Digital Minds take home a win at the APAC Search Awards in 2024
Digital Minds proudly announced a win in the recent APAC Search Awards which were held in Melbourne, January 2024.
This prestigious award recognises and celebrates APAC’s best Search agencies, companies, campaigns and people, working across a multitude of industry sectors to achieve growth, increase engagement and add value through SEO, PPC and Content.
We are grateful to have the opportunity to work with our fantastic Travel + Leisure clients – thank you for enabling us to partner with you to achieve growth and success each year!
Winner, Digital Minds Group
Best Use of Search – Travel & Leisure
We were also thrilled to be named as a finalist for a number of other key categories.
Best Small Integrated Agency
Best Use of Search – B2B (SEO)
Best Use of Data – PPC
Becoming a finalist is a huge achievement and a true testament of the hard work and dedication of our team.
The APAC Search Awards recognise and celebrate APAC’s best Search agencies, companies, campaigns and people, working across a multitude of industry sectors to achieve growth, increase engagement and add value through SEO, PPC and Content.
iOS 14: How will it affect marketers & advertisers?
To protect the privacy of its users, Apple will limit the amount of data that it shares with advertising platforms and apps in its latest roll out of iOS 14.
Whilst it has been slated for some time now, the new privacy changes are set to be released in the coming weeks and has caused a flurry of discussion amongst digital marketers with its purported ripple effects across several channels.
Those that rely heavily on apps as the primary channel for presenting ads to users, will see the most disruption to performance and attribution. Read on to find out what this means for you as marketer and how tracking performance will likely look quite different moving forward.
What are the changes that come with iOS 14?
Apple will require all users to give permission to other companies through the App Tracking Transparency framework. Essentially, apps musts explicitly ask users for their permission to track their device’s advertising identifier as well as their behaviour within the apps.
In addition, users will now be prompted to opt-out of tracking for each app they download. This has a number of impacts but in short means that an advertiser’s ability to track user behaviour, serve personalised ads and manage ad performance is going to be significantly limited.
It also means that businesses now need updates to work within a range of new privacy requirements from Apple.
What does it mean for advertisers & marketers?
Most platforms that rely on apps will be affected including Google, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Mobile Measurement Partners (e.g. AppsFlyer) and Demand Side Platforms (e.g. Criteo).
The key ways in which the new iOS 14 roll out will affect how digital advertising is conducted boils down tothe limited amount of data being passed back to platforms:
- Attribution windows will be shortened so that you can only track conversions that happen within 7 days of a click (previously this was 28 days).
- Overall, less data will be available to serve personalised ads meaning retargeting is likely to become less effective as a marketing strategy (this includes both targeting and excluding).
- Performance data will also be delayed by 1-3 days to help protect the privacy of Apple’s users.
- There will be a portion of iOS users who will entirely opt-out of tracking. This is to be expected given how explicit the asking of consent to track their data is and advertisers will ultimately lose out on audiences.
How is Facebook responding to iOS 14?
Arguably, iOS 14 has the biggest impact on Facebook Ads if users choose to opt-out with significant effects on optimisation, attribution and targeting. In response to iOS 14, Facebook is adopting Apple’s SKAdNetwork API but this will come significant limitations:
- Facebook has set a limit of tracking 8 conversion events per domain including pixel events and custom conversions and will be ranked by priority.
- Conversion windows have been scaled back to: 7day click (default), 7 day click & 1 day view, 1 day click & 1 day click and 1 day view.
- While Facebook will track users using aggregated data, you will be unable to serve personalised ads, build lookalike audiences from events and accurately retarget users based on first party data i.e. demographic breakdowns.
- Through Aggregated Event Management, Facebook will only report one event (the highest value event) even if multiple actions were taken by the user.
- A runoff effect will be the efficiency of advertising will be reduced as the Facebook algorithm has less data to optimise towards.
So what next?
As you can imagine, you might expect to see a drop in performance in your advertising – particularly reported performance.
For example, you will still be able to serve ads and drive people to take actions on your website, however, you won’t be able to report all of the sales that come through as a result. This means keeping in mind that there are conversions that will be underreported and will mean adjusting your performance targets and KPI’s accordingly.
Key takeaway
To recap, Apple are planning to roll out a privacy update to iOS 14 which is going to impact how ad platforms track customer behaviour and ad performance.
These privacy changes will affect marketers’ ability to personalise, optimise and track the results of our marketing activity. This will result in changes to reporting (attribution window changes), and campaign performance may be impacted due to fewer signals being received.
Whilst it isn’t clear how the iOS tracking 14 opt-outs will affect different platforms long term, we do know inefficiencies will be felt by many marketers when it comes to overall personalisation, optimisation and campaign reporting.
Winner of APAC Search Awards 2021 – Best in Search – Travel and Leisure
We’re extremely proud to have won ‘Best use of Search – Travel & Leisure’ in the 2021 APAC Search Awards for work with our client Luxury Escapes.
2020 turned out to be one of the most devastating years in recent history for the travel industry, but the immense collaboration and commitment to be the best delivered outstanding results amid the global pandemic.
Restrictions on travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020 presented a huge challenge to our client’s business, as one of Australia’s top travel brands who offer discounted luxury travel packages throughout Australia and the rest of the world.
However, through in-depth analysis of search trend data we were able to help navigate this challenge by identifying the opportune time to take advantage of improving sentiment, whilst also pivoting our creative messaging to aide conversions.
Through the six-week test campaign, we focused purely on the domestic Australian market and took a highly segmented approach with regards to user destination interest and geo targeting. We also highlighted booking flexibility throughout our ad copy to help alleviate concerns around booking future travel. Over the course of the campaign, we ultimately achieved a ROAS well above the target.
Moreover, by the end of the campaign, total website revenue returned to 2019 levels. A remarkable result and a testament to the opportunity of continuing to leverage search intent signals during uncertain times.
“Digital Minds quickly pivoted their mindset and account strategy to support what was best for our business, and customers. Their fast re-build of strategy allowed us to rebound before many of our competitors, and is a testament to their customer centric focus.”
Matt Meisner – VP Digital Marketing, Luxury Escapes
It’s a privilege to be recognised in such a competitive space and a very proud moment indeed in such challenging times. Massive thanks and congratulations to the whole team.
The APAC Search Awards celebrate the very best in PPC, SEO and Content Marketing from across Asia Pacific.
SEO agency Digital Minds named finalist for Traffic Growth Award!
SEO agency Digital Minds named finalist for Traffic Growth Award!
We are delighted to announce that Digital Minds has been shortlisted in the 2020 SEMrush Search Awards. Our submission details the SEO work we’ve undertaken for The Green Fund, and falls under the awards category of ‘Highest Website Visitor Growth’. We’ve achieved excellent results in a short period for The Green Fund, and it’s great to have this recognised by industry peers.
The full submission can be viewed here:
Helping grow SEO traffic
The Green Fund are an Australian-based news publisher that deliver the latest marijuana news, provide insights into the cannabis stock market as well as content catered to the recreational market across the world.
One of the top priorities in this engagement was to help grow their organic audience in the USA. With limitations around paid advertising due to the subject matter, SEO is a critical channel for the site in acquiring new users.
To start, the first major opportunity was to align their website more towards their largest potential audience, which is the USA. In order to do that we advised their team to relocate their server so that it would be based in the US along with these users.
Following that, the expert Digital Minds SEO team identified major opportunities to expand their content offering, namely around the coverage of marijuana legalisation across the US and the world over, as well as more in-depth profiles on the individual strains of cannabis. As rich, targeted content was published for these topics and a lead category page was incorporated into the navigation structure, more and more of their desired American audience began to flow onto the website.
This led to a significant increase in SEO traffic, with organic session growing over 157% year on year, with the lions share of users being attracted by the legalisation and marijuana strain content!
Working closely together with the team at The Green Fund, we are immensely proud of what we’ve been able to achieve and are delighted to have our work recognised.
Digital Minds nominated for Best Digital Agency at the 2019 NORA Awards
Digital Minds are excited to announce that we’ve been nominated by a number of our valued clients for “Best Digital Agency” at the 2019 NORA Solution Partner Excellence Awards.
We are humbled by the confidence of our retailer clients in our strong focus and desire to support the success of Australian retailers, as seen by our partnership with Omnivore (Australia’s largest marketplace integrator).
Cast a vote for Digital Minds as “Best Digital Agency” here.
Voting ends 10th Oct, 2019.
The NORA Network is a business network for retail in Australia with members from small to large pure-play and multi-channel retailers, multi-nationals, as well as service and solution providers.
Digital Minds partner up with Omnivore, opening more opportunities for retailers to drive sales
Digital Minds announced today that it has partnered up with Omnivore, Australia’s largest marketplace integrator used by over 3,500 retailers to allow its clients to connect into marketplaces across Australia and New Zealand.
The partnership now enables retailers to tap into an increasing number of channels and maximize online sales, by leveraging the group’s expertise in driving sales marketplaces such as eBay, Catch, Amazon in addition to digital channels already managed by Digital Minds, such as Google, Facebook & Instagram.
Australian retail is going through a significant transformation, with over 73% Australians shopping online, a trend which is growing at 24.4% YOY and now responsible for over 10% (or 27.5 billion) of retail revenue. While marketplaces such as eBay, Catch Group and Amazon continue to dominate the industry, growing by 31.2% YOY in 2018 (Source), other consumer channels such as Google, Facebook & Instagram have been constantly innovating to make the most of this growth in online retail and today account for circa 80% of online retailer ad spend on these channels (Source).
As per Nik Jain, MD for Digital Minds,
“We have seen significant developments in the e-commerce space across Facebook, Google and Instagram and are really excited to partner with Omnivore to help their customers make the most of the opportunities across these channels. The partnership also helps broaden our offering to now include industry-leading marketplace solutions and expertise, which we can’t wait to take to our clients! Combined with Omnivore, we have the best talent pool and tools to help Australian e-commerce businesses succeed and deliver growth.”
As per Ivan Logan, CEO for Omnivore,
“We have been working towards the nirvana of giving retailers a single place to manage all their online channels and have been working hard to integrate new marketplaces and cement ourselves in the position of being the first choice for omnichannel management in Australia and New Zealand. We see our partnership with Digital Minds as an ideal way to complete the offering by adding their class-leading capabilities in search and social channels to our proven track record in e-commerce marketplaces, giving retailers a single unified view of all their products.”
About us
Digital Minds are renowned experts at delivering sustainable business growth from their strategic approach & industry-leading expertise across Performance Marketing channels such as Search, Social and Display.
Digital Minds, founded in 2011 is a preferred partner for key networks such as Google, Facebook, and Bing which helps them keep their clients ahead of the curve and consistently deliver results for some of Australia’s leading brands, including Qantas, Luxury Escapes, Autotrader, Carsguide to name a few.
About Omnivore
Based in Sydney, Omnivore has been helping Australasian retailers grow their online sales from these channels since 2012. Omnivore helps all retailer types including some of the biggest in the country such as Officeworks, City Beach Clothing and Bunnings.
Omnivore has also partnered with the major marketplaces in the region to enable SMB retailers to adopt a multi-channel strategy easily through our range of apps for Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Magento.
Digital Minds awarded top Google Performance Honours across ANZ
Digital Minds are proud to have been recently awarded top Google Performance Honours. The Performance Honours program is designed to award and recognise the achievements of the very best of more than 50 digital marketing agencies across Australia and New Zealand.
As one of the top Google partner agencies in the ANZ region, Digital Minds is granted access to further support & training, allowing us to be more strategic with our clients to drive performance and results that meet individual business objectives.
