Figaro Digital Marketing Conference 2012

Posted in Conferences, News, Speaking Engagements on July 16th, 2012 by Steve

Last Thursday the Gravytrain team were in full force at the Figaro Digital Marketing Conference. With hundreds of digital marketers all converging on one place, this was one of the biggest conferences of the year and one not to be missed. We certainly enjoyed the day, whilst the after party drinks were an added bonus!

The conference was packed full with talks from a wide range of the industry’s professionals, both agency side and client side, while the conference also included the fabled Figaro21’s – this is where a series of speakers rattle through 21 slides, each of which last just 21 seconds. It’s an intense struggle against time and it makes for very entertaining, yet informative viewing! Billed as the session to make grown adults weep, we nominated our own Head of Search, Matthew Oxley, to kick off the 21’s.

Matthew’s talk detailed the rise of mobile and tablet and how device segmentation is now key for all paid search campaigns. Matthew outlined that by the end of 2013, it is predicted that mobile web usage will actually overtake desktop web usage. Mobile is seemingly dominating our lives more and more as we have a constant need for information and data.

The mobile phone has become such an integral part of our lives and with the addition of the tablet, searching while on the go has become even easier than ever before. So, it is little surprise that mobile web usage will soon surpass desktop web usage.

Furthermore, there were other notable presentations, such as Jack Lundie, from Save the Children, who acted out a conversation with himself. The slick nature of his delivery and creativity of his presentation made for compelling viewing!

Then there was Peter Wood from Steak who deserves a mention simply for his incredible jacket! It sparked quite a response on Twitter…He did give a fantastic presentation too about the merger of SEO and Social Media, what he called “SEOcial”.

With the digital marketing landscape constantly evolving and more digital marketers becoming savvy to the rise of mobile web usage, the overriding theme of this year’s Figaro Conference truly was device segmentation and the importance of it. “Ignore mobile at your peril” was one particular quote that stood out for me!

Matthew Oxley Talks to Fourth Source about Avoiding the Keyword Domain Gold Rush

Posted in Press on June 22nd, 2012 by Angelina

Earlier this week, Matthew talked to our friends over at Fourth Source about the recently published applications for the new round of gTLD (generic top level domains), which could indicate the start of a second “gold rush” for domain names with generic, commercial keywords in them.

He talks a bit about the history between gTLD’s and SEO, before explaining why he thinks buying domains for SEO isn’t a good idea. The main reason being because of the constant changes in search engine algorithms and how the signal for domain names is seen as less important compared to how they were in the past.

Matthew considers what happens with the new gTLDs once they are approved and go live as registrars –he’s still expecting a rush to buy those domains that are considered quite valuable. He believes that many companies will do an audit of new names, to see whether they need to compliment their new expensive top level domains with new second level domains and that others will buy out of fear whether it’s to protect their brand names or if they think they’ll get an SEO edge.

Matthew suggests that it is ultimately a pointless exercise as it’ll get harder, almost impossible to hold a bunch of second level domains for every possible gTLD.

You can read the full article on Fourth Source’s website.

Matthew Oxley speaking at the Figaro Digital Marketing Conference

Posted in Conferences, News, Speaking Engagements on June 20th, 2012 by Angelina

We are excited to announce that Matthew Oxley, Gravytrain’s Head of Search, will be speaking at the Figaro Digital Marketing Conference on the 12th July 2012. The day-long event will be hosted at the Royal College of Physicians, which is set to bring the latest insights and innovations from the whole digital marketing industry.

You can expect the presentations to cover mobile, email, social media, video, search and display, from some of the UK’s leading agencies, brands and technology companies.

Matthew’s talk is part of the Figaro 21s presentations – a fast and focused format of presentation. He will be talking about how to make the most out of device targeting options in paid search and will be explaining why it is crucial to any business.

Tickets are priced at £345 +VAT but we can offer you tickets at just £195 +VAT. To book a place at the conference please call Figaro Digital on 0207 870 3380 or email conferences@figarodigital.co.uk.

Please visit Figaro Digital for more information.

Let us know if you will be attending the conference! You can follow and tweet Matthew on Twitter @Moxley.

Matthew Oxley Talks to Fourth Source about Paid Search

Posted in News, PPC, Press on March 15th, 2012 by Nancy

This week Matthew Oxley, Gravytrain’s Head of Search, talked to Fourth Source about paid search and how its use has become a lot less simple over the years. When pay-per-click (PPC) began it was quite straightforward and campaigns revolved largely around keywords and Ad text.

Matthew then looks at paid search in 2012. There are much more possibilities such as the issue of distribution and getting the right level of visibility across different device types. AdWords in particular have contributed to the expansion of PPC and he comments that “If you are a company with 4 core services, you might have been used to a campaign for each service – but it’s now easy to see how those 4 campaigns could become a daunting 36”.

With such a multitude of options to consider, he then makes some recommendations on how to effectively manage paid search accounts. They include knowing your limits, understanding your priorities, deciding how to report and keeping the customer in mind.

You can read the full article on Fourth Source’s website.

Matthew Oxley Talks to Fourth Source

Posted in Press on February 23rd, 2012 by Nancy

Last week, Gravytrain’s Head of Search, Matthew Oxley, talked to Fourth Source about problems related with organic sitelinks and how a possible solution to this would be for Google to give webmasters some control over them.

Matthew explains that paid sitelinks is a great Ad extension from Google Adwords for advertisers as “they can cater for the potential needs of many different customer segments with a single ad”. The organic variant, on the other hand, remains rather limited as brands only have the option to avoid certain links as sitelinks.

He continues to talk about how if brands had more influence over these links, searchers could have access to more relevant information. That is, provided Google can trust webmasters won’t cause problems or introduce spam.

However, it is then identified that another reason for Google’s possible reluctance is the effect it would have on Adwords’ click through rates. He adds, “Appealing organic search results naturally draw the users’ attention away from Adwords ads, resulting in lower revenue for Google”.

With their marginal dip in market share last month, it is expected Google will work hard to remain a top search engine provider.

You can read the full article on Fourth Source’s website.

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