A survey by the Universal Postal Union discovered that, on average, Santa can expect around 7,839,615 letters from children around the world each year. However, as digital marketing professionals, who should we turn to for the things we want this Christmas? Can Santa really deliver what we need, or is there someone else we should be sending our wish list to?
After some soul searching – which included using a certain search engine – we decided that there are definitely a few things we would like to see happen in digital marketing in 2016. To try and make our wishes come true, we’ve written a Christmas letter to the digital marketer’s version of Santa: Google.
So here’s the letter from some of our International team to Santa; a fun homage to all things digital, based on what the future may or may not hold. Enjoy!
Dear Google,
We’ve been very good this year: We made sure all our paid media and SEO campaigns were highly engaging, adding value to the user. We also created exciting content, visual content and viral content – the stuff that really gets attention! Since we really did our best, we’d love it if you could bring us the following presents this Christmas:
Multi-channel data
More insight into multi-channel effect and data: It would be awesome if we could see all our mobile, website and social efforts summarised in one place along with the other metrics we measure to report on relevance, influence and authority! Please make these accessible via Google Analytics, saving us from switching between a host of tools and reports all the time! While we have seen big improvements, there’s always more to include that would be useful in building up a complete picture of a customer’s complete journey!
Personalised data
We’d love to have more control, more easily over when we get personalised results and what we’re are served. Right now, the personalised results don’t always show us what we’re really looking for. For example, when we’re looking for information on a place we’re travelling to in the future– not the location we’re currently in – we keep getting the same sources even when we’re using different search terms. It would be great if you could work on the search intent interpretation, as sometimes it can go a bit wrong and show unsuitable, or even topically sensitive suggestions.
Google updates
We love the Google Doodles; can we have more interactive ones, like the Halloween Global Candy Cup from 2015?
Additionally, have you thought about a Doodle Foundation? This could be a place where users make suggestions and vote for future Doodles. This could be a great way to find new talent.
The Google trends year round-up is cool, but we think it would be even better if it was a broader highlight reel, such as a 5 or 10-year overview, with the key highlights of each year.
Can you keep us in the loop with future plans and algorithm updates? We’re always looking at the big picture, identifying potential trends and best practices for our campaigns, but knowing more about your vision for the future will help us compare ideas.
Lastly, we love the monochromic animals for updates. It would be great if we could vote for the next one.
Images and maps
When using image search, can we have the results automatically displayed as an infinite scroll? Having to click “Show more results” can be a little frustrating.
Is there any way to include more information on the image results page? It would be great to have more context to some of the results. The more info that can be included without damaging usability the better!
Ultimately, we would love holographic version of Google Maps. We could use our phones to project the map, making it easier to recognise landmarks and locations. We believe this would stop everyone being sad that we don’t have true hover-boards. 80s nostalgia would live on through you, Google. Please think about it.
And…
We’d really love to have a partridge in a pear tree. You can help me find a supplier for that, right?
Basically Google, you are awesome and we love data. Please include more data in our stockings this year. We’re really looking forward to the amazing things 2016 will bring…
Merry Christmas!
From:
Sarah O, Subina, Nicole, Saskia, Patricia and Jessica xxx
Insights
