The Business Exchange Swindon & Wiltshire Edition 38: Aug/Sept 2018 | Page 29
TECHNOLOGY
REVVED UP
ADPILOT NAVIGATES FIRST
YEAR IN BUSINESS
Bradford-on-Avon based business AdPilot
is a specialist pay-per-click management
company that helps small-to-medium
sized businesses grow their online revenue.
The company uses their knowledge,
experience and creativity to deliver real and
measurable results within a number of
different sectors and is always keeping on
top of new trends and technologies.
The company was set up in 2017 and has
celebrated a successful first year. Search
Strategy Director, Thomas Stocks, looks
back on the past year and tells us more
about AdPilot’s offering.
Why was AdPilot set up?
We had a number of clients reach out to us,
who were managing their paid marketing
in-house, and it soon became clear that a
number of small businesses were running
campaigns which could be greatly improved
and so we wanted to help those companies
that don’t have the time or knowledge to
continue doing it themselves.
Why did you want to get involved
with AdPilot?
Paid search is a marketing channel that
is consistently growing and there are lots
of local businesses that struggle to create
profitable campaigns and therefore I
wanted to be able to help them with their
growth, using knowledge that I’d built up
over the past 7+ years.
How has the first year gone?
Really well. We’ve grown quicker than
anticipated, have had great feedback from
a number of clients and have had to take
on more staff. Working with clients across
a broad range of industries makes coming
to work enjoyable and means each day is
different.
We are looking forward to growing our
portfolio in the future and helping more
clients reach their short and long term
goals.
How do you think paid search will evolve
over the next few years?
Personally, I think that longer search
phrases will become even more common
and just using single and double keyword
phrases will become redundant mainly
due to voice search, new devices and
technology.
I think we’ll also see a growth of serving
ads to people’s devices whilst they’re
browsing around shops and supermarket s.
What is the one piece of advice would you
give to businesses looking to improve
their PPC campaigns?
For business owners using paid search
specifically, it’s important to know what
your cost per acquisition would ideally be,
because then you know how scalable paid
search can be for your business.
Also, don’t be afraid to test and fail.
“We are looking forward to
growing our portfolio in the
future and helping more
clients reach their short and
long term goals.”
For more info:
www.adpilot.co.uk/takeoff
Office challenges: using
365 to drive productivity
Productivity. It’s being
touted as the be-all
and end-all in business
today. It’s being shouted
about to the point where
business leaders are just
switching off altogether.
While outstanding productivity can only be
seen as a positive thing, this fatigue around
the messaging means that businesses
are missing out – not just necessarily on
huge productivity projects championed
by governmental bodies, but on tools
specifically designed for SMEs – Office 365,
for example.
The Bank of England, in its staff
blog, noted the correlation between
ever-tightening labour markets and the
productivity slowdown that’s come along in
tandem.
“When expanding output, companies
typically assess the relative costs and returns
from recruiting additional labour and/or
investing in new plant and machinery. Larger
companies formally estimate the payback
period for a major capital project, in terms of
how long it takes to recover the costs of the
project from enhanced earnings.”
While positioned as a conundrum only
facing larger businesses, assessing a total
cost of ownership model against future
productivity gains is something any business
will do – just in different forms. Any director-
level operator will look at the cost required to
bring one member of staff on board, versus
the technology cost that will be required to
effectively automate that role away from the
hands of existing staff.
The Workforces 2025 Report, released
in September 2017, noted that “the
majority of British workers are frustrated
to find themselves in office environments
where they lack access to the right level of
technology to do their jobs well.” Fewer than
one in five British employees use instant
messaging services at work, with the report
highlighting a staggering lack of adoption
for pre-existing productivity solutions in their
place of employment.
64% of employees believe that poor
technology negatively impacts their
workplace productivity.
It’s no surprise, then, that Shadow IT is
on the rise. This is defined as systems that
are built and used within businesses without
explicit approval – or in some cases even
without basic knowledge. This could take
the form of a WhatsApp group for instant
communication, unauthorised editing
software installed onto computers, Dropbox,
unauthorised hard drives… the list is huge.
The issue for IT is that while workers
need these systems to boost their own
productivity, inappropriately used, Shadow
IT can be a remarkably simplistic backdoor
for hackers. Employees simply do not realise
they have put their business at risk.
Today, more than one third of employees
feel their companies do not invest enough in
workplace tools, according to The Modern
Workplace research. According to the report,
technology adoption has reached the point
where IT departments “no longer have a say
in which technologies will be used in the
workplace, and which not.” Millennials are
now doing this job for them.
To borrow a turn of phrase, it’s time for
businesses to take back control of their own
technology adoption.
365, for small businesses, is without
a doubt one of the most cost-effective
productivity solutions that money can
buy for SMEs. With millennial talent
requiring communications, productivity and
organisational tools to better complete their
roles, 365 is, essentially, all this rolled into
one. Better yet, it can often be integrated in
an afternoon with loss-of-output limited to
the lunchbreak of an employee.
Any tech specialist can throw out
acronyms like SaaS (Software-as-a-
Service) and cloud-based architecture.
What businesses need to know is this:
organisations can use exactly the same
software they always do - just with the
addition of online file storage, hugely
improved accessibility of those files, and
various other applications.
From real-time co-authoring of
documents, to inbuilt chat functions and the
ability to work from anywhere in the world,
Office 365 is a simple solution for businesses
to adopt, but one we often see absent from
the small-business repertoire.
Productivity is indeed one of the
buzzwords of the day, but if businesses
do not make decisions on how it can be
achieved, the decision will be made by the
staff. Microsoft’s 365 means that, in short,
employees can be allowed to focus on their
actual roles instead of time-consuming
administrative tasks. For employers, this
means greater output, fewer roadblocks, and
happier staff.
Nathan Baranowski
Managing Director, ojo solutions
Ojosolutions.com
@ojosolutions
AdPilot’s Tom Vaughton and Thomas Stocks
THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2018
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