Last Wednesday morning, bright and early, I made my way to Brighton SEO.
(the last time I went to Brighton was for a hen do, so I was hoping for a less crazy time with a less sore head the next day).
There were many talks with lots of free hot drinks in between. Of course, this was a digital marketing event & we creatives needed to blow off steam, so there were vintage video games, connect 4, air hockey and table fuBball (I strongly disagree with anyone who thinks madly spinning the handle is cheating; just play better!)
The talks varied from top tips, case studies and more general advice. There was a real focus on leveraging AI to help us digital advertisers whilst also being clear they won’t take our jobs any time soon(!) We also looked at new platforms and their effectiveness and the efficiency of Quora, Reddit and TikTok.
There seemed to be a real frustration in the conference room at the rising CPCs and ineffectiveness of the bigger platforms as we move into a cookie-less world. These bigger platforms are also being monitored more harshly, leaving us marketers with little to no choice on where we advertise. It seems that while the big players dominate the market, allowing them to charge higher CPCs, it is also what is hindering them as the public scrutinises them more harshly.
Sara Sal made a good point: should we be trusting a large part of brands' revenues to larger platforms when they can so easily (and often incorrectly) turn off ads that are worth peanuts to them to keep their name clear?
I think often, as marketers, we focus on the number of people viewing a platform or channel, but perhaps a better metric to measure would be to focus on time spent as well. People are flooded by ads these days (although estimates vary and the figure itself is hotly disputed), but it’s easier to make your mark if they see your ad for that little bit longer on a channel.
My favourite talk was by Vicki Jakes, ‘Achieving big results with small budgets: case studies from the world of the small spenders’, which made me rethink how digital agencies work going forward with some impressive statistics. I really like something that challenges what you currently know and gets you walking away thinking.
With 99% of businesses in the UK being SMEs and a rise in interest in advertising on different social media platforms, my advice to marketers and businesses would be to diversify your advertising portfolio and to make sure you have a well-rounded tool belt of skills so that you are not just focused on search or larger social media platforms. In hand with that is to make sure you have some design training or skills available to help out clients or your business when producing creatives so you’re more reactive.
