You may or may not already know that on the 1st July 2023 the current Google Universal Analytics will no longer process any new data and the new Google Analytics 4 property is going to take its place. The good news is that Google Analytics 4 is here to make tracking your website easier, but the bad news is that it won't carry across your current analytics data. We want to make sure your website is ready for the change by migrating across to the new Google Analytics 4 property. We’re here to help you understand the next steps you should take.
Universal Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic.
Google Analytics 4, also known as GA4, is a new and improved version of Universal Analytics. It’s been introduced to effectively collect and analyse data - using all the good parts of Universal Analytics and adding additional, advanced features that aim to improve the data collecting service.
The main difference between GA4 and Universal Analytics is that where Universal was built to collect a series of page views, GA4 has been built to analyse anything from page views to clicks, form submissions and even custom events that you can tailor to your conversional requirements.
GA4 can:
Why should I move to GA4?
Well to put it plainly GA4 is more powerful, more flexible and more accurate.
If you want to be able to analyse useful data from your site or app then you should move to GA4 - you’ll get the chance to access all the new features and capabilities, but you’ll also be able to take advantage of GA4’s continued learning and improvement.
Also if you don’t want to risk losing your data you should make the move as Google will be discontinuing Universal Analytics in July 2023, so you’ll have to upgrade anyway.
Think about it this way, if you move your tracking now it means you’ll have a year's worth of data in a new platform, rather than having to put up with a blackout period during your transition. It also gives you a chance to get used to the new system and see how you like it.
Migrating to GA4 will involve a lot of documentation and information, which can be quite overwhelming if you’re not a Google Analytics whizz. Which is why Eat Marketing is here to take the load off of you and help you do this.
Now!
If you want to save the ‘future you’ a lot of stress and headaches then implementing GA4 now is your best bet. Getting us to help you migrate to GA4 properly makes the move a lot easier for you. Once it’s properly set up we can help you set your own custom events and more.
If you don’t want to risk losing your data and need help with the migration process, contact Alison today to discuss the next steps on your GA4 migration: +44 (0)845 835 4661.
Deliveroo, JustEat and UberEats - do the delivery dons really make life easier as an independent food business or reduce your margins significantly?
We take a closer look at why you shouldn’t be tempted to sell your shop’s soul to a third-party delivery partner.
The coronavirus pandemic resulted in a sudden shift of consumer behaviour in the food industry overnight. Without the opportunity to build rapport and relationships with customers physically visiting their premises, food businesses needed a new way to retain customer loyalty and revenue.
In 2020, more than 6 million people ordered from 115,000 restaurants through Deliveroo every month. With a streamlined process for onboarding new food brands and a network of delivery couriers in place meaning no hassle of recruiting or managing a team of drivers, many shop owners were drawn in by the reach larger delivery partners offer them.
Delivery apps also promise to promote your food business to a new customer base outside your local target area without the work of planning logistics or extra marketing. Sound too good to be true?
Deliveroo, UberEats and Just Eat all charge restaurants and takeaways a commission for each order. Although they’re fairly hush hush about how much this is, Big Hospitality reports it’s generally 25-30% commission - a hefty amount when it comes to smaller takeaways or restaurants.
In 2020, Deliveroo’s net revenues, consisting of mostly fees charged to restaurants and consumers, were up by a massive 54% (£1.2bn) compared to 2019.
Although Deliveroo says it encourages restaurants to use the same pricing model for delivery as for in-house menus, many food businesses feel compelled to charge more to make up for the high commission.
In a fickle market it’s already difficult to keep customers loyal. Although your food business may now be visible on a larger online ordering platform that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get more orders.
With the majority of these delivery firms having more than 100,000 restaurant and takeaway partners listed on their platforms, it means your business will be sat amongst a whole range of other brands.
They’re effectively in the driving seat of your business - you’re completely in the hands of the third party’s algorithm and where you appear on their app.
Customers are also now well versed in scouring multiple delivery platforms to identify the best deals for their favourite meals. This influx of choice across multiple third-party platforms has had a huge impact on customer loyalty. In fact, according to Second Measure, the average 6-month repeat custom rate is just 21%.
Working with a delivery giant will also limit the insight you have into the purchasing patterns of your consumers, as they can retain the rights to your customer data.
This means no remarketing campaigns, no loyalty scheme incentives and no information on who your online customers really are.
Instead, why not consider setting up your own online ordering system on your website? You’ll have control over your brand experience online and have access to any customer data.
Like the sound of being in control?
To help you resist temptation, we’ve outlined three stages to get your food business set up for online ordering - whether that’s for Click & Collect, delivery or both.
Stage 1 - Branching out
A good place to start is setting up your own online ordering system on your website that offers Click & Collect. If you wanted to also offer delivery, consider pairing up with a large third-party to help ease the pressure on your team.
With your own online ordering platform for Click & Collect, you’ll have full control over your customers’ experience, with minimum costs and access to data.
Stage 2 - Expanding your offering
Once you feel confident following the roll out of Click & Collect, next consider how to take ownership of your delivery service. This could involve partnering up with a local firm such as a taxi company to introduce delivery to your online ordering system.
Stage 3 - Take control
For complete control of the journey your food delivery takes - from leaving your kitchen to arriving at a customer’s front door - introduce your own branded mopeds or cars with a team of dedicated delivery staff.
Branded vehicles offer free advertising whilst your delivery team are out on the move, raising brand awareness and showing customers you really care about the whole process from start to finish.
Instead of selling your food business’s soul to a larger third party delivery firm, why not explore the alternative options out there first? From doing it yourself to partnering with a local taxi company, there are plenty of ways you can offer your customers a fantastic experience.
Did you know 70% of websites have already switched to mobile-first indexing in preparation for Google’s latest algorithm update?
The algorithm update is rolling out this month, meaning it’s time to ensure your website is mobile optimised and not just ‘mobile-friendly’.
Originally due to go live from September 2020, Google pushed back the roll out, stating: “We realise that in these uncertain times, it's not always easy to focus on work as otherwise, so we've decided to extend the timeframe to the end of March 2021.”
Now Google is switching to its mobile-first algorithm indexing and if you’ve not made the necessary changes, you could soon see a dip in website performance and traffic.
The mobile-first algorithm will give priority to mobile-first websites over desktop. Once the update is rolled out, it will change the way Google indexes websites on its search engine results page (SERP).
Previously Google viewed desktop traffic as a priority, however recent reports show mobile usage is outgrowing desktop usage.
Compared to other search engines, Google also has the highest share of organic mobile search traffic (54%) - which is predicted to keep rising over the next couple of years.
Today is the perfect opportunity to evaluate your website design and content, identifying areas to optimise in time for the roll out.
Use this period to analyse and address whether your website is just friendly to mobile users, or actually optimised for a smaller screen device.
Mobile optimisation is true responsive-mobile design. This means content will resize for multiple screens, resolutions and orientations to provide visitors with just as good a browsing experience as using a desktop.
Consider your website design, is it providing the best possible experience for your users?
Even if your design is mobile optimised but your content is still targeted towards desktop users, you could also face difficulties being indexed by Google following the update.
Consider your audience’s experience with your website when they are visiting via a mobile device. Long paragraphs of text or large images will not be easy to scroll past on a small screen.
By shortening sentences, paragraphs and optimising videos and images, you’ll be improving user experience and also satisfying Google’s algorithm.
However you don’t want to remove important content. While your mobile site’s content doesn’t have to be identical to your desktop site’s content, important content should be kept.
Removing smaller features like email opt-ins won’t have a major impact from an SEO point of view, but excluding things purely because it feels too long for a mobile layout can have a negative impact.
For example, important content includes internal links. You’ll want to ensure all of the important links still exist on your website’s mobile version, as removing these could negatively impact your rankings as they may change how Google judges the value of your website pages.
You’ll also want to ensure your site speed isn’t hindering your user's mobile experience. According to Google, 53% of mobile users will leave a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load.
Ideally your website’s load time for both desktop and mobile will be under 1 second, but under 3 seconds is still acceptable.
There is still time to get prepared for Google’s mobile first algorithm update, if you take action today to analyse your website and make important changes.
Discover how to optimise your design and content for mobile with a detailed website audit, and ensure your food business doesn’t suffer from a decline in visitors in the future.
It’s more important than ever before to have an online presence and websites can act as a digital storefront. Today, customers expect access to answers swiftly, the ability to view menus and find up to date opening hours all online.
In short, no it won’t. But it all depends on what you want your website to do for your business. If it’s just a landing page you’re looking for that directs customers to your business’s location, then a budget website would be enough.
However if you want to talk more about your food and services, then you’ll need something that’s got the flexibility to tailor content and design.
We explore the benefits of budget vs bespoke website design, to help you choose an option that’s right for your business.
So you’re looking for a website, but don’t have the budget or time to go for a more bespoke option. We hear you. That’s why we offer budget landing page designs, that provide pretty much everything you need to get your message and products across to your audience.
As we’re working in a set website structure and framework, these landing pages are quicker for us to design, meaning you’ll be up and running in no time at all.
Unlike with a third party platform website builder such as Wix or Squarespace, you’ll have our team of experts doing the hard work for you. Plus our friendly UK-based team are always around to answer any questions or provide advice after we’ve created your website unlike larger, international website firms.
We want your food brand to be the centre of attention, not us. That’s why even with our budget service, we don’t plaster our branding everywhere on your website, unlike others. Instead, we’ll do all we can to make your brand look irresistible to visitors.
Included with an Eat Marketing landing page is the ability for customers to download your menu, read recent news and access business information. You’ll also be able to easily make any updates to content yourself in the future.
Want a website that’s as unique as your business? Then bespoke is the best option for you.
With a bespoke website design, you’ll be able to add as many pages as you need. So if your food business is passionate about sustainability or supporting the local community, you’ll have plenty of space to talk about your brand values and story.
We’ll be there to offer copywriting support and make sure your website is optimised for local search engines such as Google, meaning customers will be able to find you online.
Got a vision for how you’d like your website to look? Let’s make that happen. With our bespoke website package the overall design is unique to you and your business, using a custom design layout across every page. You’ll find no cut and paste templates here.
When 75% of consumers admit to making judgements on a company’s credibility based on their website design, it’s important your website stands out amongst competitors for all the right reasons.
We’ll use our branding knowhow to make your food business look its very best online and ensure your website cannot be hacked by adding extra security. Plus by going bespoke, you’ll receive monthly tailored website traffic reports to help you understand where your visitors are coming from and what they’re looking at.
Choosing an experienced independent agency to create your website will mean you have more time to focus on your business. We’ll work with you to tell your brand story in the most engaging way and integrate seamless online ordering to open up new revenue streams.
Whether you’d prefer a budget or bespoke website design, choose the option that works for your business in the long term, rather than just a short-term solution.
Is your restaurant website working hard enough?
In the next of our Restaurant Marketing Unlocked series, we’re bringing key marketing insight that will help inform your restaurant’s website design.
We take a closer look at how optimising your website’s capabilities will ensure you’re securing regular bookings once reopen.
Heard of the phrase ‘Hangry’? Customers aren’t very patient when they’re hungry, so your website will need to be stress-free for users to browse your menu, book a table and place their order online to ensure they don’t choose a competitor over your restaurant.
Your website will need to load quickly - ideally in less than 2 seconds to satisfy the 47% of users who expect this online. It will also need to immediately instil a sense of authenticity amongst customers, with research by Blue Corona finding users decide in less than 10 seconds whether they trust a company based on the design of their website.
We touched upon how online ordering can be easily set up and branded in our previous Restaurant Marketing blog looking at how to plan your new menus.
Integrating online ordering into your website doesn’t have to be costly or difficult, there’s plenty of options out there to choose from. It’s just about finding the platform that best works for your business.
By integrating online booking or menu ordering systems into your restaurant’s website design, it reduces face-to-face contact. Some of these systems also have the option of creating an app, allowing customers to choose a platform that works best for them.
With in-app or online ordering, you’ll be able to gather details on the most popular dishes to help streamline your menu, whilst collecting customer data. If you’re able to gather consent for marketing at the point of sale, you’ll also be able to use this customer data for campaigns in the future.
Although there is a high volume of consumers ready and waiting to dine out, you may have customers who still want to enjoy your food but do not feel ready to eat in public.
With an online booking system in place on your website, you can extend the service and open up a new revenue stream to cater for click & collect and delivery orders as well as in-house diners.
Consider encouraging customers to pre-order meals and how you might stagger your collection times to avoid too many people queuing outside your restaurant.
In our latest whitepaper ‘How to get your restaurant open for business within the current government guidelines’, we delve deeper into ensuring your website is optimised to maximise bookings and how to choose the right online ordering platform for your restaurant.
Analysing your current website and making changes to maximise table bookings or click & collect and delivery orders, will ensure your restaurant has multiple revenue streams in the future. By optimising your restaurant’s website design you will:
Sound good?
Download our free whitepaper today to get the inspiration and insight you need to optimise your website to boost table bookings or click & collect and delivery. .
New Lichfield-based restaurant Larder, needed a hand in brand positioning and a new responsive website design to support the launch of their business.
The ethos behind Larder is to offer customers ingredient-led food and tasting menus without the stuffiness often associated with fine dining restaurants. Located in a period three-storey townhouse, each floor will serve a different function: the top floor will be the Chef’s kitchen table, the middle floor will be a dedicated restaurant and the ground floor will be the bar serving cocktails, rare wines and craft beers.
To help define the brand, Eat Marketing worked with Larder to create a strong strapline that represented what customers could expect:
“Larder brings a relaxed, honest and ingredient-led dining experience to the heart of Lichfield. All flavour. No pomp.”
Work then began building a responsive and mobile-friendly website design for Larder that incorporated an online booking system.
The website will feature bespoke illustrations of each floor of the Larder including downloadable sample menus and a blog which Eat Marketing will be helping to write articles for.
With the restaurant opening in Lichfield in November this year, we can’t wait to sample some unique, locally sourced and homegrown food from Larder! If you're looking for a new website design or help with your food brand's position, why not get in touch and see how we can help!
Just been asked to “Clear your cache”? If we're working with you on anything web-based, it's likely that you'll be tasked with this on a number of occasions. But what does it mean, and how do you even clear your cache? Well, the Eat Marketing team is here to save the day and offer some words of wisdom on clearing your cache.
So, what's cache?
If you're new to cache, it may sound like a scary, techy term - but it's really not. Cache is an online ‘place’ that stores files temporarily in a computing environment. Often, and especially with websites, active data is cached to help loading times by shortening data and therefore improving your overall site performance. For example, if you visit a certain website quite a few times a week, cache will contain specific data as way of improving the your user experience and speeding up the loading time.
When you need to clear that cache
So, when is it time to clear your cache? If some changes have been made to your site recently and you want to see how they look, cache can sometimes get in the way. As it stores your browser data, cache will only bring up what it expects you want to see, and not necessarily the new changes you need to see. This is when it’s time to clear your cache, so that you can see how your new website actually looks.
How to clear your cache
There are a number of easy ways to clear your cache, it just depends on the internet browser you're using. Here are just a handful of ways to help get you started:
Desktops
Chrome:
- In the browser bar, enter: chrome://settings/clearBrowserData
- Select the following:
~ Browsing history
~ Download history
~ Cookies and other site and plug-in data
~ Cached images and files
- Click Clear browsing data.
- Quit all browser windows and reopen the browser.
Internet Explorer 9 (or higher):
- Select Tools > Safety > Delete browsing history…
- Deselect: Preserve Favourite website data, and select:
~ Temporary Internet files or Temporary Internet files and website files
~ Cookies or Cookies and website data
~ History
- Click Delete. This will be confirmed.
- Quit all browser windows and reopen the browser.
Mobile
Android
- Go to Settings and choose Apps or Application Manager.
- Swipe to the All tab.
- In the list of installed apps, find and tap your web browser.
- Tap Clear Data and then Clear Cache.
- Quit all browser windows and reopen the browser.
Safari (Apple iOs)
- Open your Settings app.
- Tap Safari.
- Tap Clear History and Website Data and confirm.
- Quit all browser windows and reopen the browser.
Clear cache quick!
If you’re short on time and need to know the quickest way to clear your cache, there are also a handful of useful apps you can download to your browser. An office favourite is Cache Killer, a Chrome app that (once downloaded) only requires a quick click of a button to switch your cache on and off. For alternative options, simply Google cache Chrome extensions.
Feeling like a cache clearing expert? We hope these tips have helped you to understand what cache is and how you can use it to our advantage. Plus, next time we ask you to clear your cache, you’ll know exactly what to do.
Suhana Spices is a food company that creates natural, richly coloured Indian spices mixes, which offer beautifully authentic flavours to curries, marinades and sauces. Available in a variety of recipe mixes, they are simple to use and perfect for cooks who want to cook healthy, flavoursome meals with a taste of India.
Suhana Spices are going from strength to strength and now, they are looking forward to launching their products in Tesco in November. This is an exciting opportunity as launching their products in such as well-known supermarket opens their fantastic products to a wider audience. Tesco shoppers will also get the chance to taste the spices as there will be 'taste tester' bars and 'buy one, get one free' offers. To maximise the opportunities that launching in Tesco and other areas brings, Suhana Spices decided to look at creating a website for their products as they want to let people know what their products are and who they are as a food company.
Here at Eat Marketing, we were bursting with ideas! We worked with Suhana Spices to get their ethos across and create a new customer base here in the UK; these products are very well known in India, but the website is the ideal platform for introducing the brand to the UK market, and it works well in conjunction with the Tesco launch.
Take a look at the Suhana Spices website... You'll find yourself instantly transported to the backstreets of India with its bustling food stalls, crammed with pots of bubbling curries... The look and feel of the site offers a totally authentic air and you can almost smell the pungent mix of aromas created by Suhana Spices. All the products are there, with their natural ingredients listed and labelled according to their recipes. You'll even find hints and tips on how to cook your curries and sauces so that you can create dishes that taste true to their Indian roots. We're really proud of this site, it captures the brand perfectly - from the rich, deep colours that are reminiscent of your favourite Indian restaurant, to the bright images of the products and the information it offers via easy to use navigation and clear copy. Consumers will find everything they need to know about Suhana Spices here.
If your taste buds are soaring at the thought of Suhana Spices, you can find your nearest stockist on their website – and don’t forget to take advantage of their launch offer available in Tesco from November.
We hope you like what we’ve done with the website too; our team love creating food and drink websites so if you’re thinking about food marketing, contact us here at Eat Marketing today, or, if you’re in London between 23rd-24th September we’re exhibiting at the award-winning lunch exhibition 2014 and we would love it if you stopped by to say hello. We'll be on stand M143 so let’s talk marketing! Discover how to create something new for your food business that will make customers – old and new – sit up and take notice. See you there!