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At the start of last year, we put our necks on the line and shared our predictions for the consumer trends we believed would shape 2025. We promised we’d come back and sense‑check ourselves once the year had played out, and now felt like the right time to do exactly that.

Black Friday 2025 didn’t give us a neat headline. It wasn’t the explosive return some predicted, nor the collapse others feared. Instead, it was messy, expensive, and strangely resilient? It was an interesting mixture of strong demand tangled up with rising costs, cautious shoppers, and a ...

Creating a content strategy can be a love-hate task for marketers. You know it needs doing, you know it’ll pay off, but it’s not always your favourite job on the list.

Black Friday Cyber Monday arrives in a few days and even the most seasoned e-commerce teams are starting to feel the pressure. You’ve crafted the offers. You’ve built the campaigns. And now for marketers, this is when months of planning come into focus but also where small, easily overlooked ...

Search is changing fast. Between Google’s new AI Overviews and the rise of GEO and AEO, more people are finding their answers without ever leaving the results page. That might sound like bad news for clicks, but it’s really a sign that search behaviour is evolving. These “zero-click” results mean ...

Every ecommerce business feels it when Q4 rolls around. Shoppers start browsing earlier, inboxes fill with offers, and competition for clicks and conversions ramps up fast. By the time Black Friday and Christmas arrive, the pace is relentless, but so is the potential.

You’ve probably seen the news already, it’s the buzz of the marketing world at the moment, but just in case you haven’t, Meta has started rolling out ad-free subscriptions for Facebook and Instagram in the UK. For the first time, there’s a clear price tag on stepping outside the ad-supported model, ...

With summer behind us and Q4 ahead, now’s the moment to sharpen your marketing strategy. Autumn signals more than just a change in weather, it marks the lead-up to one of the busiest, most competitive periods of the year. As Q4 approaches, are you ready for your end-of-year marketing strategy?

It’s September, which means if you don’t already have your Q4 ecommerce strategy in place, the clock is ticking! No pressure, of course. The busiest shopping season of the year is also the most competitive, and the brands that thrive are the ones that prepare early. As the saying goes: fail to ...

We barely had time to catch our breath. It feels like only yesterday we were talking about Amazon pulling out of Google Shopping Ads, and that’s because it practically was! Now, just a month later, they’re back.

AI has quickly become part of everyday marketing, from the ads we run to the content we create. If you feel like AI in marketing is moving faster than you can keep up with, you’re not alone. New tools, new features, and new ways of running campaigns seem to appear every week.

If you’ve been running Google Shopping ads lately, you might have noticed something unusual. Amazon, one of the biggest players in the space, has suddenly dropped out! In just a few days, Amazon’s share of Google Shopping impressions went from dominating the auctions to zero.

SEO used to be about climbing to the top of Google’s results. If you nailed the right keywords, had some decent backlinks, and kept things ticking over, you could get your content in front of people.

Visuals have always been a very important part of any good marketing strategy. But in 2025, they’ve shifted to being the main driver of performance. Today’s digital market is more crowded than ever before, with audiences overloaded and attention spans shorter. Creative is more than just about ...

Shopify is one of the most popular ecommerce platforms. This is primarily due to its ease of use, which allows you to set up a template and get online quickly. Over the last few years, Shopify has invested a lot of effort into improving its core SEO elements, and generally speaking, it’s very well ...

Amazon Prime Day 2025 is around the corner, and it’s a big one, running an unprecedented four days from 8th-11th July, making it the longest Prime Day event to date.

We were told that being constantly connected would make life better. All this access, all this information… surely that’s progress, right? But a lot of us are starting to admit, actually, it’s exhausting. The hyper-curated, always-on, algorithm-driven digital world isn’t making us happier. If ...

If you've spent any time on social media lately, you've probably noticed that influencer marketing isn't quite what it used to be. We're moving away from those big-budget celebrity endorsements and super-slick content that once dominated our feeds. For most brands, that glossy, untouchable look is ...

Social Shopping is booming and TikTok is right at the centre of it. Alongside heading to Google or Amazon with a product in mind, shoppers are also discovering things they didn’t know they wanted, all through social content! This is called discovery commerce, where shopping is happening through ...

In an increasingly digital world shaped by social media and AI, it’s easy for brands (especially in ecommerce) to feel disconnected from the real world their customers live in. When your presence is solely online, how do you replicate the feeling of a physical shopping experience? And for retail, ...

The new financial year has landed! Are your digital marketing efforts ready to grow with it?

Consumers are getting pickier, and for good reason. With the cost of living still high, people aren’t just looking for the cheapest option anymore. They want real value. That means quality, sustainability, and ethical production are more important than ever when it comes to making a purchase.

“Anyone, anywhere, can be lonely or socially isolated. Across all ages and regions, loneliness and social isolation have serious impacts on our physical and mental health, and the well-being of our communities and society.” - World Health Organisation

User-generated content (UGC) has become a cornerstone of ecommerce success, helping brands build trust and connect with customers on a deeper level. As we head into 2025, UK businesses have the chance to unlock even more value from this dynamic user-generated content by staying ahead of emerging ...

As the digital landscape evolves faster than ever, predicting consumer trends feels part science, part magic. We’ve been doing lots of research and digging, and we’re pretty confident we have our finger on the pulse for the year 2025. We'll be revisiting this at the end of the year to see how close ...

Happy belated New Year! Now that we have said goodbye to 2024 overall, we can all say that this past year has been very demure and very mindful.

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-tingle-tingling too! The festive season is here, and for the majority of retailers, it’s more than just the most wonderful time of the year - it’s also the busiest!

In recent years, Black Friday has firmly established itself in the UK, evolving from an American oddity into a staple of the British retail calendar. What started as a single day of deals has grown into a weeks-long event, with some retailers launching sales as early as 1st November and extending ...

BrightonSEO is a premier event in the world of search engine optimisation, providing a wealth of knowledge and insight from some of the best SEO minds the world has to offer. From Technical SEO to content marketing, the conference covers a wide range of topics relating to search engines. It is the ...

Are You Retail-Ready for Q4?

Hi besties! We are living for this trend of brands listening to their audiences and reacting - it’s giving ✨main character energy✨. They’re eating and leaving no crumbs. (Can you tell what trend we’re referencing? Gen Z is writing the Marketing Script now and we’re obsessed!) @beamishmuseum This is ...

Look, we've said it before, and we'll say it again - social media has become an important part of any successful paid media strategy.

Ah, autumn is upon us, ushering in the cosy embrace of Q4. As the leaves fall and the air turns crisp, we find ourselves increasingly surrounded by 'pumpkin spice’ everything (Cheers for that one, America <3).

The pandemic seems like a distant memory today, but it led many people to think differently about what it means to be healthy and happy. People became more conscious of their health, welfare, and overall appearance. As a result, they turned to beauty and wellness products to enhance their physical ...

Google brought its plan to phase out third-party cookies on Chrome to a complete halt. This decision, while not entirely surprising to many in the industry, has significant implications for marketers, advertisers, and internet users alike. Let's break down what this means and why it matters.

Gen Z has become more than just a buzzword; they're a force reshaping the digital landscape. Think about it. Five years ago, did you know what 'Dark Academia' or 'Clean Girl' meant? Probably not. This generation is deciding and creating trends and aesthetics at a blistering pace that didn't exist ...

In today's challenging economic climate, many businesses feel the pressure to justify every pound spent. This is especially true for SEO budgets. This begs the question: How can we show that SEO is worth the investment? And how do we stay efficient while getting the results we need?

Welcome to the very first edition of our Marketing Scoop! Each month, we'll explore the latest trends in marketing, and today, we're excited to dive into the world of the joy-seeking consumer that is changing the game for marketers everywhere. So without further ado, let’s get started!

With Prime Day rapidly approaching, you may be considering whether joining Amazon's platform could be a smart move for your business. It's hard to ignore Amazon's incredible growth over the past few years, with revenue soaring from £107 billion in 2016 to an impressive £453 billion in 2023. What's ...

The new financial year is here and it's the perfect time to give your social media strategy a fresh look and set clear objectives for 2024/25. Social media has become a crucial piece of any successful marketing plan, offering unparalleled opportunities to connect with your target audience, build ...

As the new financial year has begun, it's a great time to take a look at how well your marketing plans are working. If you missed it on our socials, we recently shared a comprehensive checklist to help plan and implement a successful marketing strategy for the year. But even with our checklist, ...

Welcome back to Part Two of our SEO Essentials series! If you haven’t read Part One yet (well you absolutely should go and do that), we talked about how to reach your audience with keyword research, optimisation for voice search queries and utilising AI to keep your content funky-fresh.

The world of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can be a daunting place, with what feels like a million things to consider when trying to optimise your site. The problem is not finding information, the problem is finding up-to-date, valuable information which you can put into action yourself.

In today's fiercely competitive online market, understanding your competition isn't just an advantage; it's a necessity.

When it comes to digital marketing, businesses are presented with many different avenues to capture the attention of customers. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or a business owner dipping your toes into these waters, understanding the different modes of reaching your audience is crucial. So ...

Welcome to the new era of digital marketing! With Google's latest move to ditch third-party cookies in Chrome, it’s bringing a big change to how we do things.

We made it to 2024! Welcome to a year that we predict will be full of exciting changes in the world of digital marketing. This year, we're going to see a big shift in how we use technology like AI, how we protect our customers' privacy, and what consumers expect from brands.

Have you mastered the art of catching your target audience's eyes but find turning them into paying customers is more like herding cats? As Christmas approaches, bringing a flurry of deals and dizzying choices, retargeting becomes a subtle yet powerful tactic to nudge your visitors across the ...

When diving into the world of keyword research for a page, you often start with a basic understanding of potential keywords based on what the page offers. You know your products, services, or the content you're providing, and naturally, this gives you a preliminary idea of the keywords you might ...

As we gear up for the final stretch of 2024 in the UK, retailers and marketers are rolling up their sleeves for the Q4 shopping frenzy. It's always been a make-or-break period, but this year in particular, marketers need to be on their toes. We're not just talking about the usual festive or Black ...

Black Friday is an exciting shopping extravaganza that businesses eagerly anticipate every year. Shoppers are on the lookout for the best deals, and it's the perfect opportunity for your business to shine. To help you maximise your sales potential this Black Friday, we've put together a list of 12 ...

As the chill of autumn sets in and the golden leaves start to fall, there's more than just the hint of winter in the air. For eCommerce businesses, the year's final quarter marks the beginning of the most exciting and competitive season - Q4. It's the time when online traffic surges, shopping carts ...

The world of e-commerce advertising is tricky! It’s a great big space full of product inventories just waiting to be discovered. Annoyingly, you’ve probably found some of your finest offerings are getting overlooked! We feel you, it’s frustrating.

This article was updated June 2025

Over the past few years, we've seen fascinating changes in how people find info and shop online. Our trusty search engines, once the go-to for everything, are feeling the effects of this shift in user behaviour and are now adapting to these new ways we explore the internet. In all this change, ...

As we’re SURE you’ve already heard (many times), Google Analytics (GA) is undergoing a big shift from Universal Analytics (UA) to GA4. As of tomorrow, UA will stop processing new hits, and the same goes for 360 analytics properties starting October 1st, 2023. So now we’re on the eve of the ...

Amazon Prime Day has become one of the most significant shopping events worldwide, offering incredible opportunities for businesses to boost their sales and brand awareness. In 2023, Prime Day broke all previous records, with over 375 million items purchased by more than 200 million Prime members ...

In the ever-evolving world of digital marketing and content creation, the rise of AI has been nothing short of revolutionary. With the advancements released in the last year alone, like ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Google's Generative Search, it's clear that AI is massively transforming the landscape.

Welcome to our special blog post commemorating a significant milestone in our company’s history! It’s been a whole decade since our journey began. Ten years of success, growth, innovation, and building a culture that we cherish.

In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, keeping up with the latest trends and technologies can be a daunting task. That’s why having a dedicated Research and Development (R&D) department can be a game-changer. As a leading digital marketing agency, we recognised this early on and ...

In the fast-paced digital landscape, a game-changing trend is taking the spotlight – social media platforms doubling as search engines. As users increasingly rely on these platforms for real-time updates and personalised results, businesses must adapt to stay ahead of the curve.

Traditionally, marketers have focused on connecting with customers everywhere except work. However, since the pandemic and the push to work from home, the boundaries between work and personal life have blurred. A new target market has formed for advertisers to market to, and they’re called the ...

When it comes to maximising your marketing impact, don’t settle for only updating old spreadsheets or merely tweaking your previous year’s digital marketing plan. With the continuous growth of digital adoption and online commerce, getting your strategy right is essential to stand out from the ...

The social media economy is expanding, with an increasing amount of brands spending and making money through the different platforms. The continuous evolution of social media marketing keeps changing the way that consumers interact with brands.

You’ve probably heard by now of all the new updates that Google and other platforms are releasing/planning on releasing over the next year or so. The one that we’ll look at today is an update in Analytics, otherwise known as GA4.

For many people Brighton is known for its stunning seaside, bustling beaches and iconic Palace Pier but for a couple of days during Spring and Autumn it’s home to the biggest SEO conference in the UK ‘BrightonSEO’.

Gone are the days when you hear the word cookie and you associate it with a blue monster from Sesame Street. Now every time you go onto a website you have banners cropping up all over asking you to accept cookies, but we’ll soon be heading away from relying so much on cookies and it’s this that we ...

We were really thrilled and humbled by some fantastic news this week. Mabo have been awarded the Community Response Award at the Microsoft Partner Awards.

As it’s national apprenticeship week we thought it would be a great time to reflect on why employing apprentices has been a huge success at Mabo and to share our thoughts, and the thoughts of our apprentices past and present, on why apprenticeships offer so much value to businesses and young people ...

Perseverance has recently been crowned 2021’s Cambridge Dictionary word of the year; and it’s not tricky to see why. For our retail clients, 2021 has been a year of undulating challenges:

An Introduction To Feeds Most people who deal with eCommerce know that a product feed is the backbone of selling products through major search platforms. It houses all your essential product information with a range of attributes and comes in a variety of file formats, both static and dynamic. Not ...

From a PPC point of view, in addition to being fun, cultural events mark different points throughout the year, holidays are also exciting because they create opportunities for our clients to offer special promotions to their customers, look at Black Friday for example. Promotions are one way our ...

It is official, Mabo has officially been upgraded from a select channel partner to the elite tier within Microsoft Advertising’s Partner Program. An amazing accomplishment for the entire team.

As an account manager; one of the largest topics I encounter with clients is budget. It should be an easy one, right? After all, budgeting is something we do every day, whether we’re allocating spends towards our weekly food shops or saving for a brand new Tesla. The answer, unfortunately, is not ...

Every business strives to be that business, the one that has the product everyone wants & the logo everyone recognises. Why are some brands fine wines like Google for example and others wither and die, poor Jeeves no one asks him anything anymore.

Chances are in 2020 if it hadn’t already, your business entered the world of digital. Certainly in the early days of Covid-19 businesses took a reactive approach in an attempt to stay afloat during a global pandemic. It certainly was a good year for digital which already was the fastest-growing ...

We all want better performance on Facebook right? Video is the best performing content type across all social platforms, and it can help boost engagement, awareness and sales in your end of year push.

Are you struggling to find relevant keywords to bid on in search? Do you find yourself struggling to hit good click-through-rate levels on search? Then dynamic search is definitely something for you to consider in your ads account!

Everyone want’s to have the best Facebook Ads right? I mean, you can’t blame them really, of course, you want YOUR ads to stand out. With Christmas only around the corner (quite, literally), I am sure you are starting to get a move on with your holiday marketing campaigns, and mapping out your ...

Whilst Facebook allows you to clearly see how many transactions have been generated through your paid ads on Facebook Ads Manager, it’s not always clear how to track transactions made through your organic Instagram or Facebook page content.

(SocialMediaToday, 2020) ran several polls on their newsletter on the topic of marketing goals. The aim of these polls were to find out what businesses would class as their ‘top’ marketing goal. Thinking about yours now? I thought so… “Brand awareness” was a clear winner and consistently came out ...

Consumers are more engaged with businesses who can meet their needs from home right now–and they’re more willing to move to those who can. If like me, during lockdown you will have potentially seen your postman more than you have seen your family. River Island, Amazon, Miss Guided, New Look, you ...

Mabo won the “Best use of Automation” award at the 2020 UK Biddable Media Awards!!!

We are hugely proud to announce that we were named as the “Company of the Year” at the very first Tees Tech Awards that were held on the 20th August 2020.

Possibly the biggest social media platform ever, you will have been living under a rock if you have not heard of Facebook!! The popular social media platform is used for both advertising and social purposes, you know what I mean, sharing lost cat posters, checking out your favourite restaurant, the ...

Remarketing is a great way to re-connect with users who previously interacted with your website and your products. Using remarketing audiences will help in increasing your brand awareness as well as reminding those users to make that all-important purchase. We can use these audiences in different ...

The widespread impacts of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown conditions, that we have become very familiar with over recent months, have certainly resulted in turbulent times for businesses and marketers alike.

The PPC industry is ever-evolving and we are already in an A-I learning era. The advancement in Google’s Smart Bidding has meant us as a specialist PPC agency have had to learn and adapt ourselves in the way we manage accounts moving forward.

With Google Shopping now contributing almost 60% of Google Ad’s clicks for retailers, the need for a strong shopping feed is more important than ever. By using a supplemental feed, you have the opportunity to enrich your feed as a retailer by running one alongside your primary feed. This enables ...

Smart Bidding is a set of conversion-based bid strategies that make use of machine learning to optimise your bids when they enter the auction. It takes into account a huge range of signals to make sure each bid is tailored to maximise on both conversions and conversion value.

Some very very very exciting news coming out of Mabo. We were named as the “Search Agency of the Year” at the 2020 Northern Digital Awards!!!!

Is having a good feed important?

Utilising Social Media to drive business results can be overwhelming and tricky. Unfortunately social won’t allow for a lackadaisical approach. If you are to reach your valued customers on this platform the best approach is a carefully thought out comprehensive strategy that really engages the ...

In a Google ads account, keeping everything organised and under control is one of the main components of improving performance in the account. One of the best ways to do this is to have a campaign structure that best suits the type of account it’s being applied in.

Exciting news coming out of Mabo.

With Small Business Saturday just around the corner, Team Mabo have been thinking of ways in which we can support small businesses.

What Is A Google Premier Partner? The Google Partners programme is an initiative for advertising agencies who manage Google Ads accounts on behalf of their clients. The programme is made up of three tiers, all of which have a set of minimum requirements that must be met in order to qualify for the ...

In a nutshell, PPC (Pay Per Click) Management refers to the tasks, strategies, and processes involved in managing Pay Per Click advertising. However, it’s not quite that simple. PPC management is all about…

In the ever-changing world of PPC advertising, it is imperative that we stay on top of any new features and ensure that we are in-line with the industry’s best practice. Here at Mabo, we are committed to making sure that all our staff are trained and qualified to manage Google Ads & Microsoft ...

On the 3rd October 2019, the UK Search Awards released the shortlist for the 2019 ceremony. On the back of that, we were over the moon to see that we have received nothing short of SIX shortlists this year.

Some very exciting news coming out of Mabo today. We have been named as a finalist at the EMEA (Europe, Middles East and Asia) Google Premier Partner Awards for “Growing Business Online”.

You’re likely here because you’ve read the title of this piece and thought, “Hmm, I’ve got a small to medium-sized Google Ads account; some of this might be relevant to me” and so decided to check it out.

Can you remember the last time you had a conversation with someone where there wasn’t a screen involved? You didn’t check your phone, the TV wasn’t on in the background or you didn’t have your laptop in front of you?

In March I signed off a blog post celebrating my win at the UK Biddable Media Awards by saying “here’s to more award wins”, but I didn’t quite expect to be writing another piece on another win this soon.

PPC Bid Management can sometimes be an overwhelming task, even for the most experienced PPC account managers. However, don’t fret, I’m here to break it all down for you. The Google Ads platform essentially runs like an online auction. Advertisers bid on their keywords in Google Search and on their ...

We are all about the facts and figures here at Mabo – so we want to shout about these numbers and why they are important to us as a multi-award-winning agency.

Mabo are very proud to have been shortlisted for three awards at the 2019 North East Business Awards.

What Is Attribution?

I am often asked why didn’t I choose to go to university to study Marketing as this would

In 2017 alone, about 1 in 5 clicks on Google Ads were fraudulent, with the number slowly increasing every month. To put it simply, click fraud can be defined as: The fraudulent clicking of Pay Per Click adverts to generate fraudulent charges for advertisers. Pay Per Click is the key message here. ...

How do we calculate your click fraud savings through our click fraud protection tool?

For those who don’t know, in mid-2018 Google launched their CSS (Comparison Shopping Service) Partner Programme on the back of their EU antitrust fine. This means that Google had to open up their Google Shopping platform to external comparison shopping sites to advertise.

We turn 5 on the 13th May 🙂 5 successful years, each one better than the last. Given it’s a milestone I thought I’d write a quick blog looking back.

Earlier this month myself and two colleagues from the Mabo Business Development Team packed up our Sunday best and headed down to London for the annual UK Biddable Media Awards.

Ok I get it…it’s not even December yet. We’re all thinking about Christmas and how best to make an impact in our respective industries, but New Year is looming and failing to plan is planning to fail, or something along those lines.

The busiest time of the year for most online retailers is nearly upon us, Christmas. For a lot of businesses this twelve week period eclipses the previous nine months of the year. More and more UK consumers are choosing to do their Christmas shopping early. Also and more importantly, they are ...

Every job has it’s difficulties. Being an account manager for one of the top 1% of Google Partner agencies in the UK is no different. There’s a hell of a lot of technical knowledge needed to navigate AdWords and turn an account around, and once it’s turned around there’s a lot of continued ...

It’s important to know that the data you see in AdWords may not be an accurate reflection of current performance. Performance data is not available instantly in AdWords and some metrics only update once per day!

Mabo has recently been awarded Google Premier Partner status. This is, of course, a huge achievement for us as a company, and it shows just how far we have come in only three years. From our MD’s home office to Boho 5, Google now regards us as one of the top PPC Management agencies within the UK.

Google recently announced the new ETAs (Expanded Text Ads) feature which gives advertisers more character spacing in their text ads, introduces a second headline and revamps the old display url.