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Articles by Adam
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Does Facebook advertising still work for e-commerce?
Does Facebook advertising still work for e-commerce?
The short answer is YES, of course, it bloody does! But things have changed..
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'The Age of Millennials' Engagement Excellence Live Seminar
'The Age of Millennials' Engagement Excellence Live Seminar
Get this one in your diaries..
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Adam Smith shared thisA lot of agencies spend far too much time learning platforms and nowhere near enough time learning about the people they're actually trying to sell to The platforms are always changing - Zuckerberg sneezes and we all feel it. I get it though, you have to keep on top of it, but we can only control the platform so much. What we can control is how well we understand the customer. What doesn't really change is why someone buys. What's putting them off, what they're worried about, how they talk about the product when they're telling a friend about it, that's the stuff that makes an ad work. So that's where we start at &Allies. Before we go anywhere near creative or media, we go and find out who the customer is, what they say in reviews, what they moan about on Reddit, what they actually care about, who else they're looking at, and then build everything off the back of that. It's the foundation that makes the rest of it work. that's the thinking behind "Media made human" at &Allies. If you're a B2C brand and any of that sounds familiar, drop me a message.
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Adam Smith shared thisBirmingham Venues - this one is for you! My friend, Aaron Higgins, is looking for a venue in Birmingham City Centre to host an event. If you know of anywhere that would be a good fit please drop me a message or contact Aaron directly.Adam Smith shared thisCalling all Birmingham venues! 📍 After a brilliant round table in Manchester a couple of weeks ago, deverellsmithmith is bringing the conversation to Birmingham. Were bringing together senior leaders from across the residential, housebuilder and developer market for an evening of honest discussion, fresh ideas and good company. Tabitha Allingham , Laura Croggon and I are now looking for the right venue. Well be hosting around 20 guests, so were after a space that feels intimate but still has room for everyone to talk and connect. Do you know somewhere great in Birmingham? Or would your business like to host us? Wed love to hear from you. Drop a comment or send me a message. #Birmingham #Networking #Housebuilders #Developers #Residential #Construction #RoundTable
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Adam Smith shared thisWe're into our fourth year of working with Birmingham Pride (UK) Ltd, and we couldn't be prouder to be supporting this fantastic event again 🏳️🌈 Over the years we've built a brilliant relationship with David and the team at Pride and it's a real privilege to play a part in something so important for the city and that means so much to so many people. Pride is great for Birmingham, it brings the city together, fills the streets with colour and energy, and shows the best of who we are as a community, but more than anything it's a reminder of why showing up and supporting each other matters. Here's to year four, and to many more
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Adam Smith shared thisOne of the things I'm proudest of at &Allies is our staff retention. This week we're celebrating two team members hitting five years with us, and next month one of the team reaches six years. Most of the team have now been with us for over four years. To put that in context, the latest IPA Agency Census shows UK agency staff turnover running at nearly 25% a year, so roughly one in four people move on every twelve months, and overall retention has dropped to under 70%. I've always believed in looking after & trusting your people and taking the time to employ 'right'. It's always a gamble, but Laura and I nailed it with our team and their longevity is testament to that. The best thing is that they teach me something every day. They lead the charge, they aren't afraid to positively challenge, and we have fun along the way. They put their colleagues first and always have our clients' best interests at heart. I couldn't ask for a better bunch.
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Adam Smith shared thisStruggling for creative ideas? One of the biggest challenges brands have when they first start a conversation with &Allies is knowing where to begin with creative ideation. Andromeda has changed the game on Meta, the platform feeds off creative diversity and variation, and there's no getting away from it if you want to see results but sitting down and saying "let's make loads of really engaging content that ultimately gets my customer to buy my products" is bloody hard work, and even the most creative folk who don't mind being in front of a camera find it a challenge to keep coming up with new ideas So how do you get to the point of having enough ideas to produce the content Meta needs? Ask your customers! Ask them what they love about your brand, what could be better, which competitors they like and why (and why not), then use their language to shape your messaging and creative. No creative is more powerful than a potential customer seeing something that totally hits the mark, sparks an emotional connection and ultimately solves their problem. Your customers will tell you all of this, you just have to ask.
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Adam Smith shared thisGreat morning at The eComplete Group Breakfast, hosted by Justin & Josh Elliott and one of those rare panels where founders were incredibly honest about raising funds and scaling Tom Bell from DrinkWell talked about the challenge of getting customers at scale, the pressure to raise, and getting creative with generating cash through EIS, SEIS and crowdfunding The bit that stuck with me was how he used data and AI to really understand the perfect product (wine in this case), make that, and let the product do the talking. Tom and the team did exactly that, they launched it, let the data run for 9–12 months and the data said this is the one. A great example of how to use AI Jordana Franks from Jordana Ticia Cosmetics started her brand at uni with her Grompa (hope I've spelt that right) off a £10k loan from family,. Jordana put every penny back into the business with TikTok Shop as a big driver, and she's now heading into 500 stores in the US She's stayed true to her brand and to herself, it isn't corporate, it's fun, and she's built a team around her with the skills to complement her own, so she can focus on driving the business forward. Sinéad Flood from July Child had her supply chain stuck in Covid and still hit 800% growth, doubling every year since and landing major retailers along the way. Sinead developed a strong relationship with her production team and private investment to help secure funding and grow, while being refreshingly open about the challenge of raising as a female founder - the stats around this are shocking and needs to change The common thread across all three was people, the right team, the right fund at the right time, and a lot of hustle Ben Lethbridge from Swap then did a presentation on agentic stores which was very cool, and as someone who definitely wants to try it on before buying, this one's for me. Oscar Vallance from Riverflow finished up with next-level AI content and a proper look at where things are heading. Very impressive stuff! Looking forward to the next one.
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Adam Smith shared thisSo proud of the &Allies team! Receiving feedback like this makes everything worthwhile and reinforces that our clients are in excellent hands with the people behind the agency.
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Adam Smith shared thisBack at it for eCom Collab Club® yesterday Adam Pearce - Shopify CRO Specialist up first, hosting a panel on what to do before BFCM Emilia H. opened with how TikTok is compressing the customer buying journey into such a short window. You can be scrolling and seemingly not in a mindset to purchase and then bam, you're in! Creators drive discovery, and with the right tactics they can get people to buy quickly and impulsively - speak to her as she knows a thing or 2 about this Chelsey Louise Edmunds from Escentual.com said the brands winning are the ones not afraid to discount their best sellers and building offers around what customers actually love. She shared a campaign that hit the highest AOV on Black Friday by giving customers everything upfront and frictionless to buy. Georgi Petrov from Uxify flagged that BFCM is the worst week to discover a problem, so prepare now. 7 Ps, people! Valeria Granda from Rebuy Engine backed that up, saying strong mobile UX matters because you can pay for traffic, but a poor experience makes that spend costly. Also great advice - Treat loyal customers well, don't take your eye off them chasing new ones, and don't forget the importance of a great post-purchase experience. Bryn Hassan from PerfectTed encouraged us to use the build up to BFCM for testing, since BFCM itself is race day. Give your best offer, remove friction, and don't overcomplicate. Perfect Ted's answer was pre-made bundles built on best-seller data, featuring a clear offer and frictionless checkout - simple yet effective. Nathan Lomax next, on what to do after BFCM. Janis Thomas from Clothes Doctor spoke about giving customers interesting promotions after BFCM via a variable reward system. The incentive doesn't have to be the same each time, but should keep people on their toes and interested enough to keep coming back. Building the habit is key; train customers to expect something interesting is coming. Alan Dowell from Escentual.com made the case for surveys as one of the most underused tools post-BFCM, using direct customer feedback to understand what actually drove performance rather than guessing from the numbers alone, and feeding that straight back into how the next campaign gets planned. Love this! Charlotte Aytan (Ayoub) from TLC SPORT suggested Flash Fridays as a good lead-up to Black Friday, getting the consumer into the buying mindset and prepped for BFCM. And shared great advice - keep it classy, keep it relevant, and always let your customers know they're appreciated. Connor Blakey from GoKwik shared that WhatsApp gets a 92% open rate with an average of 27 opens a day! Surely a channel worth testing for BFCM and beyond. Anthony Barone discussed the importance of prepping way in advance and continuously improving FAQ's, product pages etc - and not stopping just because BFCM is over, because the job's never finished. Great panellists and another great ECC. Shout out to Adam & Nath for stellar hosting, as per.
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Adam Smith posted thisCreative. Offer. Landing page. All of these matter and they're not competing for importance. They're dependent on each other, and a weak link in any one of them drags the others down with it. Brilliant creative with a weak offer gets attention and no conversions. People stop scrolling, read the ad, feel nothing urgent enough to act on, and carry on scrolling. You've paid for the impression and got nothing back for it. A strong offer with forgettable creative never even gets seen. The creative's job is to stop someone mid-scroll, so if it doesn't grab them in the first three seconds, nobody sticks around long enough to find out what the offer actually is. The best offer in the world is worthless if nobody reads it. And great creative plus a great offer, sent through to a landing page that doesn't follow through, might be the most painful version of the lot. You've done the hard part twice, you've earned the click, and then the page loads slowly or the message doesn't quite match what the ad promised, and the customer bounces feeling a bit misled rather than convinced. Each one's a checkpoint the customer has to clear before they buy, and they're only as strong as the weakest of the three. So when a campaign's underperforming, we never look at one piece on its own, we look at whether all three are joined up and actually telling the same story to the same person.
Adam Smith replied to a comment
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Md Hridoy Hossain I believe it comes down to trust, empowerment, flexibility and communication.
We trust the team to do a good job and make the right decisions, and we empower them to make those decisions and even fail, as long as there's a rationale behind it. We give them flexibility and a genuine work-life balance, and we communicate the good, the bad and the ugly so they can make informed decisions about their career with us
Adam Smith replied to a comment
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Liam Brown All of the above, anywhere the customer is talking about the product, brand or category.
We encourage clients to survey their customers, and we also to dig into forums, online groups, reviews, testimonials and what competitors' customers are saying.
People speak openly in those spaces, so if you can tap into it you're setting yourself up to produce some great creative, because you'll be speaking their language, literally
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Adam Smith liked thisAdam Smith liked thisIt was a pleasure to welcome the team from Mangrove Global Ltd. our UK spirits distribution partner, to The English Distillery this week. It was a great opportunity to spend time together, share our vision and look ahead to an exciting 2027 as we continue to grow the brand and bring our spirits to more people across the UK. Great to see you, Nick Gillett, Joel Defries, Chris Pollard, Matthieu de Lassus, Claire Tippins and Casey Richmond — thanks for making the trip! 🥃 Here’s to an exciting year ahead! 🙌 #englishwhisky #partnerships #Norfolk #2027 Andrew Nelstrop Michael Fisher
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Adam Smith liked thisAdam Smith liked thisLast week I took my first week off this year. And it's not something I’m particularly proud of. But it turns out, even when you're a one-woman band, the business doesn't collapse the moment you step away. So who knows, next year I might even manage two weeks. (Okay, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself)
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Adam Smith liked thisAdam Smith liked this“Will - would you be happy if I could get you 100 new business leads a week?” I get this email about 50 times a week. And the answer is a firm “No”. I’m not sure if there are any agency leaders out there that would want an unqualified pipeline like this? Over the last decade our growth has come from: 1️⃣ Personal referrals from people who know what we do 2️⃣ Clients moving roles and taking us with them 3️⃣ Meeting people out and about and organically getting to know each other 4️⃣ People seeing our work and wanting the same results for their own brand 5️⃣ Other agencies bringing us in to help deliver projects Sure, personal referrals can often be slower, but we have always found they tend to lead to longer, deeper and more honest relationships. I’m not saying don’t have your own outbound systems, we have our own way of doing it, but in today’s fractrured agency landscape, knowing the human first will always win.
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Adam Smith liked thisAdam Smith liked thisToday, the team and I had the pleasure of celebrating a significant milestone at the Daresbury Park Hotel, part of the Elite Venue Selection collection. Over the last 12 months, an incredible amount of work, dedication and teamwork has gone into a major transformation of the hotel. Seeing how far we've come is something everyone involved should be immensely proud of. Joined by Councillor Pamela Wallace, we marked the occasion with a special ribbon-cutting ceremony, celebrating not just a refurbishment, but the beginning of an exciting new chapter for the hotel. A huge thank you to everyone who joined us throughout the day — local businesses, community partners, members of the press, colleagues and friends. Your support means so much and reflects the strong connections we continue to build within our local community. Moments like these remind us what can be achieved when people come together with a shared vision. This milestone is a testament to the passion, commitment and hard work of our entire team and the wider Elite Venue Selection family, whose dedication has helped bring this transformation to life. As we continue to evolve, we're proud to be creating places where guests can explore, unwind and escape, while delivering memorable experiences and strengthening our connection with the communities we serve. #EliteVenueSelection #Hospitality #Teamwork #Transformation #Community #Leadership #HotelLife #DaresburyParkHotel #HospitalityExcellence
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Adam Smith reacted on thisAdam Smith reacted on thisA personal update and date change for the Agency Slap Summit The past few weeks haven’t looked anything like I had expected them to. That, I guess, is the unpredictability of life. But before I write anything more, I would like to thank everyone who has supported Agency Slap Summit so far: our brilliant speakers, every person who has bought a ticket, the wider agency community; and of course, my team. The care and dedication you have put into the summit has not gone unnoticed, and I appreciate it deeply. Following the recent and sudden bereavement of my eldest brother, my focus has naturally had to shift. And while I am very grateful to have a team that has allowed me to do this, this has not been an easy time. It has meant I have not been able to give the summit the energy and the attention that it deserves. If you know me well, and many of you do, you will know that I am a person who likes to keep my word. The postponement of Agency Slap Summit has not been an easy decision to make; but ultimately, I want to host an event that speaks to the level of quality and creativity that I know my team and I are wholly capable of. Behind every agency is a leader who is also a father, a son, a brother. Dedicating my energy to my health and loved ones right now ensures we can return with the full focus needed to pour into the summit for next year. It feels like the right thing to do. If you have bought a ticket, you will be fully refunded, or you have the choice to hold onto it for the new Agency Slap Summit date in 2027. Please let us know which of these options you prefer. Thank you for your continued understanding and support. I can assure you, when we launch Agency Slap Summit in 2027, it will be a true testament to the talent in our industry. Like no other. With gratitude, Cas
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Adam Smith liked thisAdam Smith liked thisI need to tell you about the best day in my October. Connect LDN is back on the 15th October, in London, and tickets are free for brands. It's the event that started DTC Live, and I genuinely think it's the best day on the UK eCom calendar. You get lightning talks and fast panels from founders who have scaled brands themselves. They tell you what worked and what didn't, and there are barely any slides. 🙌🏻 If you run a brand, grab your free ticket here: https://lnkd.in/eNnfnks8
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Adam Smith liked thisAdam Smith liked thisThe moment has arrived… We've officially launched a world first: an alcohol-free ale for the handpump 🍺 Our hand-pulled Ghost Ship Alcohol Free is brewery conditioned, served at cellar temperature (11–13°C), and dispensed with a soft, easy-drinking carbonation. It gives drinkers the full hand-pull experience with none of the alcohol. Now, when you get a round in, everyone gets a proper hand-pulled pint. After extensive development by our brewing team and successful trials in our own pubs, it's ready for the bar. For pubs, it's easy to manage and serve, and it means alcohol-free ale can finally move out of the fridge and onto the bar, where everyone can see it. It's a way to get great alcohol-free ale into more pubs and in front of more drinkers. And guess what… We've only gone and won Drinks Innovation of the Year at the Trade Drinks Expo! Come and pull a pint with us on our stand this afternoon, or in a pub near you.
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