We are thrilled to announce that Intelligency, has been honoured with the prestigious Northern Enterprise Award 2023 for the Best International Boutique Marketing Agency. This accolade highlights our unwavering commitment to excellence and innovation in the dynamic world of marketing.

Intelligency has been extremely fortunate to enjoy working with a wide range of clients domestic and abroad. In 2023, we expanded our relationship with streaming giant ‘Viaplay’ which saw us roll out our venue finder for their Scandinavian markets.

What is the Northern Enterprise Award?

The Northern Enterprise Awards, hosted annually, celebrates the industriousness, creativity, and dedication of businesses located in the northern regions. It recognizes companies that have consistently demonstrated excellence in their sector, offering innovative solutions and outstanding customer service. Winning this award is a testament to a company’s exceptional performance, resilience, and contribution to the economy.

Continued success

Receiving the Northern Enterprise Award is a significant achievement for Intelligency. It places us among the great agencies in international marketing, acknowledging our unique approach, global reach, and the impactful results we deliver for our clients. This award is not just a recognition of our current success; it’s a beacon guiding us towards future innovation and excellence in the international marketing arena.

A word from Sean Walsh, Co-Director at Intelligency;

“I am incredibly proud of our team for achieving this remarkable feat. Winning the Northern Enterprise Award for Best International Boutique Marketing Agency is a significant milestone in Intelligency’s journey. This accolade is a reflection of our team’s hard work, creativity, and relentless pursuit of marketing excellence.

Our approach has always been client-centric, focusing on delivering tailor-made, impactful marketing strategies that drive success. This award strengthens our resolve to continue pushing the boundaries and setting new benchmarks in the marketing industry.”

Looking Ahead

As we celebrate this achievement, we remain committed to upholding the standards that earned us this award. Intelligency will continue to innovate, inspire, and lead in the international marketing landscape, delivering exceptional services to our clients worldwide.

Thank you to the Northern Enterprise Awards for this honour, and a huge thank you to our clients and partners for their ongoing support and trust in Intelligency.

It’s Yorkshire Day! To celebrate, Intelligency has looked at the history of our office’s location – Dean Clough Mills. Dean Clough, formerly known as Crossley Carpets, is rich in its history, spanning over 22 acres and has 16 Grade II listed buildings.

Having been the largest carpet manufacturer in the late 1800s and early to mid-twentieth century the mills boast unique architecture and fragments of its history, we have collected some of the earliest photography and provided pictures of the current day to demonstrate the evolution of Dean Clough.

Intelligency Director, Sean Walsh, said:

“Relocating our operations to Dean Clough Mills in Halifax signified our entry into a venue with a deep historical resonance. This location stands as a colossal testament to the town’s history, and its continued relevance is echoed by the groundbreaking, leading-edge companies that call it home.

As a business owner, there’s a profound satisfaction in selecting an office environment enriched by such a deep-rooted history, thriving community, and distinctive features. Dean Clough Mills exemplifies the revitalizing spirit of Northern companies, as they infuse these old mill buildings with renewed vitality and purpose. These establishments might otherwise have lain dormant or faced demolition in favor of less remarkable structures. Our decision to move here was significantly influenced by the sustainable benefits of such adaptive reuse.

Incredibly, despite the Mills undergoing significant transformations in recent years, including the attraction of diverse businesses and a feature in Marvel’s Disney+ show ‘Secret Invasion,’ the exterior remains largely unaltered. Preserving this architectural integrity is vital, acting as a tangible connection to the past while embracing the present and future.”

Historical image source: A Livermore (1932)

In a dazzling evening filled with exceptional talent at the West Yorkshire Apprenticeship Awards, our very own Eliot Ferrier was crowned ‘Apprentice of the Year’ in the Tech & Digital category. The event took place at the radiant Tileyard North in Wakefield, celebrating the immense achievements of apprentices and their employers from all over West Yorkshire.

Eliot’s journey with us at Intelligency began in September 2021. A novice in the digital marketing industry, he had no prior experience when he signed up for our apprenticeship programme. Fast-forward 20 months, and Eliot has morphed into an invaluable asset to our team, outshining all expectations. His success story includes not only completing his apprenticeship this past March but also earning his first promotion within the company.

When asked about his award-winning journey, Eliot exuded humility and gratitude, stating,

“I was really happy to be recognised for the hard work I’ve been putting in since I started my apprenticeship. It was good to have the support of my family, partner, and the company behind me, and I’m glad I was able to make them all proud.”

The waves of Eliot’s success have reached the top, as evidenced by our Director, Sean Walsh’s words. He celebrated Eliot’s achievement, saying,

“We couldn’t be prouder to witness Eliot’s hard work crystallising into this spectacular award. His journey illustrates the heights achievable through hard work, dedication, and passion. Eliot’s future in the digital world is undoubtedly bright, and we consider ourselves fortunate to have him on our team.”

Sean continued, “2023 has been incredibly promising, with the inauguration of our new offices at Dean Clough Mills, a flurry of new client wins, and a team growing in strength. Eliot’s triumph is undoubtedly the icing on the cake!”

To all the winners and nominees who showcased their talents, and the organizers and sponsors who made this event possible, we extend our hearty congratulations. It truly was an unforgettable night of celebration and camaraderie for all in attendance.

Eliot from Intelligency had a wonderful opportunity to speak to Wakefield College’s year 12 IT Students on Monday.

Working together with Curtis Holt from Binary Managed Solutions (BMS), they both delivered presentations on IT, Networks, Network Security, and Digital Marketing.

Eliot and Curtis spoke about the exciting and rapidly evolving fields of IT, Digital Marketing, and Network Security. The event was a great success and provided valuable insights and information to the students and teachers.

What Curtis spoke about

Curtis Holt from BMS kicked off the day by talking about IT, networks, and network security. He highlighted what services BMS provide, his job role, and how you can get into working in IT. Curtis also shared best practices for IT management and implementation.

In the afternoon, Curtis stressed the importance of network security in protecting sensitive information. This was carried out by explaining the different types of web attacks, as well as how modern companies can protect against them.

What Eliot spoke about

Eliot’s expertise and passion for Digital Marketing were evident throughout his presentation. He explained the critical role that digital marketing plays in business growth, and offered some strategies to the students. Eliot spoke about how to segment audiences, how to create a social media strategy, and defined SEO.

Wakefield’s IT students thanked Eliot for the presentation, as it was relevant to their current learning.

What came next

After the presentations, the students were tasked were given a brief for a fictional company and tasked with putting their knowledge from the session to the test. The students needed to create a company network by purchasing the relevant equipment such as servers and computers.

We’ll see how that goes before the 20th when the winning group will be decided and a prize is awarded.

Overall, the event was a great success and had a positive impact on the students and attendees. It provided a unique opportunity for them to learn about IT, digital marketing, and network security from people who work in the field.

Intelligency Group and BMS are highly successful in their respective fields, and the event provided valuable insights and information to those who attended.

If you would like to learn more about Intelligency Group and BMS, please visit our websites and follow our blogs for updates and news.

Once again, thank you to Wakefield College and Binary Managed Solutions for giving Intelligency this invaluable experience.

Intelligency has been awarded ‘Most Innovative Data Intelligence Provider‘ in the 2022 Northern Enterprise Awards by SME News. The Northern Enterprise Awards celebrates the industriousness and dedication of the businesses and enterprises hailing from the north of England.

This is the second year in a row that we’ve finished the year with an award for our digital intelligence team having been placed #20 in the ‘Top 100 MediaTech Innovators‘ list in 2021.

Intelligency Director, Sean Walsh, said;

“We’re extremely pleased to have been awarded an Northern Enterprise Award. A lot of the work we undertake is relatively niche and there are few companies globally that do what we do, so it’s pleasing for our team to receive this recognition.

2022 was a great year for us. We have won some great new clients in the likes of Viaplay and allweare.com, moved to larger premises (more on that soon!) and this award just tops it off. None of it could be done without our fantastic team and wonderful clients, so thank you.”

You can read more about the Northern Enterprise Awards in our article.

Welcome to another installment of our weekly digital roundup looking at some of the industry’s news in the last week. As ever, feel free to share, Like and retweet if you like what you read.

Facebook rebrands to ‘Meta’

The biggest news of the week of course is that Facebook have announced a rebrand for the company name to ‘Meta’. It’s important to distinguish that their flagship platform and app, will remain ‘Facebook’. Likewise, Whatsapp and Instagram will continue to exist under their original brand names.

The rebrand allows the California based giant to create some distance from the historical ‘Facebook’ name following a period of negative PR generated by a whistleblower. The step to rebrand mirrors that of another digital colossus, Google, who restructured their company and rebranded their corporate entity to ‘Alphabet’ back in 2015.

Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, also announced a desire to create a ‘metaverse’ – a 3D/VR online world where ‘avatars’ could interact virtually. Virtual worlds are not exactly ground-breaking, with the likes of Second Life and Active Worlds being available as early as 1995.

Google: Site quality can affect loss of rich results

Google’s John Mueller suggested in a recent Q&A session that poor site quality could lead to a loss of rich results (like FAQ schema).

Mueller stated:

“I think there are two things that might have happened… It’s hard to say offhand. One is that we might have re-evaluated the quality of your website overall at about the same time that you made those changes. It’s probably more of a coincidence if that were the case.

But it could be that we kind of like are not that convinced about this website anymore. And if we’re not convinced about the website, then usually we don’t show any rich results. And that would include the FAQs.”

More than half of UK consumers start Christmas shopping early due to availability issues

A study of over 6,000 consumers globally has found that 52% of consumers stated they had already started their Christmas shopping. The most important factor consumers will consider when undertaking their Christmas shopping this year is cost (59%). Getting value for money came in second at 52% and ensuring that the product was in stock was third at 43%.

For e-commerce clients, this only reinforces the need to act now (if they haven’t already) to make sure that their Christmas promotional activity and strategy is in place. Supply chain disruption is higher than normal this year owing to Brexit, COVID and HGV driver shortage. Brands need to make sure they capitalise on this surge in Christmas shopping sooner, rather than later. This is particularly relevant when just 13% of respondents suggested they would start Christmas shopping in December.

URL length doesn’t matter in SEO according to Google

URL length has long been a topic of discussion in the SEO world. The general consensus has been that shorter, neater and concise URLs are better for user experience and better for search engines.

However, this week, Google’s John Mueller revealed that “URL length doesn’t matter”. Mueller stated that as long as they are shorter than 1,000 characters then it should be ok. However, he did state that shorter URLs were likely to be prioritised over longer ones when it came to canonicalization.

Instagram allows URLs in Stories for all users

Yes, you read that right. Instagram is finally allowing all users to share links in stories. It has long be a real thorn in the side of content creators that they couldn’t easily append links to Stories. The change is likely to see webmasters reporting a higher level of traffic from Instagram and should prove beneficial for brands and creators that rely on Instagram as a platform.

The only caveat is that newly created accounts will not be able to immediately add URLs to Stories, presumably to avoid new accounts being created for link spam. Likewise, accounts that breach Instagram community guidelines (e.g. for misinformation, hate speech, racism etc) may find that they are unable to make use of links.

Read Instagram’s announcement to find out how to create links in Instagram Stories straight away.

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Thanks for reading and as ever, if you have any questions or need help with your digital strategy, please feel free to contact us.

We’re delighted to announce that we have been listed in position 20 in this year’s Top 100 MediaTech Innovators list. The ranking celebrates the UK companies creating original tech to transform production and delivery of media.

Our top 20 position was decided by a mix of public vote and from a judging panel comprised of industry experts from the likes of Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, MediaCity UK & Department for International Trade.

Our innovative digital intelligence technology is used by brands nationwide. In the last 12 months we’ve helped major players in the healthcare industry with digital audience profiling, protected UEFA Champions League clubs from online harm & have seen record growth in turnover.

Our Intelligence Director, Liam Walsh, commented;

I’m delighted that our digital intelligence work in the media sector has been recognised by such a prestigious panel of judges and that we’re amongst some leading names in media tech.

The work we do with our client base is at the cutting edge of digital intelligence and we’re always exploring new ways to adapt and develop technology to help us provide practical solutions to complex problems.

Innovation is at the heart of everything we do at Intelligency, so it’s a real pleasure to see this recognised by the industry.

If your business is interested in finding out more about powering and protecting your brand online, please get in touch with us on info@intelligencygroup.com.

Thanks again to our wonderful clients, friends and peers who voted for us.

As 2020 draws to an end and we close our offices until next year, we just wanted to say thanks to all of our amazing clients who have supported our business in what has been a challenging year for everyone. Keeping the business running through dark and difficult times is one thing, but growing it is something else.

We’re delighted to report that 2020 was another record year of growth in terms of turnover and profit despite COVID and that we’ve been involved in some really exciting projects with clients. Some highlights include:

• Essentially being in lockdown since March we’ve been able to adapt our day-to-day operations with almost entirely home working processes in place across our team and partners.
• We’ve launched 5 e-commerce websites in 6 months with enormous success reporting over £400k of additional revenue to clients that hadn’t previously “sold online”.
• Won 5 new clients solely through client referrals whilst retaining 90% of our clients through the pandemic.
• Helped launch 3 new businesses online with support on website development, paid social and SEO.
• Designed and developed fully integrated Google Data Studio Dashboards to help unite reporting for all digital marketing channels into one dynamic outlet.
• Integrated 5 Premier League football clubs into our digital intelligence platform.
• Delivered YoY growth for organic traffic for every single one of our SEO clients despite the impact of lockdown.

2021 will hopefully see some return to normality for us all and we can’t wait to get back to reporting our results face-to-face with all our clients. In our pipeline we’re looking forward to:

• Partnering with 3 new clients in January
• Expanding our content team
• Massively upgrading our audience profiling technology & tools

Until then, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and prosperous new year.

Intelligency

Following substantial turnover growth in our last financial year and successful new client growth, we’ve taken the decision to merge our two businesses – acuity (digital marketing) and fiacuity (digital intelligence) – under one brand.

‘Intelligency’ sees these two brands become one and we’re delighted to now communicate our brand as a full-service digital intelligence company.

As our start-up continues to grow, we feel the need to simplify what we do and make sure that our own digital marketing strategy is clear, unified and straight-forward. Rebranding to ‘Intelligency’ means that we’re confident in our digital intelligence credentials and that we can provide something different outside the usual digital agency offering.

Our offices remain at the fantastic Piece Mill in Halifax and our offering will combine our digital intelligence services from fiacuity (such as historic social media vetting & analysis) with our acuity digital marketing team (who are regularly securing amazing results for our SEO, Digital PR and Content clients).

In the last 12 months we’ve worked with some of Europe’s largest and leading football clubs, healthcare brands, aesthetics companies, online retailers and technology companies. We’ve had our work published in the likes of the Guardian, The Independent and the Daily Mail. As our company grows, we have to make sure that our brand grows along with it.

We’re hugely excited for the future and look forward to taking our next steps in the ‘start-up journey’.

Sean & Liam (Directors)

The release of the Deloitte top 20 richest clubs always provokes debates, with conversations ranging from ‘well my club has more money and is therefore much bigger!’, to ‘well this proves money just buys you glory supporters’. This year the hot topic in the UK has revolved around why Newcastle currently fighting of relegation from England’s Top 20 and spending little money, are also sitting in Europe’s Top 20 wealthiest clubs?

However, the question the team at fiacuity were most interested to ask was, ‘Is there a correlation between wealth and support online?’ and therefore we have pulled together the social data for these wealthy teams and compared them across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Social Media vs. Revenue Rankings

The table below shows the followings of each club in relation to their revenue:

Moreover, the global size of West Ham and Newcastle also marries up with their position on Deloitte’s table which should come as no surprise. That being said, there are more than a few anomalies in the data which are worth exploring:There are some clear insights we can see quite obviously such as Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United backing up their riches comfortably, with the most followers worldwide. Whilst Real and Barcelona have been winning trophies consistently in the last 5 years, it appears that the global brand of Manchester United is powerful enough to survive and grow in spite of the on-pitch performances.

Juventus

Juventus provide us with the most fascinating problem. The club sits 11th in the Richest Ranking, however, they come 7th on Twitter, 8th on Facebook and 4th on Instagram. It can be deduced from this that Juventus’s current form, as well as the monumental signing of Cristiano Ronaldo, has likely skyrocketed their global brand to make them one of the most popular clubs worldwide. Have a read of our article how Ronaldo’s signing saw Juve gain some 24 million Likes on Instagram in just a week.

Man City

Manchester City undoubtedly has one of the most talented teams and managers in world football, and their position of 5th on Deloitte is a testament to their spending power. However, across social media they still have ground to make up on the chasing pack coming 10th on Instagram, the fastest growing global social media platform being the biggest red flag. In fairness, this shouldn’t be a huge worry as Man City have only recently become a major club in the last decade, and as a result by 2020 we would have expected them to continue to grow across Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Chelsea

Arguably Chelsea have been the club that has most benefited from the timing of their success and the birth of social media and this is reflected in their ranking as:

Chelsea began winning the Premier League in 2005, which coincided with the rise of Facebook, whilst their sustained success over the last 10 years has allowed them to also take advantage of Twitter & Facebook. Consequently, we can see that they are faring better in the social media game than their Deloitte position.

What does this mean?

Whilst data can’t tell the whole story, and none of this dictates who has the ‘best fans’ or even the most innovative social media (@ASRoma would take some beating), it does show us global support across a medium that has become startlingly important in the last decade. We use social media as a way to make the world smaller as well as give our opinions on everything from food to politics. In terms of football, the table above shows that, unsurprisingly, wealth does equate to global profile. For many of these clubs, if not all, social media is not just a brand marketing platform, but a lucrative channel for sponsorship activation, crisis management and additional revenue generation.

The most successful clubs have already been looking at how they can best utilise their wealth of data to improve fan engagement, drive ticket sales and leverage technologies such as display retargeting. The role of retargeting pixels, CRM systems and data APIs are only likely to become more valuable in the coming years. To find out more about how the fiacuity digital intelligence platform can help clubs generate more revenue from their marketing activity, get in touch with us today for a chat.