation, this is where I head to. Adobe Edge banners can be configured to work for Standard Banners and Double-click Rich Media display ads. Loading external libraries is simple, so added levels of complexity in animation and functionality can be achieved.
<iframe loading="lazy" style="width: 300px; height: 250px; margin: 40px auto; display: block;" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/sample_banners/edge/edge_300x250.html" width="300" height="250" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<h3 class="graf--h3" style="text-align: left;">2. Adobe Animate CC</h3>
Animate CC — The snazzy new name for Flash. Flash has had the ability to export animations as HTML canvas packages for a while now, and Adobe are now really pushing Animate as an ad authoring tool for HTML5. Designers who are familiar with creating Flash banners can now also create HTML5 banners in almost exactly the same way as before.
Animate CC will generate a HTML file where your clickTag or Rich Media code can be inserted. Personally, I’ve set up Animate Templates, (I’ve done the same for Edge), so that I can quickly set up a banner and crack on. As anyone who works in Digital Advertising knows, time is one of the biggest enemies in production, so even small time-saving tips like this are a big help in the long run.
I’m turning to Animate CC more and more these days, particularly for jobs that require complex masking, which Edge can’t manage easily, or for a big suite of display ads that contain common vector elements, as making updates across a large suite is quicker in Animate than in Edge.
See an example here of a Homepage Takeover (HPTO) for RTE, built in Adobe Animate CC for the Double-click platform: <a href="https://www.google.com/doubleclick/studio/externalpreview/#/tNcuoCWcTZ67dpopbxyBhQ">Click here to view the sample HPTO</a>.
<h3 class="graf--h3" style="text-align: left;">3. Google Web Designer</h3>
GWD is Googles free HTML authoring tool. It’s free and is highly integrated with Double-click and DCM. In-built templates allow you to quickly set up standard and rich media display ads quickly, be they for desktop or mobile.
It’s not perfect though, the animation capabilities are quite basic, and you can’t copy/paste elements or animations between documents, In the words of Joni Mitchell: “something you don’t know you’ve got till it’s gone”. This particular restraint is frustrating when you’re creating a suite of banners from the same creative.
Being a Google Product though, you do get to take advantage of some nifty in-built components, such as image carousels, and Street View. See example below where you can swipe through a gallery, or view the studio on Street View.
My main issues with GWD is the interface. It’s clunky and can be a little buggy. It’s not as intuitive as the higher quality equivalents from Adobe, but then again it’s free, compared to the monthly charge of €50 +VAT for the Adobe Creative suite license you need to access Edge and Animate CC. However, although GWD has some nice in-built features, as a professional ad authoring tool, it’s just not there (yet).
<iframe loading="lazy" style="width: 300px; height: 250px;" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/sample_banners/gwd/gwd_300x250/index.html" width="300" height="250" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<h2 class="graf--h3" style="text-align: left;">4. Celtra Ad Builder</h2>
I have a lot of love for Celtra &#8211; and not just because they sent me a box of chocolates last Christmas. I believe advertisers aren’t utilising this ad creation platform enough or to it&#8217;s fullest extent, particularly for mobile display ads. Their AdCreator interface is great and easy to learn for beginners.
Support is impeccable also, and they’re always willing to help when we need to push the AdCreator outside of bounds for bespoke campaigns. Creative agency accounts are free to boot. What&#8217;s not to love?
<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="http://maddog-ie.celtra.com/preview/5fc7b65d#deviceType=Phone&amp;rp.foldPosition=above" data-href="http://maddog-ie.celtra.com/preview/5fc7b65d#deviceType=Phone&amp;rp.foldPosition=above">Here’s a quick example using the “Wipeable” component.</a>
Interestingly, Celtra have had this wipeable functionality available for a while now, while Double-click offers it in Beta mode, making it available only to Studio Certified developers.
Celtra makes insertion of image galleries, puzzles, store locators, maps, etc. a breeze, and is well worth considering for your next display ad campaign.
<h2 class="graf--h3" style="text-align: left;">5. Sizmek Ad Builder</h2>
Sizmek has been in the game for as long as I can remember, and they have a lot to offer. While I feel that the interface could be streamlined, and the UI needs to be looked at for the platform, support is excellent, and they offer a wide range of formats to develop on.
Their HTML5 ad builder is good, and documentation is thorough. Here’s a quick Rich Expandable banner I created using their ad builder utilising the video and tweet components: <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="http://platform.mediamind.com/Eyeblaster.Preview.Web/Default.aspx?previewID=j6bipb2GYFT4RknDhGyh0N4KIgyR4zz99DhHwKgvr4RXtts7wvb20g%3D%3D&amp;AdID=37604216&amp;lang=en-US" data-href="http://platform.mediamind.com/Eyeblaster.Preview.Web/Default.aspx?previewID=j6bipb2GYFT4RknDhGyh0N4KIgyR4zz99DhHwKgvr4RXtts7wvb20g%3D%3D&amp;AdID=37604216&amp;lang=en-US">Click here to view the demo</a>.
I&#8217;ve just become Sizmek Certified in Creative Basic, which covers the basics of HTMl5 banners, rich media, video advertising (VPAID and VAST) and setting up audience profiles and retargeting campaigns. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2222" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/sizmek_cert.jpg" alt="sizmek_cert" width="469" height="305" />
This is by no means a comprehensive list of authoring tools for HTML5 banners, or even a list of the only ones we use, but rather the ones that we use most frequently. I have no doubt this list will change and evolve over the next year or two as the industry changes and adapts to better incorporate HTML5 and mobile display adverts. By this time next year it&#8217;s very possible that we will have moved on to a completely different set of software for display ad production.
If you have an upcoming display advertising campaign that you&#8217;d like to discuss, please do <a href="https://friday.ie/contact/">get in touch</a>.

Display Advertising and Creative Tools

7 Digital Marketing Trends for 2016

Make your digital advertising work harder for you.
I’ve touched on the possibilities of using dynamic data within digital advertising in previous posts, but today I want to go into more depth on the subject.
The power of dynamic advertising is immense, and something I feel isn’t being utilised to it’s fullest extent in the current Irish market.
Dynamic advertising essentially means you tailor the content of your advertising to suit a specific set of criteria, so with just 1 creative you can display a wide range of content targeted to a user based on their browsing history, location, time of day and much more. You can tailor text content, images, clickthrough URL’s and more to change based on your chosen criteria.
The level of detail you can drill down to is almost limitless. You can also incorporate live feeds into your creatives, so they can pull live data from your website, or from a spreadsheet so that you can update content on the fly, avoiding the process of building and trafficking a new creative.
Whilst the build and set-up costs of a dynamic creative will be higher than a standard creative, if utilised correctly the value that they will return will more than out-weigh the equivalent cost of creating several standard creatives.
Today we’ll focus on the types of dynamic advertising possible on the Google network, by far the most popular platform for advertising with our clients at present.
There are various types of dynamic tools that can be used alone, or in conjunction to create highly targeted ads to boost interactions.
<ol class="postList">
<li class="graf--li">Remarketing</li>
<li class="graf--li">Managed content (Basic Dynamic)</li>
<li class="graf--li">Feed Content (Advanced Dynamic)</li>
</ol>
<h3 class="graf--h3">Remarketing</h3>
I’m sure we’re all familiar with remarketing ads at this point, you know the ones that seem to follow you around wherever you go online? Remarketing is a type of dynamic ad whereby after a user browses a product or page on your site, they are shown ads related to that product or service after they navigate away from your site.
I recently was browsing online for a dress for a friends wedding, and I’m still being plagued by ads in my Google and Facebook timelines, even though the dress is now hanging in my wardrobe.
Remarketing is great for ensuring that your ads are displayed to people who are most likely to follow through with an interaction or purchase and can be a very powerful way of reaching customers.
<h3 class="graf--h3">Managed Content</h3>
This is the most basic solution for advertisers who want to update the content of a banner on the fly. Say you have a standard animated banner with text, an image, and a call to action.
Using a Double-click basic dynamic feed set-up, our client can update this content on the fly, changing the content in a live banner to suit a current campaign. Content can be managed by the client, removing the time and costs involved for us or the media company to create and traffic a new creative.
The update-able fields allowed here are images, whole number, and text. You can have up to 25 dynamic fields per creative.
Although that might sound limiting, we’ve created some highly customisable banners based on these available fields for clients, e.g. inputting numbers in a dynamic field to set the visibility or order of frames, setting that size and position, colours, and even automatically hiding content on particular days of the week.
Basic dynamic creatives are a great way for small companies to get maximum value from a digital advertising campaign. 1 suite of banners can be updated limitlessly and can be visually updated to look like completely different banners if set up with future-proofing in mind.
<h3 class="graf--h3">Feed Content</h3>
Using Double-clicks advanced dynamic advertising capabilities in your digital advertising is where things really start to take off.
Basic dynamic creatives can be updated by a client, but the same content is shown to every view of the ad. Advanced dynamic takes this several steps further in that viewers of the same creative can be shown completely different content based on a tailored set of criteria, and is best used in conjunction with remarketing data, outlined above.
The criteria that can be customised to tailor content in a Double-click rich media ad is:
<ul class="postList">
<li class="graf--li">Geotargeting by multiple geographic locations (e.g. city, state, zip code)</li>
<li class="graf--li">Scheduling with start and end dates</li>
<li class="graf--li">Targeting by DCM attributes (e.g. placement ID, ad ID)</li>
<li class="graf--li">Passing first- or third-party data (e.g. audience segments) from publishers/data service providers (DSPs) on impression</li>
<li class="graf--li">Remarketing using Floodlight tags</li>
<li class="graf--li">Rotating creative iterations in optimised, random, or weighted ratios</li>
<li class="graf--li">Combine multiple strategies listed above</li>
</ul>
Setting up your criteria is not as difficult as you might imagine. Google offers Google Docs integration, so that you can set up your creative feed, and update it on the fly via a spreadsheet.
Double-click offer a set of <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://drive.google.com/templates?q=New+Dynamic+Creative&amp;sort=hottest&amp;view=public&amp;pli=1#" data-href="https://drive.google.com/templates?q=New+Dynamic+Creative&amp;sort=hottest&amp;view=public&amp;pli=1#">feed templates</a>, browsing through these will give you a great insight into the possibilities here.
There really is no limit to the depth you can go into with targeting your audience. Whilst this is very exciting from a digital marketing perspective and might have some marketing managers chomping at the bit (please do <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://friday.ie/contact/" data-href="https://www.api.friday.ie/contact">get in touch</a> if so!), it’s worth noting that it can be counter-productive to get too intimate with your customers.
The table below shows by percentage, how comfortable US users are with seeing personalised data being used in advertising.
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<div class="aspect-ratio-fill"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-1718 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/dynamic_infographic.gif" alt="Dynamic Digital Advertising - Infographic" width="672" height="991" /></div>
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</figure>
The possibilities of dynamic digital advertising are only going to get more advanced from here, so it’s worth taking a second look at how you view your digital advertising campaigns.
With some careful planning and by looking towards the future, you really can get so much more out of your campaigns than you might think.
We’ve recently officially received out Google Partner status, to add to my status as a DoubleClick certified developer*, so you can rest assured that we have the expertise here at Friday to help you leverage Google ad technology to make the most of your digital advertising.
Please feel free to leave a comment below if there’s any aspect of the process that you’d like to see discussed in more detail in a future post. To kick-start your next dynamic campaign, and see how we can leverage the technology to suit your business, head on over to the <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://friday.ie/contact/" data-href="https://www.api.friday.ie/contact">Contact page</a> and drop us a line.
*To read more about our Google Partnership status, and out DoubleClick certification, head over to Gavin’s post <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://friday.ie/blog/certified-google-partner-dublin/" data-href="https://www.api.friday.ie/?p=1698">here</a>.

What is Dynamic Digital Advertising?

Friday Agency are proud to announce that we&#8217;re now a certified <a href="https://www.google.com/partners/?hl=en-US#a_profile;idtf=8905841539;" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Partner.</a>
What does this mean and why should I care? A Certified Partner is an agency that has met Google&#8217;s requirements to be considered “trusted online experts”.
We went through Google&#8217;s rigorous qualifying process, involving employee exams and best practice quality measures. The idea behind the Google Partnership program is to build a network of trusted companies that possess exceptional expertise with Google products and services.
Friday is certified in a number of areas: Google AdWords, Google Analytics and Video Advertising which represent the core of Google&#8217;s offering.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-1746 size-full aligncenter" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GoogleCertification.gif" alt="GoogleCertification" width="528" height="107" />
<pre class="graf--p"></pre>
We are also certified in a range of rich media display and digital advertising disciplines that include features like video, animation, audio, and technology that encourages content interaction, data capture and engagement.
Specifically we have certifications in DoubleClick Studio, HTML5, QA, Dynamic Creative, YouTube Masthead and Google Web Design.
The benefit of the QA certification means that we are trusted to carry out our own QA within DoubleClick thus speeding up the publishing process.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-1700 aligncenter" style="clear: both; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Screen-Shot-2016-01-25-at-12.18.59.png" alt="DoubleClick certified agency in Dublin" width="507" height="90" />
<figure class="graf--figure">
<div class="aspectRatioPlaceholder is-locked"></div>
</figure>
<h3 class="graf--h3">Why be a Google Partner?</h3>
So we have all these badges, how does this affect our clients? Well it demonstrates our expertise in using Google&#8217;s products such as AdWords, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics and DoubleClick.
These products are essential tools for successful digital marketing campaigns and having this expertise provides peace of mind to clients. Specifically you know that the agency is:
<ol class="postList">
<li class="graf--li">Book Smart — Passing the exams requires in depth knowledge of the latest industry best practices as well as keeping on top of the latest technology and services available. You can trust that the agency knows exactly what tools and strategies are right for each project.</li>
<li class="graf--li">Street Smart — Google examines the past performance of an agencies account before granting partner status. This means that a partner has a proven track record of running successful campaigns for their clients.</li>
<li class="graf--li">Google Access — Agency’s maintain a direct relationship with Google and have access to the latest training and product update info. This means that the agency can provide clients with industry specific data that is ahead of the curve.</li>
</ol>
If you would like to discuss how an AdWords or Rich Media campaign (or anything else!) could help your business please <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://friday.ie/contact/" data-href="https://www.api.friday.ie/contact/">get in touch.</a>

Friday is a Certified Google Partner

Now that Chrome’s long talked about auto-pausing of Flash ads has begun, (since September 1st), we really are noticing clients taking HTML5 more seriously than ever. Due to our expertise in HTML5 banner ads, we’ve been very busy over the last couple of months on some high end HTML5 campaigns. From a full HTML5 takeover experience, to a single suite of 160 rich media banners I’ve personally begun to talk about banners in my sleep!
Display advertising is always fast-paced with tight deadlines, but with the volume of banners we’re delivering to our clients at the moment, I needed to start thinking about how I could improve the process, and critically for our clients, speed up the process.
One thing that has always been a bit if an unknown is the DoubleClick QA process. DoubleClick provide a Quality Analysis (QA) service for rich media banners which we’ve happily been using for years. All rich media banners run through Google’s DoubleClick platform need to go through a stringent QA process by a QA certified authority. The drawback of this is that you must allow 24-48 hours for the QA process to be completed, and if for any reason the banners fail QA or a change is made after they have gone through, the QA process will need to be restarted.
Needless to say this can sometimes cause a delay of days, which just doesn’t fly in cases where we’ve been given very short turn around times. With Flash banners, the QA process was more straightforward, in that Flash is a self contained entity and isn’t affected by different browsers and browser versions as HTML5 is. So QA for a HTML5 banner will take much longer than for an equivalent Flash creative.
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And so we come to <a href="http://www.richmediagallery.com/tools/certified-users#certifiedUser:5227">my latest DoubleClick certification badge</a>, the QA Certification Badge. This simply means that we are now in a position to QA our own banners. We of course follow the same strict QA processes that DoubleClick do, but we can manage the process ourselves if requested, and can save hours if not days in getting a creative from design to the media agency. A bonus for everybody.
The advantages really came into play recently when a client requested a small text change to a suite of banners, and we were able to make the change and push through QA within a couple of hours as opposed to a couple of days if we were relying on third party QA.
We pride ourselves on the quality and speed of our display advertising delivery, and with this new certification, we’re taking that offering to a whole new level. Please feel free to <a href="https://friday.ie/contact/">get in touch</a> if you’d like to see how we can deliver your display advertising more effectively than ever.
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Doubleclick QA certification

Today I am happy to announce that I&#8217;ve added the HTML5 badge to my list of certifications from DoubleClick. DoubleClick Studio Certification is awarded to creative agencies that prove their expertise in building ad formats for the DoubleClick platform, and today I&#8217;ve officially added HTML5 to the list of my certification badges.
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">So what does this mean for you?</h3>
We&#8217;ve noticed that the demand for HTML5 banners is growing rapidly as we move towards more mobile orientated online activity, to the point where over the last year the percentage of HTML5 banners we&#8217;ve been producing has grown from 10% to over 50%. We&#8217;re fully committed to growing our expertise in HTML5 to match our expertise in Flash display advertising.
We have been building HTML5 banners for the DoubleClick ad serving platform for a while now. Adding the HTML5 badge to our Studio certification simply means that you can be assured that we have the expertise to build high quality rich media ads in Studio that function as intended when displayed by the DoubleClick ad server.
We are also experts in the Celtra platform, which we love, but we know that for some media agencies and publishing sites that Doubleclick is the preferred platform.
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">What can we do</h3>
We can create HTML5 banners that you can be assured will display across desktop and mobile seamlessly. We can create in-page, Interstitial, or expanding creatives for in-app advertising, providing a customised full-screen ad experience to your target audience. From video production and editing, to custom javascript coding for games, we have all the skills needed to create feature rich, interactive banner ads. We can use dynamic data such as screen orientation, location, time of day, and even weather data to customise your ad on a case by case basis.
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">How do we do it</h3>
For DoubleClick HTML5 banners, we use Googles own authoring software <a href="https://www.google.com/webdesigner/">Google Web Designer</a>. Fully integrated with DoubleClick Studio GWD lets you publish your ad directly to your Studio Account, and is the software recommended by DoubleClick for production.
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">What&#8217;s next?</h3>
Glad you asked. Next on our list is the QA certification badge. That will be a big one for us, as it will mean that we will be able to QA our own creatives for clients, without relying on DoubleClick&#8217;s QA process, (which can take more than 24 hours). Once we&#8217;ve updated our DoubleClick qualifications with this new badge we&#8217;ll be offering our clients the option of having us perform QA on all rich creatives, meaning a quicker turn-around and full control on the process from design to media agency. Watch this space!
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If you have a display advertising campaign coming up <a href="https://friday.ie/contact/">get in touch</a>, we&#8217;ll love to talk about how we can help you make the most of it.
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Doubleclick HTML5 certification

Congratulations to me! I’ve recently joined the ranks of the <a href="http://www.richmediagallery.com/certified">DoubleClick Studio certified</a>. Friday is now one of 6 Irish companies listed on DoubleClick’s list of certified partners, and I am one of 8 qualified developers to make the list. 
To date I’ve completed the Core Flash Studio Certification, Youtube Masthead Certification, (one of our most requested formats), and the Dynamic creative certification, (update your banners on the fly without re-trafficking them).
<a href="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/badges1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-494" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/badges1.jpg" alt="badges" width="690" height="195" /></a>
I’ve been creating banners in DoubleClick for over 4 years, and DoubleClick is in my opinion, the best platform for building Rich Flash Banner ads. We’ve worked with Ireland&#8217;s top advertising agencies to create rich interactive banner experiences for their clients. From in-banner games, to dynamic video content, to the newest advertising formats, we’ve done it all. 
To get an idea of the capabilities and advantages of building Rich media ads on the DoubleClick platform, check out <a title="Rich Media Gallery" href="http://www.richmediagallery.com/gallery/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the gallery</a>, where an ad that we built is featured. Unfortunately, because we worked in with an advertising agency on that particular project, I can’t tell you which one it is. ;)
Flash banners are still our most request digital ad format, but HTML5 is starting to catch up. As mobile advertising market increases we’re on board with it.
While Doubleclick supports HTML5 formats, I have to admit that <a href="http://www.celtra.com">Celtra</a> is my preferred platform for building HTML5 rich ads. They’ve really carved a niche for themselves in providing a quality platform for building rich ad experiences, providing ready built components and providing excellent support, so that we can focus on the design and functionality of the creative without having to code from scratch. A real life-saver when it comes to the digital advertising sector, where deadlines are tight, and updates need to be made quickly and on the fly.
As soon as they start giving out badges, I’ll be first in line to add them to my list.
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