Wayne
We’ve Done it Again!
Like the weather, Twilo’s form has been red hot over the past couple of months. In last month’s blog we celebrated record numbers for a couple of the sites we advertise, and Reto Finance in particular had their best-ever month for loans written. The very next month we went and did it again, this time almost doubling the previous record! That’s what happens when the client and the agency are working to the same plan, with everyone pointed in the same direction. Putting your faith in a team to spend your money the right way is a big decision, results like this go a long way to repaying that faith.
Continuing to Push Claude to Automate my Day
I’ve been fanboying Claude for months now and I’ve recently developed a Google Ads auditing tool using it. The tool connects securely to Google Ads with a read-only view of accounts, so it can see everything and change nothing, which is exactly how I want it.
It looks for opportunities where budget can be spent more efficiently, and it watches for short and long-term trends and alerts me to them before it’s too late.
The part I’m most pleased with is the best-practice library I’ve developed. The tool has a library of Google Ads best practices sourced from Google’s own documentation, with each entry cross-referenced against an industry thought-leader for validation. The tool proactively checks our accounts against Google’s this library, alerting me to anything that isn’t best practice. If either source changes, it alerts me to it, allowing me to check the Google and third-party source, and update the documentation if necessary.
Each morning the tool emails me what it’s found in the accounts and turns it into a task list ordered by priority, with budget optimisation the highest priority, so I start the day knowing exactly what needs attention.
For me, this is exactly what AI tools are for. A recent survey shows that the most common task completed by AI tools is copywriting, but Claude can do so much more than that. Everything this tool does for me can be done manually, but a review which previously would have taken a couple of hours per account every day is now delivered to my inbox ready for me to read when I wake up in the morning.
Another World Cup Wondering What Might Have Been
We can’t talk about July without talking about the World Cup.
If you were born in England in the late 90s or early 2000s, you’ve had it really good! You turned 18 around the time England reached a World Cup semi-final for the first time since 1990, and since then you’ve watched a run of semi-final, final, quarter-final, final, semi-final.
I promise you, it hasn’t always been like this. Thirty years of hurt turned into 60, and during that time we failed to qualify for some tournaments and fell out at the group stage in others.
This one was painful and another – like Euro 2020 – where you wonder what might have been had the manager kept pushing rather trying to hang on to a slender lead, against a side with Lionel Messi in it. But we’ve got another two years to prepare for Euro 2028, which is just enough time to forget about the World Cup and get lost in the dream of football coming home again!
Andrew
Exciting Projects
This month, it’s been a mixed bag of carrying out routine server maintenance and working on a new portal to manage enquiry journeys for energy renewables. This has been a very exciting project to work on as it has allowed us to integrate with some cool tools such as the government’s EPC lookup service to make the journey that much easier for customers.
This project has been a good step up from the journeys we are used to building. This time, we had to work out the best way to package multiple journeys together like solar PV and solar batteries that can be deployed on any part of the target website.
We are on the last steps for this now and I am really excited to see it finished and live.
Server Upgrades
It’s been that time again where we have needed to do software updates on our live servers and websites to ensure we are not running deprecated or unsupported versions. Whenever we perform these updates, you always have to keep sharp eye out as the things you expect to break with an update are fine and the things you thought will go smoothly do not.
It’s a great exercise regardless with lots of challenging problem solving and the results is that we extend the life of our websites for more years to come.
Birthday Gifts
It was my 25th birthday early on this month. I didn’t get up to much in terms of celebrations but I did get a card signed by everyone on entering the office with a box of chocolates (I ate those before taking a photo. Sorry!).
A few months back I had bought a cheap coffee machine that tripped the fuse for the house within the first few weeks of having it. So, I got an awesome new one for my birthday as a gift from my parents and I am loving it so far:
Finishing the Month With a Weekend in Leeds
For the last weekend of July, I had gone to watch the Odyssey on the Friday evening. I’m a big fan of fantasy, mythology and ancient Greece so this film already had everything for me. I therefore can’t give a fair review, but it was a film I really enjoyed.
On the Saturday, I had a few appointments, so we just made the day out of it. We went to get some coffee, do a bit of shopping and have a couple of pints by Brewery Wharf.
Reece
What I’ve Been Building
This month has been spread across a few different sites, and a good number of them have gone live. Always a good feeling watching a build go from something we’ve been working away on behind the scenes to something people can actually get their hands on. It’s the part of the job that makes all the earlier graft worth it.
There’s a real satisfaction in seeing people land on a site and start interacting with it, clicking through and using the bits you spent time getting right. That’s the whole point of it, so it’s nice when it all comes together and gets out there. The small details you sweat over during the build are the ones that make it feel considered once it’s live, and it’s good to see them doing their job.
Alongside the launches, I’ve been working on projects for a few different clients, building out new sections and adding to existing sites. Plenty of variety this month, which keeps things interesting and makes for a good mix of work. Jumping between different brands and briefs keeps it fresh, and there’s always something new to figure out.
There was also a bit of good news on the work front this month that means a little more responsibility going forward. Grateful for the trust, and looking forward to what comes with it.
Away From the Screen
Busy one. The World Cup took up a fair bit of it. England going out in the semi-final stung. There was genuine optimism before it all kicked off, then the usual England fan resignation crept back in as it went on. Still, I got to watch the semi on the big screen in Millennium Square in Leeds, and the atmosphere down there more than made up for the result. Hundreds of people packed in, everyone into it, the kind of thing that’s worth going for even when it doesn’t go your way.
Also had a great weekend away in Wales. The weather held out the whole time, which never hurts, and after a day of hiking there’s not much better than getting in the sea. The beach and the water were both spot on, and a swim after being on your feet all day is hard to beat.
And there was a fair at the end of my street, which turned out to be more interesting than I expected. The highlight was a huge robotic hippo, equal parts weird and brilliant. Some good stalls too, plenty to have a look around, and I came away with some good honey to add to the collection.
What’s Next
Good month all round. Sites live, a bit of football heartbreak, a swim in Wales, and a robotic hippo on my doorstep. Hard to complain about that. On to August.
Liam
All my holidays came around at once this month, with weddings, stag do’s and camping trips. Inside of work I’ve been on some branding and print projects, as well as helping finish off a website for a renewable energy product supplier.
The Renewable Energy Website Nears Completion
I spoke about this one last month as it’s been a real joy to work on. This month the Devs have been hard at work building out my designs, and I’ve been following them along their process helping with testing and any design tweaks that need doing as they build. The project involves a website and a custom product builder journey, which comes with its own dashboard to allow the client to track submission and enquiries. This means it’s one of those projects that lands on everyone’s desks, from design, right through front end and finishing with back end. These are my favourite types of project as its great working closely with the team and its nice to be able to say that we all hand a part to play in the final product.
Good Old Graphic Design
Outside of the web projects I’ve been working on, I’ve also been doing some good old-fashioned Graphic Design work. Graphic Design as a term feels really vague these days as it encompasses so many different things. But for me this month it has meant developing some small sub-brands, creating a logo for one of our client’s internal IT teams, designing van wraps for a fleet of new vans and creating banners for one of our websites (among other things).
Leading a Brand Workshop
I also had the privilege this month of creating and leading a brand workshop for one of our long standing clients. Their sister company has always been treated as the ‘cheaper alternative’ to their main brand, and they wanted to give it its own presence and story so it could stand on its own and step out of the shadow of the main brand. This lead to an in-person meeting with the client where we took them through a curated brand workshop to try and distil some meaning and purpose from the sister brand. It was a super successful meeting and we came away with some great insight that we wouldn’t have otherwise known.
Outside of work
It’s been a crazy month for holidays. I started the month in Amsterdam for a friends stag do, then half-way through the month we went camping with some friends in Grassington, then the last week of the month were spent in Provence at my wife’s cousins wedding. Not a bad month when all’s said and done!
Laura
A New Client
One of the most exciting parts of July for me has been getting to know a new client that we’ll be starting work on soon. There’s always something really enjoyable about the start of a new account. It’s exciting to get stuck in and I enjoy all the variety it brings!
Updating the Channels
A good chunk of this month has gone into making sure our clients’ social channels feel right for the time of year. July has been a great month for that kind of work and it’s always satisfying when you can see it making a difference in the insights.I’ve also been putting a lot of time into Reels and more interactive content this month, particularly Stories with polls, questions and other interactive elements. I’ve been A/B testing different approaches and spending time in the insights to work out what’s actually working and what isn’t. It takes time to build up a clear picture but it’s so worth it when it starts to come together.
Watch This Space!
The team have got some really exciting projects in the works at the moment. More on that next month!
First School Summer Holidays!
Out of work, we are two weeks into our very first school summer holidays as a family and it’s fair to say we’re still figuring it out! There’s a lot of juggling going on but we’re loving the balance of work and time with the kids. Not having the school run every morning is an unexpected bonus that I’m enjoying. We’ve also got a holiday coming up in August which we are all looking forward to!
Nicola
Projects and Planning
July has been a combination of managing projects to completion and planning for the future. We have been looking at recruitment, restructure and redefining roles within the business, streamlining to maximise efficiency. Lots of projects on the go too; design, website and portal development for clients and server upgrades, all keeping us busy. We’ve completed additional pages and updated web designs for existing clients and have new projects on the horizon.
Away from Work
We’ve had further heatwaves this month around the time of school end-of-term which has been challenging for the children when so much is going on – fairs, performances and sports days in 30+ degrees heat! All good fun though and now into the school holidays.
For our annual family holiday we were lucky enough to go to a beautiful house in Provence, which fortunately had a swimming pool, much needed in temperatures of 36-38 degrees! The hilly landscape was beautiful, olive trees and cypresses everywhere, though we were too late for the lavender which had already been harvested.
One of our outings was to walk the Van Gogh trail in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence which led to the hospital Saint-Paul de Mausole – a former monastery and then psychiatric hospital where Van Gogh stayed during period of mental illness. Though still in use, the hospital also had museum areas which recreated his room as it would have been, and an ‘isolation cell’ complete with straight-jackets.
