This extends to the staff headshots on your site, with the added impact on the morale of the team with the boost professional-looking headshots can give to the staff ‘feel good factor’.

What we would always recommend when approaching photography is this process is best handled by the professionals, with a host of fantastic agencies and freelancers out there who can meet your brief to exacting standards. However, we know that often when it comes to booking a photographer ‘life gets in the way’.

Whether it’s your budget or the fact your staff work remotely, it can be difficult to get both a professional photographer and your staff together in the same room. So what can you do when this situation arises?

We’ve pulled together a guidance document for such an occasion, giving some tips as to how your staff can generate consistent, high quality staff headshots with just an iPhone. Feel free to download our guidance document in full below as a PDF, while we have also listed here a few key recommendations:

✔️ Set up your iPhone camera in portrait mode

✔️ Make sure you are in a naturally lit environment

✔️ Find a clean, white wall or a non cluttered background

✔️ Grab a helper, or set up somewhere to rest your phone

✔️ Stand back so there is around 30% of wall space above your head

✔️ Position the shot from the waist up

✔️ If you are without a helper, set up a tripod or other leaning post for your phone and use the timer function

❌ Do not take a ‘selfie’ or angle the phone at all

❌ Do not stand against reflective backgrounds/mirrors or areas of natural light e.g. windows

❌ Do not set up a scene (unless instructed)

❌ Avoid poorly lit areas and reflective shadows

✔️ Take multiple shots to give a selection of choice

✔️ Send over the photos as high quality files

❌ Do not edit/crop your pictures, leave that to the design team

Please download the PDF below to view our full guidance document, including imagery to show you best and worst practices. While if you have any questions about how photography fits into your sense of brand and how this is best achieved we’d be delighted to talk. 

CORE Photography Guidelines.pdf

Photography is such a crucial element in the design of a website. It can go so far in helping you to achieve that brand direction you want to exude to your users, no matter what that direction actually is.

Team headshots when budget or geography get in the way

With the rise of AI (or perhaps ‘machine learning’ as it more correctly could be termed as) as an ever increasing feature of the digital landscape, its introduction into the very tools we use to market in this environment has been an inevitability. So is it the time to go ‘all in’ on AI in paid advertising or is there some way to go yet before we hand over the keys to our keen digital friend?

What inspired us to really sit down and get down in words what we’ve been discussing for some time around the water cooler was the revelation that ‘broad match’ keywords have become the default for new search campaigns across Google Ads - however, there are dozens of examples we could have picked as the spark to ignite a discussion. The launch of Performance Max campaigns in November 2021? Responsive Search Ads in July 2018? Looking a bit further back we’re actually not too far off the ten year anniversary of the introduction of Smart Bidding even.

A common thread which runs through each of the above is the lessening of the control afforded to campaign managers in favour of the platform itself running the ads. And if you were following the recent antitrust trial brought against Google over the last year or so you might be minded to think that was not such a fantastic thing.

It’s important to emphasise at this point this is definitely not just a ‘Google thing’, it’s a staple of the setup for all major advertising platforms. Only recently we were tasked with an audit of an existing Meta Ads account for a British-based holiday company which had an ad running with the music of Tarantella Napoletana (a classic Italian folk song) overlaying it. A curious choice indeed. The cause of which was the toggle switched on for the AI-driven ‘Music’ enhancements within the Meta dashboard, whereby Meta had deemed the song a good match ‘based on its content’. How, we’re not so sure.

I think what makes digital marketers such as myself a little cautious when it comes to the rise of the default use of artificial intelligence across paid advertising is how much we’re relying on these particular platforms in understanding the nuances of your business.


We all know you’re the experts in your business but what we believe is crucial in providing CORE’s true value as your digital partner is that we immerse ourselves to the greatest extent possible in your world. Only by understanding your pain points, your USPs, your short term desires and your long term vision can we provide a service truly tailored to your success. Does Google or Meta or Microsoft understand your business like that? Could they ever? A debate for the long term but we believe a ‘no’ in the here and now.

The easy option not always the right option


What we certainly don’t want to pour scorn on is the definite advantages artificial intelligence can bring to the building, maintenance and promotion of your digital presence. We at CORE use it every day to assist us in our working practices and we are dedicated to remaining at the cutting edge of this digital frontier. However, the key word perhaps to dwell on is ‘assist’ - it is certainly not a replacement for all of our working practices.

It is this perception that using AI is the ‘easy’ option in creating and managing digital advertising campaigns that we perhaps baulk at. It is in the combination of using AI - to either provide data-leveraged suggestions (which we then have the final say in utilising) or to speed up our processes - with the knowledge of a business which can only be acquired through a holistic understanding is where the sweet spot lies.

With all of the above in mind we’ve pulled a short list of key points together to consider regarding use of AI in PPC campaigns you may wish to consult:

No AI-driven campaign should just be ‘set and left’. Many ad providers will tell you they only need your website and budget to create a campaign which will deliver results for you - as they can generate ad text, target keywords and bidding strategy from those basic inputs. Regardless of this claim, we strongly recommend you check in regularly on any campaign and review the data available in order to steer it in a better direction if they have gone off course.

Negative keywords are your best friend for broad match campaigns. By its very nature ‘broad match’ target keywords will put your ads out there across a wider set of users. This can indeed lead to your ads being seen by relevant users you would not have thought to have targeted as they were unknown to you previously but it also means they can be seen by completely irrelevant users. The only way to stay on top of reducing the latter is by regularly viewing the search terms report within your advertising platform and marking those irrelevant searches as negative keywords to prevent budget being wasted on them in the future.

Avoid auto apply recommendations in Google Ads. A subject of a previous insights post, allowing Google to automatically apply recommendations to your campaigns is a potentially dangerous move. At a minimum it can lead to inefficient campaign running while at worst prevent your ads from running at all.

Review the ‘Advantage+ creative enhancements’ in Meta Ads when creating an ad. Aside from the ‘creative’ music choices mentioned earlier in this article, Meta also suggests such features as juggling the order of image/video assets in ads depending on their popularity with users within its ‘creative enhancements’ section. Although this sounds logical, for many advertisers their ad creative has been structured to tell a story through their ads so carefully consider if that story continues to make sense with all the assets jumbled up.

Ensure you have enough conversion data before accepting Google’s suggested ‘maximise conversions’ bidding strategy. Again, ‘maximise conversions’ sounds like a no brainer in how you want to bid for users. However, the truth is in order for Google to understand how to maximise bidding for conversions they need to understand what a converting user actually looks to you. If they have no (or little) conversion data to fall back on they are going to struggle to understand what these preferred users look like. We recommend campaigns should be at a conversion activity level whereby they are achieving 30 conversions in 30 days prior to switching to a ‘maximise conversions’ strategy.


Of course the above is just a flavour of how artificial intelligence is utilised across PPC. If you’d like to have a discussion about whether AI is currently helping or hindering your digital advertising and what can be done to weight it towards the former, we’d be delighted to carry on the conversation. Drop us a message or @ us on our socials.

Control - or the lack of it - is an important consideration to any digital marketer when approaching a campaign. 

In our previous insights post we took a look at the effects of cookie control on traffic and how to claw some of that potentially lost data back by encouraging interaction on the cookie banner.

However, that doesn’t really solve the root issue when it comes to understanding the relationship between cookies and users and their likelihood to accept or reject. To get to grips with that it might first be useful to consider how a user thinks when it comes to cookies.

Of course everyone is different when it comes to their understanding of their digital footprint and indeed their levels of interest in it. So we’ve collated a few common responses to the question ‘Why do you reject cookies when asked?’ and looked to uncover some learnings you can take from each to better encourage a user to click ‘Accept’.

“I don’t know what cookies are so I’ll reject them as the safe choice”

This is a very common thought process. Users don’t trust that they understand the concept of cookies enough (or at all) in order for them to accept them. Saying ‘no’ is always the safe choice and indeed perhaps the wisest choice in the majority of cases when it comes to your digital security.

However, perhaps through educating users (without lecturing or fearmongering) we can look to build that trust. This could be achieved through clear and easy to understand information in the cookie banner itself plus an easily accessible link to more information on cookies (including basic information on what they actually are).

“This website looks dodgy, I don’t trust them with my data”

Trust was mentioned when we were discussing the general user’s lack of knowledge around what a cookie is, now trust comes into play when considering a user’s belief that a website will handle their data properly.

The remedy for this is simple - be a trustworthy website. OK, simple without perhaps being scientific. Of course, trustworthiness is not a defined metric but there are many things that can be implemented on a website which go a long way in convincing users; engaging design, quality content, responsive across device types (and many more).

“I’d be happy to give my consent for some types of cookies but not others, but the cookie controls don’t give me that ability to choose”

We have covered the potential thought processes of those users who are perhaps less familiar with cookies as a concept but there are of course also those that are very aware and mindful as to the purpose of cookies across the web. For these users, more detail and, crucially, choice is required.

To match this mindset we need to ensure that a user has the ability to accept and reject various logical groupings of cookies (e.g. analytical cookies, marketing cookies) rather than a ‘one size fits all’ approach. There also needs to be a level of detail to adjoining text - even listing the exact cookies affected - with signposts to wider cookie policy.

“This banner/pop up is annoying me so I’m going to reject to punish them”

We’ve all been there. You’re rushed, stressed and you need to make an enquiry or buy an item online and you’re met with a cookie banner that stops you in your tracks and seems impossible to get rid of - in those circumstances three seconds trying to find the ‘X’ button is a lifetime.

This is a little trickier to address as we’re dealing with a somewhat unpredictable foe - the human mind on any given day. However, applying strong UX/UI principles to the banner will ensure the user experience will be as intuitive as possible and prevent the need for a cookie-inspired ‘rage quit’. This also extends to general site performance - for example improving site speeds and reducing cumulative layout shift.

Sometimes there’s nothing we can do when it comes to a user in convincing them to click yes in accepting cookies - habit and natural response is a hard nut to crack. However, just as when we adopt personas to get a better understanding of our users during site planning or in generating content, fully appreciating the various thought processes of our users when presented with a cookie banner will help us to maximise those users willing to give us their data and potential insights.

If you’d like any help in ensuring your cookie banner is as user friendly as possible or if you had any questions around cookie management in general (including an appraisal of your current set up)...

The reasons why users reject cookies and what they can teach us

Connecting creativity, strategy & technology

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Strategy

Technology

We design, develop and deliver memorable online experiences.

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Moving Fox forward with a fresh new site

PW7 - Telling a story, delivering a legacy

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A full-service digital agency

Insights

Team headshots when budget or geography get in the way

AI in PPC - are we there yet?

The reasons why users reject cookies and what they can teach us