Welcome one and all to a new, appallingly named regular feature of the STEAK blog. Each Friday, I will round up a selection of the more interesting posts I’ve come across in the previous week or so (that hopefully relate at least tenuously to the business of digital marketing), grind them up, and reconstitute them into a blog.

 ‘Curation’, I think, the cool kids are calling it…

 (You’ll notice I’ve cunningly written my own brief here so the posts don’t have to have been published in the last week. I am the law here in the corned beef sandwich, so the only criterion is that this week is when I’ve stumbled across them. I make the rules…)

 So without further ado…

 At STEAK we do a lot of work around gaining a greater understanding of the customer journey, something that, as a Planner, occupies my mind to a fairly obsessive degree. It’s complicated out there, and getting out of a channeled form of thinking in order to see the bigger picture can be devilishly challenging. It’s also essential, as everybody in the industry from agency to client-side finally faces up to the limitations of the single channel activity and monitoring paradigm we’ve been working in for donkey’s now.

 How do we do it? It takes models and frameworks we can use to break it all up into bits and put it back together again in a way that gives us insights and sparks ideas. It’s about understanding the problem in the context of the whole, rather than a single channel and its technology. You need metaphors and tools to do it, as otherwise it’s just too big and maddening to understand in your little human brain.

 A consumer’s experience of a brand in digital is essentially distributed around multiple touch-points, in different contexts, on different devices, and I’ve often wondered if Digital Planning was really about taking the ‘idea’ element of traditional Planning and applying it to an understanding of a practical, action-oriented digital journey. “Where does someone go next?” is as important as what they do when they get there.

 I came to Planning through design and user experience and am naturally drawn to Service Design and Design Thinking as a way to tackle these complex problems. This post from Peter Merholz caught my eye at the start of the week – for a while I’ve been trying to find a way of talking about a kind of “macro-user-experience’ to describe this process. Maybe I shouldn’t bother.

I always think of that journey you’re constructing as a story, a kind of quest where we’re trying to design a benevolent environment for the characters (the consumers). Its easy to fall into a trap of thinking of all these touch-points and interactions quite mechanistically; assuming people are plodding through the internet as hyper-rational individuals, when really we’re driven along by psychological and social factors more often than not. Can we delight, reassure, surprise consumers as they come into contact with our brand? Can we tell a compelling story in this new distributed medium?

 This post on the Wall Blog struck a chord, mainly as I’m amazed how frequently people don’t get this. Matt Walsh from CP&B with four ways to tell a story online (‘marriage of utility and delight’ probably relates best to the above pre-amble).

Bit of a tangent here but related nevertheless, but when you think in terms of design or user experience when tackling clients’ marketing problems, you inevitably start sketching out ways to engineer the behaviours you want, rather than thinking in terms of media placements and influence through messaging. It speaks to Behavioural Economics I suppose, but a post from LinkedIn product leader Adam Nash on building viral user acquisition techniques into a product build can easily be applied to social marketing campaigns. Once you’ve a compelling idea or creative, shouldn’t we be working on an engineering level to bake in the growth we want?

Changing tack slightly, I am going to allow the always brilliant (and occasionally caustic) Rob Campbell express for me something very dear to my heart, which I would break down into shouty mode were I to try to lay it all out here personally. Take it away Rob.

  OK to draw us to a close; Big Think Time.

John Willshire of Smithery, ever erudite, has expanded on his “make things people want > make people want things” meme, in three posts on the future of marketing that you absolutely have to read. I particularly like the interplay between ‘substance’ and ‘essence’.

 MTPW > MPWT

Easter Island Choice and Making Things People Want

Making is Marketing, Marketing is Making

Thinking of Things in Substance and Essence

And for today I’ll leave that to sum up all of the above. I’m off to try and make something people will want. Coffee’s probably…

With over 17 years of industry experience, Nightengale joins STEAK Digital from IPG’s Reprise Media, after seven years at the company. As SVP of Account Services, she ensured that clients in the travel, retail, pharmaceutical and automotive sectors received the highest level of strategy, service, and support across multiple digital disciplines. 

Nightengale will craft and implement all aspects of STEAK’s client-facing strategy, focusing on managing existing customer relationships as well as finding process improvements in STEAK’s account services teams. She will report to Mark Schwartz, STEAK’s US Managing Director.

Schwartz says, “With Ruth’s hire, STEAK Americas has added a completely new dimension to our business. Ruth brings to STEAK a rare combination of skills comprising both client and agency-side expertise in media, search, social, and analytics.  Ruth’s hiring continues STEAK’s approach of providing best-in-class service across STEAK’s international client portfolio.”

How does this benefit our clients? One way is that, through active integration of paid search, SEO and affiliates, client sites can gain more exposure in the search space.

Effective paid search ads optimise your target keywords/terms in the sponsored listings. STEAK’s SEO team then work to cover off the natural search space.

The remaining listings, both natural and paid, are taken up by other sites. This leaves them open and competitors will appear on your target terms as well. So, how can you ensure your brand has a stronger presence on generic terms further down the listings than your competitors?

This is where affiliates come in. Affiliate sites work to appear on relevant content terms to optimise their own sites. As a result, they already occupy the space alongside your competitors. By optimising your exposure on the affiliate sites appearing on your key terms, a customer clicking-through on a natural search link to these sites will be much more likely to convert for your products than your competitors’.

This strategy has two benefits:

1)      You can feature on as many relevant sites for your top terms.

2)      You boost your exposure on long-tail keywords.

The integrated approach also works in the paid search space. By targeting affiliates appearing on generic terms, and working to achieve strong exposure with them, you can plug gaps in your less relevant, long-tail, keywords. You might even be able to negotiate a deal so the affiliate sites don’t appear higher than your site in the listings!

Further to this, recruiting affiliates that appear on your brand terms, both paid and natural, can help tidy up your brand space. Work with these sites to set them up as an affiliate on your campaign. This provides the means to monitor/control their activity and, if necessary, remove them from the space. This is beneficial for the affiliates as they should earn more by promoting your brand than appearing on the term independently.

Summary

Affiliates are experts in SEO and paid search themselves, so it makes sense to use their strong listings to increase sales for your site. By actively integrating SEO, PPC and Affiliates in a 3-pronged approach, STEAK work with our clients to take hold of the search space and push competitors back.

Here’s the latest by STEAK Co-Founder and COO, Duncan Parry.

My role at STEAK has changed several times over the years. When we started the agency in 2005 I was hands-on delivering STEAK SEO and PPC campaigns for clients; since then I’ve focused solely on PPC, moved to a client services role and now I’m COO. My day has changed with my role – when you’re focused on your client’s campaigns in search, the performance of your campaigns, optimisations and responding to client requests is your bread and butter and shapes your day.

When my role moved away from being in the day-to-day driving seat of campaigns, other demands now shape my day – meetings, pitches, working with marketing teams, agency network requests etc. all require attention.

My average day in 2012 starts around 7:15 A.M. on the train, checking emails and often catching our Australian office at the end of their day. From there I move on to news sites, Google Reader and Facebook. This continues when I get into the office around 8 A.M., followed by any personal chores and then looking at my diary for the day and writing a to-do list.

The varied nature of my role means my time is pulled in different directions and I have to juggle several balls and a long action list. I’ve come to rely on Wunderlist as my task management app, with lists broken down per area of the company or topic, professional and personal. Usefully it synchs across my HTC, a Mac app and browser, so I can add to it from any device and set reminders – I guess it and my mobile are the 2012 equivalent of a battered Filofax.

My day unfolds after 9 A.M. into meetings, emails, writing, working with our Senior Planner, new business, contributing to STEAK’s social presence, recruitment, suppliers…and anything else that “crops up”. Some things are consistent – emails, last minute requests, the need to read every day to stay up-to-date with the constant rate of change in the industry. Other days will be completely different. I can find myself spending one day in front of my screen, and another in back-to-back meetings or on a train crossing the country for a pitch.

The best days are the ones where you go home feeling you’ve really achieved something that day, be it helping a client overcome a challenge in their business, hiring somebody with real talent or seeing something you’ve written being shared and commented on.

One thing I’ve learnt is to make sure you take time during the day to catch-up with yourself – on busy days, everything can rush at you and if you’re not careful, you’ll not have time to process anything… Until you are lying in bed at 2 A.M. unable to get to sleep! 

So I empty my head into notes or a to-do list before I start relaxing – that’s how I use my commute home, answering any lingering emails, deleting old ones and updating my to-do list. Emails slow down but keep coming as the UK relaxes – we’ve offices in New York and LA and the US industry is in full flow in the UK evening. I aim to “switch off” from work when I step-off the train; not something I always achieve as I’m a night-owl by instinct.

A snap of the dance team after making the video of Pulp- Common People…

We had some serious tea making going on, including orders being placed on Facebook and our CEO delivering tea to everyone’s desk on demand!

Some clear chefs in the making appeared when it came to the bake off!

And lastly was the waxing, with a very special mention to Steve (Head of I.T) who went through absolute torture…and the waxer herself Katie (who I think it is fair to say, had an equally traumatic experience…!)

Overall, a fantastic week of dedication, pain, fun, hard work, skill and enthusiasm from the whole STEAK team!

Any further donations please visit our Just Giving Page

If the below tickles your fancy, and you are either a recent grad or about to graduate, get applying to work for STEAK… vacancies here.

My life began in middle summer of 2009 when I graduated from the University of Exeter with a degree in Geography. Having spent two of those three years freeze-drying soil samples in sandwich bags, I decided not to pursue a career in this area and began searching for a more exciting alternative.

During this period I worked in a financial research company as a Marketing Assistant for nine months. The marketing side was interesting to an extent, but it felt very ‘Sega Master System’ and one dimension, and I needed variation in the work that I did.

At the same time, the creative and tenacious light began to break through my cloudy mind and I began applying for advertising internships. With some success I managed to secure a two month internship at McCann Erickson in late 2010 (two weeks after my charity trip to Nepal) followed by a five month internship at Dentsu London.

It was after Dentsu London that I was given the opportunity to further increase my bulging encyclopaedia of knowledge at STEAK as a New Business intern. On my arrival, I was immediately given a list of learning resources by Duncan Parry to fill out pockets of digital air that lingered in the corners of my ageing cerebrum. Before I knew it, I was asked to help out on one of the accounts on SEO. Under the guidance of the Account Manager and the Account Executive, they taught me everything I needed to know to carry out the link building for the whole account as well as weekly reporting to the client. Sitting opposite the SEO Director meant I could naturally absorb his knowledge through the theoretically unproven process of ‘passive knowledge osmosis’, however, I found the process of ‘active knowledge osmosis’ (whereby I ask and he answers) much more effective.

At STEAK, I’ve been learning about SEO every day through my fellow colleagues and the numerous SEO pioneers on Twitter. I have a dedicated mentor who I can approach at any time to discuss anything from cricket to career advice; the former usually takes place in a pub (the discussion, that is). I’ve also had the opportunity to learn about the other disciplines through STEAK’s all-staff training scheme. I’ve even setup my own Google AdWords account so I can put into the practice the things I’ve learnt in Paid Search, making me ‘bi-searchable’ in the world of search marketing.

A Day In a Life at STEAK

8.20-8.45

I get in early to avoid the kerfuffle of kitchen collisions and grab my bowl of cereal, toast, tea and fruit, courtesy of STEAK (I’ll be very busy so I’ll need a lot of food).

8.45 – 11.00 

I check my emails to see if the client has made any comments on any reports or emails that have gone out, if so, I’ll talk to my Account Manager to define what needs to be provided and I’ll get on with this later. I check my ‘Alerts’ folder to see any new mentions of our brands under the Virgin Holidays Group, I let the client know if it’s important. During Mondays, I am responsible for the weekly/fortnightly reporting for four out of the six brands under the Virgin Holidays Group. There is usually some form of popular music being played behind me to ease the reporting period, but I usually zone out if it’s Steps or S Club 7.

11.00 – 2.00

Under my ‘Link Building’ folder in Outlook, I go through all unopened emails and action anything that is required. This can range from providing blog content, payment and making copy changes. After I’ve done this, I spend a small amount of time searching for new travel related bloggers and websites. Colleagues think I’m looking for holiday inspiration. I’m not.

2.00 – 2.20

I mime drinking/eating soup to a few guys around me and we grab some excellent, 9.7/10 homemade soup from a café around the corner in Covent Garden. I drink/eat this with excitement. I get the odd tea request from a distant Account Director, having lost a bet with him a while back.

2.20 – 4.30

I work on more specific and technical tasks such as offsite analysis and identifying duplicate content (a big no-no in the eyes of Google). During this time, I try to find out new link building techniques, what works and what doesn’t, and the most effective and legitimate way to improve our client’s ranking positions. I more often than not take a walk round the office to other SEO-ers to find out what they’re doing for their clients and any tests they’ve carried out. This is ‘active knowledge osmosis’.

4.30 – 5.30/6.30

Throughout the day I may get client requests and if it’s not urgent, I work on these during this time. I go through my to-do list for the next day and finish off any loose ends before nagging the PPC Director for a game of table tennis before we get locked in.

For some it can’t come quick enough, while for others it’s a day they hope never arrives. Whichever group you fall into there are some basic lessons that will help improve your ability to prepare, and ultimately deliver, a winning PPC pitch.

It’s very easy to become unstuck in the build-up to pitches, and this will be noticeable in the final presentation. The process is one of extreme pressure (more than most client requests you’ll ever have to deal with) but at the same time it gives you the opportunity to strategically review the issues of new clients or verticals. I’ve never worked on a pitch that wasn’t in some way highly rewarding.

So how do you ensure that you and your company make the most of the opportunity to sell yourself to prospective clients? How do you put the bedrock in place to demonstrate your expertise, confidence and passion? I try to follow the below…

Don’t be afraid of saying no to a brief

Not very often, but sometimes, you will get a brief in from a potential client that you feel you should politely decline. This could be for a multitude of reasons, from your own resource, to financial agreements, recognition that you couldn’t improve on their current activity, an overlap with existing client base or even a lack of belief in their brand.

If you are not comfortable from the outset then this will percolate down through everything that you put into the subsequent documentation and actual pitch. I’ve been in this situation and the results can be spectacularly disastrous. You’ve fundamentally wasted the time of both the client and yourself. Not to mention you may actually win some business that your company does not want!

Clarity of thought and the bigger picture

The most important lesson I’ve learnt from pitching is that you absolutely must put in the time at the outset to understand exactly what is being asked of you in the brief, the client’s business and vertical, as well as the consumer they are looking to target. Failing to do so will lead to a disjointed and unclear pitch, and you will not convince the client that you are able to fulfil their objectives.

Themes and strategy

The above research should guide the overall approach of the pitch. If they are an established national business in a high-CPC vertical looking for efficiencies or a new company looking for rapid growth, the theme of your pitch, and the strategies you select, will need to clearly reflect this. This is their pitch, not an opportunity to list every aspect of PPC that your company has ever come across, and so should be completely tailored to their needs.

Ensure everyone knows what they are preparing

More often than not the pitch process will involve multiple people on your side. This re-emphasises the need to take stock at the beginning of the response to ensure that everyone is aware of the end goal and can work towards this. Simply listing all tasks and assigning them removes confusion, but clearly defining the extent of the work is paramount.

Pitch preparation can at times be a bottomless pit of resource if too much time is spent on the minute detail that has no bearing on the final presentation. For PPC especially this can be a very real problem due to the level and variety of data we have available to us.

Most importantly, existing clients always have to come first and sometimes working on a pitch can pull staff off their accounts to an unacceptable level.

Prioritisation of your points

So now we’ve got to the stage of actually planning your slides. In my opinion it’s always important to decide what the absolute key take-outs are; if you could only talk about three things in the pitch then what would they be?

If your audience has sat through multiple pitches in a short period of time you need to make sure their brief is answered and your key messages are delivered succinctly enough to stand out and be remembered.

What is each slide saying?

If I launch myself into preparing slides without standing back and deciding what needs to be communicated then I often find that I’ve created slides that serve little or no purpose. By listing and prioritising your subjects, and assigning a slide for each, you ensure that every slide you create is relevant.

Working to the golden rule that each slide should have three spoken sentences and last around two minutes, you will quickly cut out the unnecessary conversational baggage that can easily find its way into a pitch.

Practise and time yourself

I hate this but it has to happen. Physically talking through your presentation in front of people means that you can identify where it doesn’t flow or loses momentum, tweaking where necessary.

Learn the order of the slides, as there’s nothing worse than a five second pause in the middle of a pitch as you readjust. You never know when a projector or laptop might fail and you have to carry on regardless. Focus on the sections you are least confident with to ensure a consistent level of delivery.

Know your audience

It’s very unusual to go into a pitch without knowing the names of those attending from the client. Find out their current job role and history. LinkedIn is invaluable for this. The classic pitfall is openly criticising the work of someone in the room. Remember that the current in-house search specialist will probably have a large say in who wins the pitch and so chastising their previous choice of agency and activity will win you no friends.

Beyond this it’s important to remember that PPC, and digital marketing in general, is a technical and acronym-ridden industry. Acknowledge the level of knowledge in the room.

Think of questions

This is two-pronged. There’s always a Q&A section, or questions throughout, so part of your preparation should include listing potential questions that you think will arise. Often the most impressive sections of a pitch are instant and well thought out responses to queries, demonstrating a knowledge and confidence beyond the detail of the slides.

Secondly, always have a list of questions that you want to ask the client. This shows eagerness and further emphasises the fact that you are interested in learning more about their business.

So that’s it, you should be as prepared as you can be and have the foundations for a successful pitch. Now all you have to do is present the thing…

Last week, Google announced significant changes to its criteria for Exact and Phrase match keywords. Starting in mid-May, Google will expand the relevancy factor for queries in order to capture misspellings, plurals, and stemmings.

What does this mean for you?

Well, it means your Exact Match and Phrase keywords will go further by showing up in more queries. For example, with this new policy in effect, a query for “single serving coffee maker” will result in your ad for the keyword “single serve coffee maker”, even if it is in Exact Match.

Google’s data shows that 7% of all search queries contain a misspelling, and as queries are getting longer, this means the occurrences of misspellings are likely to be more frequent. With that being the case, it makes sense to pair results up with queries that have typos in them.

The upside to this is that now your keyword lists don’t have to be as exhaustive since a singular form of the keyword will help capture its different variations. So, using the example of “single serve coffee maker”, this phrase will now also capture queries for “single serve coffee makers”, “single serve coffe maker”, “single serving coffee makers”, etc. You’ll notice this isn’t like Broad Match, where a query for “sneakers” can result in an ad for “shoes”; this is much more tight-knit, ensuring the highest relevancy. This change will be a huge help since it saves the step of manually adding in all forms or potential misspellings of a word individually. With the expanded relevancy factor, Google automatically does this for you.

The downside, however, is that your Phrase and Exact Match keywords may be in those match types by design and you only want to show up for those queries, not ones that are close to them, no matter the similarity. Advertisers with a very robust keyword list carefully build those out to ensure that they are only bidding on those keywords. An example of where this can be detrimental is the term “ice skate”. In its original form it is a venue, but making it a plural will turn it into a product (i.e.; “ice skates”). The results page looks very different for the two terms:

Results for “ice skate”:

Results for “ice skates”:

In the first example, there’s a glaring absence of Paid Search ads while the second example is focused on them. This is just one of many instances where the problem of unwanted impressions can occur and may defeat the purpose of placing your keyword on Exact Match in the first place. Here’s another example, similar to what Google provided in their blog with the coffee maker:

Results for “coffee maker”:

Results for “coffee making”:

Again, notice the absence of ads when the term is referencing the act versus the product.

One way to mitigate the issue of unwanted impressions potentially caused by the expanded relevancy factor is to beef up your list of Negative Keywords. For example, Chase Bank would want to be sure to add “chasing” and “chases” to their Negative Keyword list to ensure they don’t appear for those terms. If you’re on the extreme end of the spectrum and don’t want any term other than a select few variations to show up, then you’ll need to add all the plurals, misspellings, stemmings, and abbreviations for those terms as negative keywords. This may be quite time-consuming, especially if you have a large keyword list. Although, with the help of Search Query reports over time, you should be able to determine which variations are bringing traffic, adding those to your list, and then turning the feature off.

Google’s new expanded keyword relevancy factor also has implications for Dynamic Keyword Insertions (DKI). For DKI, if your existing keywords are already maxing out the headline limit, then the plural version or any other variation will result in your back-up headline showing up more often. One thing to watch out for here is how this affects your CTR, especially if your back-up headline is more generic than the keyword insertion. One way to mitigate this would be to add the variations of the keywords you have as negatives to all ad groups that utilize DKI.

So, as an advertiser, should you turn this feature off for all your campaigns? The short answer is “no”- test it on a handful of campaigns to see what effect it has, if any. If you’re an advertiser who is strapped for time and resources, leave this feature on to see what incremental traffic it brings. However, if you have a fully exhaustive keyword list with just as many negative terms to match, then turning it off may be wise.

Unlike the display variations of sitelinks (2 lines vs. 1 line), fortunately this feature gives you the option to opt-out. This comes with a sigh of relief as advertisers have the option to test the waters on a small scale, rather than going all-in. How this new feature will fare depends on the advertiser/vertical, but one thing is for sure: Google is moving from keyword-based search to intent-based search.

This is nothing new…modern marketers need to be adept at all these disciplines and many more in order to reach consumers in the media fragmented, multi-screened, post-digital, always-on world…I could go on! But my point, to those poor unfortunates that I’ve cornered, is that it’s digital where all these elements come together so perfectly.
That might seem a bit scary, too broad. It’s a bit less daunting though to think about the challenge in terms of stories and journeys.

Solving our clients’ problems means that we have to find engaging ways to tell the brand’s stories. Online those stories can be developed further making them more rewarding…persuading consumers to listen and giving them a reason to care. If we understand how these stories enhance and enable each step of the customer journey – from the initial consideration set, through the research process, onsite conversion and the post-sale experience, loyalty and recommendations to our social networks – then the opportunity to transform our client’s business is even greater.

Nike has gone for this in a big way in the form of their new marketing “hive”. The result being Nike+, a product that tells its own story about how we can be the best runner (best person perhaps) that we can be, as well a product that’s a service and its own marketing all rolled into one. Even if it’s slightly depressing on a Saturday morning to see the Facebook status of your friends smugly proclaiming that they have just run 10k with Nike+…it’s a brilliant piece of product design and marketing rolled into one neat and easy journey.

So how do we, assuming we don’t have access to Nike’s budget and RND resource, deliver a coherent strategy?

• Ensure everyone is clear about how an activity helps build the brand story and/or enhances the customer journey
• Stories and journeys both come with their own tactics, so you’ll need experts to help you implement and deliver great work
• Be clear about the relationship between the two
• Create KPIs that reflect them
• Play nice, because integration is key…the consumer doesn’t care where the demarcation lines between different agencies or departments are, so if you’re not working on every element then collaborate with the relevant people. The client and consumer will thank you for it.

At STEAK we’re lucky enough to work with some great brands and we help bring those stories to consumers, as well as create and optimise customer journeys.

It’s pretty challenging to work across so many steps in the process, but also extremely rewarding. It’s why I like working in a full service digital agency. It’s also why being a jack-of-all-trades is no longer a criticism, but positively an asset.

There are still grey areas, but one thing brands do need to do is, in the ICO’s words:

“…think also about giving people more details about what you do – perhaps a list of cookies used with a description of how they work – so that users can make an informed choose about what they will allow.”

My advice was to update Privacy Policies and Site Ts and Cs with this information, and to “Remember that you should also provide links to any opt-out mechanisms that exist, too.”

So what exactly are those opt-out mechanisms? 

Unsurprisingly they vary across web analytics, tracking, ad networks, ad exchanges and other companies. That’s a diverse set of players – but this can’t be ignored. With a survey yesterday suggesting the average UK website drops 14 cookies per page* and drawing further attention to the issue, it’s important brands include opt-out links in their policies. It’s a clear way of providing an opt-out mechanism and a clear step to take to demonstrate to the ICO the brand is taking the law – and the overall issue of privacy driving it – seriously.

So what are these opt-out mechanisms? Some have been around for a few years, hidden away with links from site maps and footers. Others are fairly new – and some providers don’t have one, yet.

Here are a few high-profile opt-outs:

Google Opt-Outs

Google combined privacy policies for their products into one earlier this year. Controversy aside, that does mean they have consolidated privacy information here with a specific “tools” tab including an “Ads Preference Manager” and opt-outs for Analytics and Search personalisation.

On first glance I was impressed with the information and tools listed here – but then less impressed by the number of clicks it took from the “Ads Preference Manager” page to actually get to a list of categories of advertising Google things thinks? I’m interested in, with another click again to opt-out fully or edit the categories. It felt like Google wanted to thrust text and video about ad targeting in front of me before letting me say “No”. Consumers who’ve sought these pages out have probably already made a decision at this point, and don’t want educating by Google on the topic.

The list of ad categories Google was targeting me with was quite accurate however, if only relevant for a moment in time. But they aged me by 24 years, placing me in the 55-64 age group. Ouch.

Trying to click “back” and use one of the other tools Google provides, I was also surprised to find that it was impossible to click “back” in Chrome from this page - instead being left trapped. Something which is against the “back button must work” policy Google has in place for AdWords, and the sort of bad design functionality the search engine has always derided.

They do offer a browser plugin for managing opt-outs, though.

Doubleclick Opt-Out

Google’s Doubleclick also has an opt-out tool. Annoyingly, if you type “Doubleclick opt-out” into Google, they list the above Google pages (which don’t explicitly say they cover all Doubleclick ad serving, but only that used by Google for AdSense and other Google products or not**) and I’ve read conflicting advice on how closely the two divisions of Google are helping with opting out across their two platforms.

The first result in Google from the Doubleclick domain loads a blank page which, after a few minutes, loads with text including “Opt-out completed successfully.” and links off to the above Google tools.

Stripping the URL back dumps the user on a page with a copywriter notice from 2002.

I’m guessing they forgot that page, which is in Doubleclicks ancient red branding with missing images, exists. A little embarrassing…but it links to a page with another link “Cookie Opt-Out” that goes to…the Google privacy policy, and not the Doubleclick tool.

Confused? I am. My advice: link to the Doubleclick tool, and if Google clean this mess up, they will hopefully have the sense to receipt it to the Google one or a better Doubleclick page. They might want to take a look at the quality of those search results, too.

Network Advertising Initiative

This is a US industry initiative to enable consumers to opt-out of many cookies from different companies in one go – including well known retargeting providers, ad exchanges and big publishers like Yahoo and AOL. It shows what cookies each provider has on your computer, with an opt-out button.

Evidon Database

I could at this point start listing lots of tools and their opt-out pages. But Evidon have down all the work for me, maintaining a database of cookies and opt-outs by company. They are another provider of a third party compliance solutions for brands – and the people behind the popular Ghostery browser plug in, which lets you view the tags a page fires when it loads.

* The survey was run by a company offering a compliance solution, and stated 68% of encountered “trackers” were from third parties.

** The text Google shows in their own search results isn’t on the page itself