Tag Archives: technology

Ford lead generation campaign earns second award nomination

Award season for the marketing and tech industry is hotting up and we’re delighted to announce another nomination.

Our work on behalf of automotive giant Ford, working alongside media partners Mindshare and GTB, has been shortlisted at this year’s Campaign Tech Awards.

The work has been nominated for Best Lead Generation Campaign – a new category for the event, which ‘showcase and celebrate groundbreaking technology-driven work by companies and individuals across the marketing, advertising and media industries’.

This the second nomination received for the Ford campaign this year, having already been shortlisted for the same category at the Performance Marketing Awards. For the Campaign Tech Awards, the work will be judged by a panel of industry experts from the likes of Snap, LEGO GROUP, Vodafone, Facebook and Verizon Media.

One of the fantastic things about this particular project was the level of collaboration between TLA, Mindshare and GTB. Here’s what Daniel Sichel of Mindshare said about the work:

“The Lead Generation campaign for Ford is potentially one of the most important campaigns that the Affiliate team at Mindshare have ever run. Due to the volume of Ford enquiries being generated through the campaign, we have put in place a complex framework of management, commercials and measurement to maintain a high quality of leads.

“We created a transparent working relationship with The Lead Agency, in order to regularly share insights, learnings and we are constantly looking at ways we could improve the campaign. Our aim was to create a ‘Best in-market lead generation campaign’ and I believe we did so,” he added.

The awards take place on Wednesday 5 June at the Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square.

TLA features in Northern Tech 100

We have been named in the Northern Tech 100 at the Northern Tech Awards for the second year running.

The table is compiled based on revenue growth over the last three years and is run by technology advisory and investment firm GP Bullhound.

Our inclusion at number 95 is our second award league table for 2019, having appeared at number 306 in the Financial Times’ FT 1000.

Thank you to all our clients, partners and employees for your continued to support. These awards wouldn’t be possible without you.

.NET Liverpool host first Meet-up

.NET Liverpool, a new gathering of tech professionals based in and around Merseyside, held its first Meet-up last Thursday.

The session, which was sponsored by The Lead Agency and held at our office on 20 Chapel Street, focused on Internationalisation and Progressive Web App Development. Talks were given by Microsoft MVPs Pete Vickers and Rick Garner in front of a room full of developers and digital professionals from the city’s biggest agencies and brands as well as members of the city’s freelance community.

The .NET meet-up was initiated by TLA developer Josh Duxbury, who was keen to bring the city’s developers together for the opportunity to learn from some of the best in the business.

Feedback

“It was a great first meet-up, with two fantastic talks from Pete and Rick,” said Josh. “Feedback from those who attended has been brilliant so far and we look forward to welcoming everyone back for the next one in February.”

The next .Net Liverpool session, which takes place on Thursday 28 February, will include a talk from Microsoft Windows and Xbox MVP Simon Jackson on Building apps and games for Xbox One using UWP.

“No matter whether you’re just starting out, a seasoned professional or someone who wants to know more about .Net development, we’d love for you to join us,” Josh added. “As well as great talks from Microsoft MVPs, there is plenty of time included for meeting fellow professionals and enjoying free pizza, kindly provided by our sponsor.”

For more information about .Net Liverpool, visit the official Meet-up page or connect with Josh and others on Twitter.

2018 in Review: A year to remember for TLA

In 2018, we earned independent recognition, secured new clients, developed cutting-edge technology and raised a significant sum of money for charity. It was a special year for everyone connected with TLA.

2019 is well underway and our focus is firmly on the future, but it would be remiss of us not to recap on some of our biggest achievements of the last 12 months and say a massive thank you to everyone who has helped make them happen.

Awards

One of the most pleasing aspects of 2018 was the recognition we received from some of the UK’s biggest and most respected organisations. In the early part of the year, we were named in the Financial Times’ league table of the 1,000 fastest-growing companies in Europe. We featured featuring as the 56th highest-placed UK business in the FT 1000 and 363rd overall.

Soon after, we were invited to the Northern Tech Awards by Tech Nation to discover where we had placed in its Northern Tech 100 table. Our growth rate over the last three years saw us named as the 5th fastest-growing technology business in the North of the UK and the top-ranking company with Liverpool headquarters.

We followed those up with what are arguably the two of the most prestigious tech industry league tables in the country. We were named as the 50th fastest-growing tech company in the UK as part of The Sunday Times’ Tech Track 100 and 38th in Deloitte’s UK Technology Fast 50.

All four represent great recognition of our continued growth and commitment to driving performance through technology.

GDPR

Regular visitors to the TLA blog will have seen a lot of GDPR-themed content from us over the last 12 months – and with good reason.

As a company that generates, processes and distributes large volumes of consumer data, we have a huge responsibility to make sure we take an ethical and accountable approach. It’s a responsibility we have always taken seriously, but there was no doubting the ground-breaking nature of GDPR, which came into effect in May.

Our proactive approach begun almost two years ago, ensuring company-wide and top-down buy-in and taking decisive action to go beyond the regulation’s requirements. This included updates to processes, policies and technology that have all helped to make us a stronger business and partner to our clients.

The result was a GDPR programme that allowed clients to confidently continue with their lead generation campaigns, generating incremental sales at a critical time. Furthermore, our programme received great publicity, not least of all for the independent endorsement we received from ASE Global.

ASE’s report concluded: “What’s particularly impressive is that the work undertaken by The Lead Agency goes far beyond what the new legislation requires.”

Cutting-edge technology

One of the most exciting things for an employee at TLA is the commitment to continuous improvement. Our value ‘go beyond limits and expectations’ is something you see daily throughout the business as we push to be the best we can be as individuals and collectively.

We never top looking for ways to take our technology to the next level to provide a better service to clients and consumers. And in 2018, that resulted in us launching our new Landing Page Builder, Publisher Portal, Client Portal, Policy Management Portal and Quality Control Portal – all of which have led to improvements across internal processes and client results.

The biggest tech evolution however was our customer acquisition platform, which we’ve been working on over the second half of the year.

Built on the principles of transparency, effectiveness, simplicity and compliance, this new platform will transform how businesses generate incremental sales when it launches in 2019. Watch this space!

Charity

We’re passionate about creating opportunity. But it doesn’t end with our clients or staff. We commit to giving back to a worthy cause every year.

In 2018, we set an ambitious target of raising £10,000 for the NSPCC – a fantastic charity that deserves a lot of support. To achieve our goal, TLA and friends took part in a series of mammoth endurance challenges, including the London Marathon, Man v Lakes and a London to Paris Cycle.

We are immensely proud to have raised a whopping £10,450.40 and cannot thank the people who have donated enough. It genuinely means a lot to everyone here.

And finally…

We would like to extend that thank you to everyone who has played a part in what we were able to achieve in 2018 – including our clients, partners, suppliers and teammates. None of it would be possible without your continued trust, support and commitment – and for that we are immensely grateful.

We hope all of you enjoyed a great 2018 year and have made a successful start to the new year. We’re excited to see what it will bring.

TLA named in Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50

We have been named in the Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 – the highly-respected ranking of the country’s fastest-growing tech companies.

The league table was unveiled last night at The Leadenhall Building in London, also know as the ‘Cheesegrater’. Joining us in the room were some of the most exciting technology-led businesses the UK has to offer – including Deliveroo, MiQ and CloudIQ.

Having been named in The Sunday Times Tech Track 100, FT 1000 and Northern Tech 100 earlier in the year, Deloitte’s Fast 50 represented another opportunity to cement our status as a leading technology business in our own right. Previous winners include Just Eat, Notonthehighstreet.com and Sky Scanner.

Having grown by more than 600% over the last four years, we were named as the 39th fastest-growing tech company in the UK. Top spot was taken by the now ubiquitous food delivery service Deliveroo, putting us in illustrious company.

The ranking demonstrates our ongoing commitment to pioneering cutting-edge technology in the customer acquisition space, creating valuable opportunities for our clients to grow and succeed.

Anton Hanley, founder and CEO of TLA said: “As a business that helps clients to grow, we’re naturally thrilled that our success and expansion over the last four years has earned us a place in the highly-regarded Deloitte Fast 50. Alongside our other 2018 placings in the Tech Track 100, Northern Tech 100 and FT 1000, this recognition is a great credit to the continuous improvement, innovation and dedication demonstrated by the TLA team.”

Duncan Down, lead partner for the Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50, said: “We are now in our third decade of celebrating the country’s fastest-growing technology companies through the UK Fast 50 awards, and the rate of growth continues to impress. The UK start-up scene is in excellent health, with strong access to talent and funding.

“What impresses me most is the rate of growth, with the time from establishment to ‘unicorn’ status continuing to reduce. I would like to personally congratulate all of the winners and entrants for this year’s awards.”

We couldn’t have done any of it without the trust and support of our clients, partners and staff. Thank you.

TLA’s GDPR programme shortlisted for Data Pioneer of the Year

TLA has been named on a five-company shortlist for Data Pioneer of the Year at the inaugural UK Business Tech Awards.

UK BIZ TECH 2018The nomination is for our comprehensive GDPR programme and the steps taken to strengthen our processes ahead of the new regulations coming into effect in May.

Taking place in London on 20th November, the awards will celebrate the UK’s finest tech businesses and reward innovative and exceptional application of technology to transform and grow businesses.

While we’ve long advocated and practised a responsible approach to consumer data, our programme – led by our in-house compliance manager – focused on updates to policies, technology and services that would ensure compliance with the new regulation and offer peace of mind to clients and customers.

Earlier this year, we received an independent endorsement for our GDPR programme when automotive specialist ASE Global completed a GDPR Readiness Assessment.

In the resulting report, ASE Global’s Data Protection and Compliance Officer, Kevin Symm, said: “The right attitude is evident from the top-down at The Lead Agency. It’s clear that there is a real and determined commitment to GDPR and how it can be used to make the business better.”

Life at The Lead Agency: Meet Software Developer Shannon Miller

Shannon Miller joined The Lead Agency four years ago, whilst completing her studies at Liverpool John Moores University, before joining us full-time as a Software Developer.

Here, she gives us an insight into her time at The Lead Agency so far…

What lead you to your role here at The Lead Agency?

I first started working here during my placement year whilst I was studying Software Development. Having spent a whole year in a corporate environment, it meant that I had a great advantage going into my final year at University as I had lots of new skills and a real understanding of software development.

What sort of responsibilities are involved in your role?

I work in the platform team, so our responsibilities are mainly to do with improving and maintaining the back-end systems, such as dealing with the call centre systems, and CRM amongst many other responsibilities.

How would you describe working within the platform team?

Everyone is super helpful – if you’ve got any questions people are more than willing to help you out.

We dedicate lots of our time to making sure that things are done properly and on-time. Everything we work on is vital to the smooth-running of our business, so the pressure is on to minimise risks. There’s some late nights and early mornings to do that but there’s always someone on-hand to help you out, even from out of office!

What project(s) are you currently working on?

At this moment, I’m working on the CRM which will be used across the entire company, from field sales down in London, to campaigns, processing and the call centre. Working on the CRM system has been one of our key focal points recently as it’s the main central system that the company is looking to use.

How would you describe the culture at TLA?

Even though we are busy, there’s always a nice and relaxed atmosphere. There’s also a great social side within the company, especially when we finish on a Friday.

I get involved in the free personal training sessions every Tuesday and there’s always other fun activities going on, such as Cake Friday at the end of the month and various charity events!

Which aspects of your role, or working at TLA, in general do you love the most?

Within our team, the day-to-day work is always different – one minute we might be working on a project and then fixing bugs the next. We have so many systems that we’re constantly switching between, so it makes my role extremely varied and fun.

There’s always new technology coming out that we’re open to trying and so we’re always learning new skills. If there’s something that you specifically want to work on, our managers are always willing to help us learn and incorporate the new technology to improve our current systems.

How would you sum up your experience at TLA so far?

Really positive! I’ve learnt mostly everything I know about software development from working at The Lead Agency and made some great friends along the way too.

Would you have any advice for someone who is starting their career as a developer?

Just be open to trying new things. When I first arrived at TLA I was expecting to become a web developer, but I ended up working on different projects and embraced the challenges and opportunities that I was given, and I’ve really enjoyed it.

We’re hiring! To find out more about our career opportunities, visit our careers page.

Leveraging the latest tech for digital customer acquisition

The digital marketing world evolves at a fantastic rate with new concepts and ideas appearing every month from established players and start-ups.

The proliferation of software as a service (SAAS) tooling has enabled non-technical staff to quickly establish live digital campaigns and acquire customers for your business – but this only touches the surface of what is possible.

The evolution of SAAS

For, behind the scenes, the world of technical development is also changing just as rapidly. There has been a gradual split in recent years with large tech-focused corporates like IBM, Microsoft, Google et al. accelerating away from the rest of the field in terms of newer technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence etc. Smaller companies could never hope to keep up with the levels of focused resource these businesses are able to throw at such major challenges.

But do they need to? The mighty tech giants provide access to all this technology via APIs, with microservices providing specific elements ready for the developer to build with.

This is the evolution of SAAS in that rather than taking a fixed system as a service, developers can take every micro-function as a service and simply pay as they go for what they consume.

Combining the building blocks

This approach spans across a range of fields so includes future giants like Twilio who provide use of multichannel contact functionality via API.

As a developer, you can now quickly create a system that takes in a message from phone, SMS, Facebook messenger and so on, understands the semantics of that message using AI natural language processing engines and then elicits a response based upon your own business logic. Just for good measure, you could throw in calls to a machine learning service to have the system learn how to do a better job next time around!

So, developers are being provided with ever more complex building blocks and their job is to combine these in unique ways with their own business specific code to create something new. This evolution has been ongoing for many years, starting with development of reusable components then through a proliferation of more complete development frameworks, which saved ‘rebuilding the wheel’ and allowed more focus on bespoke elements.

These more recent and highly-advanced service-based components are a game changer though, providing access to highly complex functionality your average developer or dev team could never build.

Advancing targeting intelligence

These advances break down barriers and create massive opportunity for those that have development resource that can make use of them. At the Lead Agency, we are focused on just this and have a long list of R&D projects continuously running alongside the ‘business as usual’ to look at how we can adapt such advances into our world.

It is such projects that give us the edge in digital customer acquisition. They allow us to target consumers in ever more intelligent ways, ensuring we present them with the right message at the right time in their buying journey. They help us find consumers in places others might not select for targeting and then change the ways we engage with them.

It is the use and shaping of such technology that provides us with the ability to create campaigns you can’t run through ‘off-the-shelf’ marketing tools.

Evolution of customer acquisition

There are numerous examples of TLA projects run over the past 12 months that have utilised these technological advances to change the way we work.

We’ve always run our own independent websites which allow us to target and attract in-market consumers using a variety of approaches. This year saw a significant addition to our capability with the launch of our publisher performance marketing system – a tool that enables us to run our performance-based marketing campaigns on third-party publisher websites, bringing a new revenue stream to them and allowing us to increase our consumer reach.

Our technology captures page context and, using our specific vertical knowledge, converts this into product data, thereby gaining product-based page context rather than simply keyword level data. With this level of understanding we can then utilise both our own and additional datasets to understand the type of consumer we are dealing with, the competitor model set, product options and current sales trends.

We then anonymously attempt to track the consumer across website pages, building a picture of their product interest which we use to determine buying cycle stage.

For instance, in the automotive space, if a consumer is reading reviews on a range of vehicles within the same sector, we will most likely consider them to be early in the buying cycle and therefore most likely to engage with a car brochure call to action. As they progress on their journey, the range of vehicles would be expected to decrease and this information can determine when best to target them with test drives or price-based adverts.

The ultimate aim is to ensure we present a consumer with the right message at the right time, adapting the wording and approach based on the consumer, website they are visiting and product of interest.

Working across a network of mainstream publishers, we are able to reach more consumers and, combined with intelligent targeting, generate incremental consumer enquiries.  Our internal validation and qualification processes then convert the most relevant consumer enquiries into sales leads for our clients.

This system currently uses a range of API-based software products to enhance its function and we are currently setting up a project with a technology-focused University to advance the machine learning aspect within it.

Bots and further automation

Another technology we’ve invested in is automated bots; our hypothesis being that if we can engage consumers in online conversation, we believe we can do a better job of converting them into an enquiry.

It is still early days for bot technology and we’re not quite at the point of allowing free-flow conversation, but the bot approach does open up opportunities and leads us towards speech-based interaction in future. Our existing bots are powered with vehicle, pricing and dealership datasets and able to offer a range of services to our consumers using a more engaging approach. Again, these rely on AI natural language processing (NLP) services provided by the likes of Microsoft and IBM.

We also utilise third-party software services within internal and client facing systems, whether for data validation, provision of our contact centre technology or even our client facing systems that provide real-time data insights and lead audit capability – all part of our customer acquisition platform.

So, what’s next? Well, for The Lead Agency and other tech-focused businesses: fantastic opportunities to combine the latest building blocks with business specific expertise and data to create more industry leading technology. Welcome to the world of XAAS (Everything as a service)!

Written by Ed Clark, chief technology officer at The Lead Agency

Contact us to discuss how your customer acquisition campaigns can benefit from new technology.

Key trends in the UK property market

The UK Property Industry is continuously moving and evolving, with the unpredictable effects of Brexit looming, the ever-changing demographic structure and advances in technology.

Here are some of the latest trends and stories being discussed within the UK property market:

1. Cheaper to buy than rent

Despite an increase in rentals (Countrywide Research has predicted that by 2022, 20.5% of homes will be rental) evidence still points to buying property being cheaper than rental.

Research carried out by Santander reveals the average monthly rent in the UK is currently £912 per household, compared to monthly repayments of £723 for the average first-time buyer household. This means average savings of £189 a month or £2,268 a year for buyers compared to renters.

2. Online continues to grow

Homebuyers and sellers continue to turn to online estate agents thanks to the strong levels of service they receive.

Online agents increased their market share by 11% during the first quarter of the year, giving them 7% of the overall market.

Flexible contact hours, 24/7 customer service, face-to-face visits from local experts and lower costs are contributory factors for its continued growth.

3. The grey pound dominates the market

Younger buyers are outnumbered by older buyers in the UK property market due to the preferable wage to house-price ratio at the time of purchase.

Homeowners aged 66+ were responsible for around 43,000 property transactions in the first quarter of 2018, a 46% increase compared to the same quarter in 2017.

4. House prices keep climbing

Housing prices have shown a steady incline in recent years and property consultants, Strutt & Parker, predict that the figures will continue growing.

According to the UK House Price Index, as of April 2018, the average house price in the UK is £226,906. Prices have risen by 1.2% compared to the previous month and risen by 3.9% compared to the previous year.

These figures are supported by Strutt & Parker, who, despite Brexit uncertainty, have provided a five-year prediction on the housing market, with an estimated 18% rise in housing prices by 2022, growing 2.5% year-on-year.

5. Homeowners on the increase

Despite property prices continuing to rise, the number of homeowners has risen for the first time in 13 years.

Following the financial crash of 2008 that created a clash between wages and property prices, the Government has positioned accessible homeownership as a matter of importance.

Since the Help to Buy equity Loan scheme was announced, over 160,000 properties have been purchased, with 81% being made by first-time buyers. Meanwhile, Stamp Duty cuts will apparently save four-out-of-five first-time buyers up to £5,000. However, the cuts are mainly benefitting existing homeowners due to the rise in house prices.

6. New-build homes becoming more popular

A number of factors are driving an increase in homeowners, first-time buyers and buy-to-let investors choosing new-build properties.

Among the key reasons is higher energy efficiency compared to that of older properties. The HBF claim that occupiers of new-build homes save £629 a year through being more energy efficient. Other factors include the Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme and the opportunity to customise new-build properties – saving money that might be needed for renovating an older property.

7. Shopping influences location

Online services from other industries are influencing location searches within the property market.

Location to schooling and transport services continue to be primary influences on purchasing decisions. But other location-based factors – such as access to local shops – are becoming less of a consideration in location choice thanks to online delivery services.

We reach thousands of UK homeowners every month, connecting them to property services that relate to selling and buying their home. To discuss your lead generation needs, contact us today.

Rebuilding your prospect database quickly, with compliant data, in the new GDPR world

For many organisations, the biggest impact of GDPR could well be as a result of their own preparation.

Many organisations have taken the difficult decision to remove large volumes of data from their databases due to concerns over how it was originally captured. This is putting pressure on budget-holders to find ways to rebuild in a compliant manner.

For years, lead generation has provided a fast, efficient route to new prospects and customers – but can you trust third-party data to be compliant?

Understandably, we believe you can.

We take our responsibility with consumer data seriously, which gave us a great starting point on which to prepare for the incoming regulation. But it didn’t stop us  addressing this with the importance it deserves and putting every aspect of our approach under the microscope.

We implemented changes where necessary, including updated policies, procedures and documentation. We also implemented new technology such as our Client Portal, which provides a complete audit trail of every consumer’s journey from beginning to end.

Confident in our approach but still keen to identify areas for improvement, we recently invited specialist ASE Global, consultants to the majority of the world’s automotive manufacturers, to assess our preparation.

Data protection and compliance officer for ASE, Kevin Symm, said: “The levels The Lead Agency has gone to and the things it has implemented – such as the client portal, policies, procedures and documentation – go as far as anything we’ve seen for how companies can minimise the potential for something to go wrong and then maximise how quickly any potential issues can be discovered and acted upon. It really is impressive.”

Despite the excellent report, we continue to look for ways to improve and remain committed to obtaining and processing consumer data in a way that is right by the consumer.

How we can connect you with new prospects

Our approach to customer acquisition can provide you with access to a unique and extensive market place consisting of trusted publisher networks and TLA’s own digital assets including bot technology. These help you to reach and connect with more of the right consumers – in-market, compliant and with a genuine interest in our clients’ products and services.

Through our bespoke Client Portal, you can see every step of that consumer’s journey – fully documented for your peace of mind. Every lead is then qualified thoroughly using both tech and our in-house contact centre team that are extensively trained and work to your exact requirements.

For the consumer, we simplify their buying journey and route to the products and services they’re in the market for. This means that we can repopulate your databases quickly and efficiently with prospective customers who are at various stages of the funnel.

In automotive, a vertical in which we have operated in for more than 16 years, we supply lead types such as ‘keep me informed’ interest on new car launches, test drive and brochure requests and quotes – all of which are compliant with GDPR and qualified to ensure they are in-market.

If you would like to discuss how we can help you rebuild your prospect lists in a compliant manner, contact us today.