At the end of last month our MD, Chris Robinson, was flown out to California to attend Google’s Partner Executive Council (PEC) at their Mountain View headquarters.
Attended exclusively by CEOs and MDs of Google Premier Partner agencies, Adtrak was one of 110 companies invited from across the world. The prestigious event provides a great networking opportunity and is the perfect chance to discuss key industry trends. (It was also fantastic to visit and experience Google HQ and bask in the Californian sunshine…not that the rest of us are at all jealous!)
Google’s PEC is a global event, bringing leaders from the digital marketing world together. This year, held from 21st to 22nd June, the seminar featured an impressive array of speakers, including Todd Rowe, Jen Fitzpatrick and Liz Wiseman.
Google’s ‘mobile first strategy’
One of Chris’ main takeaways from the event, however, was the fireside chat with Ruth Porat, the Chief Financial Officer for Google and Alphabet.
Porat spoke of Google’s ‘mobile first strategy’, which involves all of Google’s products and services being considered on mobile phones and tablet devices first, before making correlate designs for traditional desktop and laptop computers.
Porat said this was a result of Google’s ever increasing emphasis on the need for high quality, user friendly mobile sites.
Porat explained that the growth of the mobile search market has meant it is now more important than ever for businesses to respond to this customer demand. She warned that to ignore mobile traffic could be detrimental to businesses in the future, and that future Google updates, plus a decline in desktop traffic, could cause a reduction in rankings for companies which don’t provide adequate mobile friendly sites.
Make your website mobile friendly
Here at Adtrak, we adopt a similar ‘mobile first’ approach. Offering responsive web design, for example, is part of our ‘mobile first’ mindset, as it means thought has been put into the functionality and user experience of the mobile version of your website from the very beginning. “How will this appear on mobile devices?” is one of the first questions we ask when we come together to plan and design a website.
Porat also said one of the key factors to achieving a user friendly mobile site is its download speeds. She said they should be below four seconds and ideally be around 2.4 seconds to optimise conversions. This is something we strive for at Adtrak and run tests on all of our sites before they go live.
Go for Gold
As a Google Premier Partner, being invited to events like the PEC are a great way to make sure we are progressing along with innovations in the industry. It won’t be the last time we’re at Google’s Californian HQ either as we were extremely excited to be announced as the winners of Google’s Q3 Go for Gold competition!
An award for the partner agencies who bring in the most new business throughout each quarter, the top prize includes two members of staff being flown out to California to attend Google’s exclusive Partners Summit at their Mountain View headquarters.
Chris Rutter, a Senior Manager and the Head of Paid Marketing here at Adtrak, and Mark Neale, Assistant Head of Paid Marketing, are the lucky two who’ll be making the trip later this year (again, we’re not jealous at all). Whilst there, they will listen in on panel talks from top marketing and brand development experts. They will also get a sneaky look at a few brand new Google products, as well as receiving some insider tips on how to maximise our AdWords advertising efforts. We will update you on their trip later in the year!
