The UK eCommerce Awards are brought to you by Don’t Panic Events in partnership and powered by Space 48.
The UK eCommerce Awards 2021 are celebrating websites, software, campaigns and teams (agency or in-house).
Website Awards
Across all eCommerce Industry Sectors the judges will be examining the website for creativity, functionality, user experience and conversion.
Innovation/Software/Extension Awards
Innovation and technology are evolving eCommerce. Judges will be looking for new features/tools added to eCommerce experiences in the last twelve months.
Campaign/Initiative/Awards
Campaigns / initiatives are key to increasing engagement. Judges will be looking at the campaign’s objectives, strategy, creativity, implementation and the overall results achieved.
Agency/Team/Individual Awards
Power to the people! These awards recognise the teams and individuals behind websites and campaigns. Judges will be looking for evidence of great team-work: creativity, challenges faced and overcome, and results.
The UK eCommerce Awards are judged by an esteemed panel of industry experts, who work with us to develop categories and judging criteria. The process is a transparent and rigorous two-step process and judges provide feedback on all entries.
Entering and winning a UK eCommerce Award provides industry recognition and informed social proof, increases future business opportunities and is a celebration and appreciation of the people that make online retail happen
Everyone can create social media content. But not everyone can create successful social media content that flies far and wide and returns home with big wins.
At least, not without first making time to strategize a social media campaign for it.
Let’s take a look at the steps you need to take for a social media campaign that meets its goals and makes your clients—and your agency—happy.
1. Know the goal of your campaign
To create a winning social media campaign, however, you first need to define its purpose: A social media marketing campaign is a series of strategic actions designed to focus on one specific marketing goal.
That goal can vary greatly, but it usually is one of the following:
Encourage sign-ups (for a website, program, newsletter, trial subscription, etc.)
Increase brand awareness
Drive more traffic to a website
Get more customers to visit the client’s store
Bring in more sales
Don’t make assumptions about what your client wants to happen. Instead, take time to map out with your client a clear understanding of the goal to be reached.
Keep in mind that not all clients are particularly eloquent. Some may not know exactly how to phrase what they want or even know if there’s a common term for it. (We social media types can fall into the habit of talking in jargon if we’re not careful!)
You’ll have to ask the right sort of questions to determine what your client wants. You will also have to dig into the data. After all, how can you tell whether social media helped boost sign-ups if you don’t have the baseline number of sign-ups before the campaign?
Establish the metrics needed to determine whether this social media campaign is successful.
Ditch the lingo and be very clear in your definitions
Some clients will know exactly what they want. But even so, make sure that you understand each other clearly. If you use a term, know what that term means for the client.
For example, the client may use the term “engagement,” and you may think the client means online interactions with social media … only to find out the client just meant “likes.” (What you consider a vanity metric might not be a vanity metric to the client.)
SMART goals are those that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-constrained. Take time to review your established goal for the social media marketing campaign with your client before you do any brainstorming of content, scheduling, or anything.
After all, failure to plan, as the saying goes, is a plan for failure.
2. Do the research
Once you know the goal of your social media marketing plan, you need to know specifically who you want to reach.
Is it existing clients? Potential clients? Both? People at the top of the funnel, the middle of the funnel, or the bottom of the funnel? The whole funnel?
What to look up
Who your client’s audience is Does your client have established buyer personas that you can use? If not, create one, taking into account the audience’s age, location, education level, goals, challenges, and wants. Use Agorapulse’s audience reporting to determine demographics of your audience, for example.
The right channels for your client’s audience Your agency may love Instagram for engagement with your clients. But your audience isn’t necessarily your client’s audience. That group may prefer LinkedIn and Twitter, for example, and avoid Instagram.
Dig into the data to find out where your desired audience is … and meet them there.
What times are best for posting social media content Everyone wants to know the magic time for all the engagement, all the shares, all the love! We do know that daytime is usually the best time to post on Facebook, Wednesday is the best day for Instagram, and LinkedIn is usually best during business hours. But to specifically find the right times for your client’s social media content, you’ll have to dig in deeper. (Agorapulse can help you look at content performance and determine what’s best specifically for your client’s audience.)
What your client’s competitors are doing Brand monitoring can help listen to conversations about your client’s brand, the industry they are in, and even competitors. By taking time to listen to what everyone is talking about (especially social content from the competition that’s doing well), you can start planning a campaign that will do better than theirs.
3. Create a social media campaign calendar
After laying that groundwork, you’ll want to plan out the timeline for your campaign.
Agorapulse’s shared calendars can help agencies plan, create, and approve content for clients.
4. Craft Compelling Content
Now, it’s time to focus on creating unique, interesting, and compelling content. All crafted, of course, strategically—rather than haphazardly or on a whim.
Assemble your team and make sure that you know who is in charge of each content piece. If you are the one-person content team, you’ll want to give yourself realistic deadlines for each piece.
Quick checklist
One purpose for the content piece (Is it to inform? Entertain?)
Sanity check for videos (Blurriness, speed, quality, etc.)
The types of social content that you produce should vary. Include such social content as:
Behind-the-scenes videos
Visual content, such as quote cards
Twitter threads
Tutorials
Screencasts
Checklists
Testimonials and reviews
Lists
Downloadables (e.g., ebooks, whitepapers, etc.)
5. Schedule and launch social content
Use a social media management tool, such as Agorapulse, to upload videos, images, and written content for your social media marketing campaign.
Once the social content is published, you will want to set aside time to engage with your audience. That means staying on top of any comments, answering questions, and getting rid of spam. (Saved replies can help significantly in keeping up to speed with all of them.)
6. Review and optimize
So, how is everything going in your social media marketing campaign?
Check your metrics periodically throughout the life of the social media campaign.
Impressions (including paid, organic, and viral impressions)
Mentions and shares of content
In reviewing the social media metrics, you may discover that some content is doing great and some content is not.
But no worries! You can use that information to now edit, tweak, etc. the content to better hit the goal. You may need to change up your calls-to-action, scheduled times, write content that is better targeted, etc.
Knowing the metrics means fixing any issues that arise and also optimizing what is working.
7. Debrief
Once the social media campaign has run its course, your work is not done.
You’ll need to let your clients know all the details that they want regarding the campaign’s success. (Here’s where social media reporting is crucial once more.) Provide a clear social media report so your clients have everything available to read and digest on their own time as well.
Don’t forget to debrief your team as well. Share lessons learned with one another. Go through the report together. Doing so will equip you with social media and marketing insights to carry into your next social media campaign planning.
In Conclusion
A fantastic social media campaign doesn’t happen overnight. It involves careful research, planning, and a thought-out execution.
The above step-by-step guide should help your agency create a successful social media campaign.
Use a social media management tool, such as Agorapulse, you research, publish, engage, and report on the success of your campaign.
Ravi Shukle – Country Manager Agorapulse UK & Ireland @agorapulseukirl
We did it! We took UK Social Media Awards live in London last Thursday, 8th July and it was a huge success!
It was so incredible to see you all in person. I have to say it was an emotional night for me I got a little bit teary during my welcome speech. It has, for us all, been a difficult 18 months and the UK Social Media Awards showed us the future is looking bright.
As we move towards the end of the year, we have a combination of live and virtual events taking place and I hope you will be joining us for at least one of each!
Thank you for all the support you have shown the Don’t Panic Awards, we are passionate about celebrating outstanding work across the digital industry and our judges tell us you are excelling at outstanding.
For everyone who made it to London, thank you for joining us, for those winners who couldn’t get there your trophies are on their way.
Where next? Back to London tomorrow for the UK Content Awards and then … we will back across the Globe as soon as we can make it happen.
Get involved! We love to hear your Award stories. How it felt to win, what impact it has had on your team, the response from clients to Awards and the excitement related to entering again with a new campaign or project. You can get yourselves in our newsletter and on our blog pages by contacting our Content Manager Sue. And don’t forget if you are not entering an award you can sponsor an event, award category, activities or paraphernalia that attendees can enjoy. Talk to our Sponsorship Manager, Shenai who will arrange the perfect collaboration.
Don’t Panic now own and run 29 industry recognised, trusted, ethical and fair Awards across the digital industry and around the world.
One of the first awards we launched was the Search Awards. Inspired by SAScon, a search industry conference the Don’t Panic Team organised, the awards were born because we were blown away by the positive impact and ROI, well executed SEO & PPC campaigns were having on client bottom lines.
Back then, in 2011, the Search industry had a somewhat ‘dodgy’ reputation because of ‘black hat activity’ but we recognised that outstanding ‘white hat activity’ was taking place and that this needed to be celebrated. The Search industry needed a gold standard, awards to recognise ethical and excellent work and we created one!
Working with a panel of industry experts we established categories and judging criteria that valued and measured outstanding work. The first awards was a great success and went from being UK based to the international stage you know today.
After the Search Awards were launched, we quickly realised that other Digital industries faced the same problems, there was nowhere that recognised excellence or rewarded great practice. So that led us into Content, Biddable, Agency, eCommerce, Business Tech, Marketing, App and in 2021 Company Culture.
All Don’t Panic Awards are judged by esteemed, leading industry experts. Judges who work within the relevant digital fields, who are not allowed to enter the awards themselves! We believe this makes our Award accolades both industry recognised but also trustworthy to clients (existing and future) and everyone involved in digital. They are not a popularity contest, they awarded on merit and if judges feel that a category does not have a deserving winner, they won’t award one!
Judges sign a ‘judging code of conduct’ to ensure confidentiality and to provide peace of mind to entrants. Judging discussions are confidential and material is not shared with anyone outside of the judging panel before or after the ceremony. Neither will judging papers be shared with third parties and they are deleted immediately after judging has taken place.
Don’t Panic Awards have been awarded the Awards Trust Mark, an independent accreditation programme which validates the ethical process on all their awards. As part of the Awards Trust Mark all entrants receive qualitative feedback they can trust on their entries, which we believe provides opportunity for development, growth and direction for future entries.
Don’t Panic are pleased to be partnering with Clever Ads. In support of the Digital Community, Clever Ads are partnering Awards and sponsoring Award categories across a number of Don’t Panic Events.
Clever Ads, value talent and their involvement in Awards is their way of appreciating and acknowledging the success and efforts of their fellow PPC Lovers.
Managing Google Ads when working at an advertising agency is not always easy. Between communicating proposals to clients, creating the campaigns, and the millions of other little things you have to worry about, you are due for some very busy days. If you manage client’s Google Ads campaigns frequently then this post is for you!
If you are looking for some instant inspiration, Clever Ads landing is designed specifically for PPC agencies. Here, you will find some great PPC tools that integrate with Google Chat, MS Teams, and Slack to make working as a team that much easier.
That being said, be sure to keep reading as we have compiled some great tips and tools to boost your productivity, streamline communication with clients, and just, overall, be more organized with your daily tasks.
Improving communications with your clients
Be Transparent
We believe that honesty and being upfront about things are always the best policy. Even if your client is not a Google Ads expert, you should make an effort to make sure they understand the strategies you are implementing. Clients should have access to their Google Ads account to gain some basic knowledge and experience. It can also be beneficial to teach them a bit about Google Ads, as this can help build trust between you and your clients.
Use the best tools
Many PPC agencies use Slack to communicate with clients. Since slack offers a wide variety of integrations to install, it is easy to make communication more efficient and keep everyone well-informed. Clever Ads offers a free tool that you can install to share metrics, reports, and graphs about your Google Ads campaigns. If your team is not working with Slack, this tool is also available for MS Teams and Google Chat. Finally, no more ugly screenshots of the Google Ads interface with too much data to sort through! This will make your life easier, not having to share huge screenshots from the Google Ads interface with tons of data and numbers.
Google Ads Tips for Agencies
Structuring Ads
While the final layout depends greatly on personal preference, there are some standard formats that you can use to save you some time.
Keyword Match Type: by structuring campaigns based on keyword match type, you will have two campaigns, one for broad match and one for exact, which gives you better control of the budget
Ad Groups: if you want to target keywords with specific messages, you can dedicate a group to your top keywords and have more control over which keywords your budget is spent on
Campaign naming!
When you manage multiple accounts, campaigns, and ads, the way that you title them is critical to your agency’s success. It is important to avoid generic names and be as specific as possible to remain organized. When it comes time to filter analytics reports, you will thank your past self for having developed a consistent and clear campaign naming plan.
Don’t get too comfortable with Google Ads Express
While Google Ads Express can be great for bulk actions, it isn’t the best for a PPC agency. It is a tool that leaves you with very limited control over the account, potentially wasting your budget on unprofitable keywords and audiences. This level of automation can be harmful to the campaigns you manage, so you want to ensure you still have lots of control over the account.
A tip for acquiring new clients!
Acquiring new clients is probably the most challenging task for Google Ads agencies; however, a strategy you can use is to conduct a Google Search on businesses you know and see if they utilize Google Ads. For the ones that are using Google Ads, perform an audit and provide them with some suggestions to improve their campaigns that you can help them to implement.
I hope these tips will help you at your online advertising agency and that you will see a big impact. Organization and structure are the biggest things to remember when you are managing data from a lot of accounts. Make sure to always keep them in mind! 😉
The Global Agency Awards 2021 saw its winners take centre ‘virtual’ stage last week.
Hosted by Andy Crane, the event took place on Thursday 13 May at 7pm BST via live stream and entrants, judges and sponsors got involved using #GlobalAgencyAwards.
30 Category Winners and 8 Silver Awards were announced. Andy reported that judging sessions were intense because judges were impressed by the creativity and innovation that has been shown over the past, difficult year across the Globe.
Head Judge, Juliette Van Rooyen, Global Customer Acquisition Lead for British American Tobacco, in her introduction stated “These awards are incredibly important because they allow us the chance to reflect upon the incredible work Agencies have done around the world, they give us the opportunity to recognise where we are seeing great strides being made and what clients need, and what the best agencies have to offer. The Award entries have been fantastic this year which has led to some really tough decisions.” She went on to wish all entrants the very best of luck.
Award partners and sponsoring the PPC Agency of the Year category, which had a winner and silver award, were Clever Ads. Adelaide Knight explains cleverAds involvement with the awards.
“We chose to be a category sponsor of the Global Agency Awards because we value talent and believe that organizations that award talent are very important. As a Premier Google Partner offering tools designed for PPC agencies, supporting the PPC Agency of the Year category came naturally. This past year has been difficult for everyone and acknowledging the successes and efforts of fellow PPC lovers was important to us. Congratulations to Peak Ace AG and Launch Online for their impressive work this year!”
Other sponsors included: Tribe Global who sponsored Marketing Agency of the Year and Agency NXD who sponsored Independent Agency of the Year.
For details of all our Global Agency Award Winners click here
Tribe Global are very proud to be a partner of Don’t Panic Awards.
Supporting the Don’t Panic Awards, which are globally recognised, is a natural step for Tribe Global. There are many reasons why we chose to get involved – we believe it is really important to support these digital awards by recognising the great work being produced by agencies around the world and celebrating the talent that makes this all happen… It is also a great profile booster for Tribe Global.
Working with small agencies we see day in, day out, the expertise and value they bring to their clients. The freedom of a small independent agency allows talent to flourish and in return delivers business results for clients. They are diamonds in the “main street” of the advertising ecosystem and they deserve to be recognised and to showcase their incredible talents.
Tribe’s Managing Director, Ian Wright, presenting an award at the European Search Awards in Bucharest.
We recognise the importance of supporting the digital and communications industry as a whole, on a greater scale. As an indy network, our mission is to empower independent businesses and ensure that our community is future-focused, which is why working with Don’t Panic is a perfect fit because their Awards recognise industry expertise, no matter where it emerges which in turn enables growth and development. As the world emerges from the Coronavirus pandemic, it is critical for small and independent agencies to continue to advance their businesses on behalf of the brands they serve. Tribe Global embraces change and keeps working hard to be at the forefront of the latest developments in the industry.
Some of the Tribe at our last live Annual Meeting
Partnering on Awards is our way to support and promote excellence across all aspects of agency work – putting a spotlight on outstanding. We’re also supporting our Member agencies and business partners all over the world, from digital marketing and technology to performance marketing and social media, by championing them and supporting the industries and communities that they are part of.
We see incredible value from our partnership with Don’t Panic Awards. By being part of these ethical, transparent, industry respected Awards, we are sharing the Tribe Global story through a valid, trusted platform. We are giving our Member agencies the stage through judging opportunities and winner announcements, as well as providing our network a discount to enter the awards.
The support we have received from the Don’t Panic team has been excellent and we can’t thank them enough for working with us on this partnership. We look forward to what’s to come and to celebrating the rest of this year’s winners! We hope that might be you and so look forward to seeing you at an awards event soon.
At Tribe Global we have one very unique thing in common – we’re all different. This is captured by our mantra of One Tribe, Many Vibes which is a celebration of our differences and the uniqueness of our people and their agencies. We work together not because we have to, but because we want to and working together, we have a greater impact.
Oh what a night! April 27th saw the first Company Culture Awards celebrate companies who are outstanding in supporting, nurturing and developing their people.
The judges, industry experts spearheading cultural excellence, were overwhelmed by the number of entrants and the quality of work that was submitted, their task to find winners was, they collectively agreed, a difficult one!
Up for grabs were 21 Awards including: The Company Culture Award, Company Culture and Vision, Workplace Mental Health Campaigns, People Strategy, Wellbeing & Education programs, Employee Reward Schemes, Diversity and Inclusion and Working Environment Awards.
Congratulations to all of our entrants, 60 shortlist nominees and 21 winners, you are making an incredible difference to the health, mental health and wellbeing of all your employees whilst trail blazing for others to follow.
The Awards event was a virtual affair that followed appropriate social distancing rules and with health and wellbeing in mind. Hosted by Lucy Nicholls and with a theme of ‘Come as you Are’ the awards encouraged as much social interaction as was possible. Online attendees could download a Kindness Kit that included activities and challenges and a motivational Don’t Panic playlist to accompany any celebratory dancing.
Head Judge, Paul Marks, acknowledged the difficulties of working this year but praised the companies who achieved happy, healthy workplaces even when remote and encouraged all to keep being ‘awesome.’
Our worthy winners, who all deserve a mention are:
And listen to our motivational playlist by scanning here.
Don’t Panic Motivational Playlist
The Social
Social posts from Winners
If you didn’t enter the Company Culture Awards this year, but feel you have a winning culture where you work, sign up to our Awards reminders and make sure you enter in 2022! We are passionate about celebrating outstanding Company Culture and you should be too!
Why, when you enter an outstanding Campaign into one or more of our Award categories, do you not enter the Team and Agency Awards? This question puzzles the team immensely!
The creativity, innovation, flexibility, tenacity and relationships behind campaigns are what make them so outstanding. The client brief is taken by a whole team who make the vision reality, sometimes it is easy, sometimes the challenges seem impossible but together they do it and … ‘VOILA!’ At the end of it all is an outstanding campaign which is an award winner. Surely the creators are team award winners too!
The Team/In-House/Agency/Individual Awards were designed to celebrate the people who are at the heart of your business, they are not for the client; they are for the workers. So, how do they benefit the company?
Employee recognition is extremely important and should never be underestimated and what it creates is:
Engagement
Retention
Productivity
Satisfaction
Culture
Entry Process: We believe the entry process is the perfect opportunity for team review, who did what and how did it work. What skills did we utilise and what did we learn during the process, and this is relevant to both the team and the individuals for development, growth and progress. At the end of it you will have insight into the team’s involvement in future endeavours and their engagement and they will have a sense of belonging, connection and commitment.
Making the Shortlist: This a confidence and moral boost, bar none. To be shortlisted as one of the best in the country/world in your chosen area of expertise is an accolade in itself. It is not just a pat on the back, it is the recognition of leading industry experts outside of the organisation. The team will feel motivated to achieve more next time and naturally increase productivity to ensure future success.
Winning: Of course, this is the ultimate recognition. Teams happy with their work are more likely to become client and brief focused and once they have the title, they will defend it year on year. On the bottom line it will affect retention which is great for business and client relationships and it will attract the best new talent, who wouldn’t want to work for an award-winning team? It is proven that satisfiedemployees are happy – that is the least they deserve.
Kerv – Award Winning Team
Award Winning Culture: Recognition develops your company culture. It establishes cultural expectation of work, behaviour and commitment and strengthens relationships peer to peer as well as through networking opportunities. Public recognition is perfect for marketing your company and what a great place it is to work, which in turn will attract new clients.
The application form is easy: As with all of our award categories you only have 1,000 words! What do we ask?
We want to know the size of your team i.e. the number of employees & their roles. There are Team Awards for big (+26 employees) and small teams (25 employees or less), and for Agency and In-House. We ask about your team objectives and request information on recent examples of your work and any achievements and success. Judges also want to know of the challenges you faced and how these were overcome because this shows spirit and determination, key to team brilliance. The last section on the form asks why you think you should win the award. This is where you show your passion and commitment to what has triumphed, what is being accomplished and the success you envision for the future. You can provide supporting documentation, if you like, to prove your entry’s merit and that is it. Simple!
Award Winning – Digital Ethos, BIGO & Tipi
Next time you enter any of our Awards make sure you enter the Team and Agency Awards too! The benefits for them and your whole organisation are exponential.
Don’t Panic have been celebrating the digital industry for over 15 years, we are passionate about putting outstanding work in the spotlight and promoting the community we have become an integral part of. For us taking the competition Global was a natural extension of our digital celebrations as we searched for campaigns, technology and agencies and teams who were deserving of the title ‘Global Awards Winner’ title.
Due to the pandemic that swept across, and continues to dominate business around the world, last year it felt like the right time to launch 6 global awards that acclaimed the incredible work that was taking place in the face of adversity and that could be celebrated virtually. And trust us, we make it a celebration in every way we can with virtual or physical award packs to get the party started, and we intend to continue celebrating Global Awards in whatever way possible for the next… 15 years plus!
All it really takes is outstanding work. Obviously, the title is a bit of a giveaway, given that our Judges are looking at work that has hailed from around the world. Last year we had winners from USA, Germany, Bulgaria, UK, Iceland, Israel and New Zealand.
One of the biggest misapprehensions about the Global Awards is that to enter you have to be a large agency working internationally, but this is simply not true. The winners are agencies and teams who produce outstanding work in relation to the judging criteria whether that is a global, national or local.
Small is beautiful
Virtual teams
Global Award Winners
Why Going Global should be your Award goal?
We know that Global Awards are an incredible incentive for clients to use your business. Our judges, recognised industry leaders provide professional and knowledgeable social proof of your ability which cannot be questioned. The Global Award Winner title is the ultimate accolade, perfect for marketing and PR opportunities, a draw to the most talented in the digital workplace, a benchmark from which to grow.
Imagine your company CV with Best in … Global Award Winner! Only you can make this happen, entering is easy and as our judges regularly say ‘you have to be in it to win it.’ And you might just surprise yourselves and the world!
Don't Just Take Our Word For It
Testimonials
Don't Panic has been an invaluable partner to the Craft Beer Marketing Awards. Their unwavering dedication and expertise has played a pivotal role in the evolution and growth of the CBMAS competition each season.
Jimm & Jackie Craft Beer Marketing Awards
Working with Don’t Panic for several years helped to transform The Fashion Network business. It allowed us to focus on the things we are good at whilst a team of professionals took care of all the event logistics.
Dale Hicks, Director The Fashion Network
From the inception of the awards, Don't Panic has consistently demonstrated a passion to help us reach our objectives. Furthermore, the friendliness, professionalism, and responsiveness exhibited by the entire Don't Panic team is commendable.
Jimm & Jackie Craft Beer Marketing Awards
Don’t Panic Events continues to raise the bar of their events each and every year. Participating in each of the Search Awards is always a special experience for us as an organization, they provide an opportunity to celebrate the successes of our amazing industry with so many of our clients, partners and colleagues, all in one room.
Jennifer Hoffman, Marketing Director DeepCrawl
From the initial planning stages to the execution of the event, their team demonstrated unparalleled professionalism, creativity, and attention to detail. Don’t Panic perfectly understood our vision and went the extra mile to ensure it was brought to life. It was like having an extended department within our business!
Dale Hicks, Director The Fashion Network
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