Posts by "admin"

What are UTM tracking codes

Let’s start with a definition.

A UTM tracking code is a snippet of text added to the end of a URL that helps track the performance of campaigns using Google Analytics. They can be used to differentiate how different channels, content and creatives in the same campaign are performing.

Anyone can create and use a UTM tracking code and you can use them in virtually any place where you can control the link back to your website.

When a person clicks on a link which includes a UTM code, the browser address bar will look something like this:

In order to get any value from using UTM codes, you need to use Google Analytics as this is the tool that captures and processes the data from your UTM codes.#

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What are lead magnets?

Let’s start with a lead magnet definition:

A lead magnet is used by a company as an incentive for the visitor to hand over their email address. In B2B marketing a lead magnet is often in the form of a downloadable PDF. Other types of lead magnets could be discount codes when a visitor signs up for a newsletter, a webinar or a free tool.

For B2B marketers, getting a visitor’s email address is the first significant step towards building a relationship with a potential customer. 

The goal of a lead magnet is to offer something that the visitor values enough that they are willing to share their personal information with you.

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How to build a mini PC

It’s always been a dream of mine to build my own computer. I don’t know why, I think it’s my inner nerd. I was always the kid that made huge Lego spaceships. Maybe I have an urge to make things.

Why I decided to build a mini PC

When I returned to the UK after spending 10 years in India, the first purchase I made was a large HP all-in-one machine. “Why did you have to go and buy that?” My wife demanded. “You already have a laptop.”

There was no right answer there. I just wanted a big computer. I’ll let your Freudian minds make of that what you will.

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8 Words From India We Should Add to the English Language

Over the course of the last nine years in India, I’m somewhat ashamed to say that I can barely speak any of the local languages. To anyone that asks, I quickly point out that in Chennai at least, almost everyone speaks English to varying degrees of proficiency. In my office, amongst the marketing, sales and account management teams, the default language is English.

they-are-talking-about-me

For that, I can thank the agitations of the early 1960s when the central Government of India wanted to impose Hindi as the national language across the country. The political parties in the south vehemently opposed the implementation of Hindi to conduct all official business and so the Dravidian movement was born.

In a big F-You to the central Government, English was selected as a second language taught in schools in the south over Hindi. The result? A population that is at ease talking to foreigners but will have great difficulty communicating to their fellow countrymen from the north of the country.

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50 (ish) Things I Learned After Demonetisation

It’s been 50 days since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared on TV and gave the nation a collective heart attack. Demonetisation took out 86% of the cash value from circulation. Imagine that. All the money you had at home turned into worthless paper until you went to a bank and deposited it all, declaring everything you have to the income tax department. Since then, exactly zero rioting has broken out and the political opposition is still figuring out how it feels about this whole thing.

I, on the other hand, have experienced many highs and lows from demonetisation. Here’s 50 (ish) things that I have learned since 8th November.

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How JFK Airport Saved My Christmas

“Honey,” I said, in what I hoped was my best loving husband voice, “something happened in New York that I need to tell you about. You are going to find out sooner or later so it’s best if you heard it from me.” It was perhaps also my guilty voice. My wife’s face, which up until that point had been blissfully happy that her husband had returned from his trip, was instantly a conflict of emotions. Was it something good, was it something bad, was I about to confess something that would test the very fabric of our marriage? It was quite possibly all those things.

Ask my office manager to describe me in so many words and the adjective “absent-minded” might be mentioned. Naturally, I bristle at the idea that I’m a forgetful person. However, she would point out the times I lost my company ID card (twice), left my ID card in the food court, left my intern in the office without telling her that we were all going out for lunch, left my phone back in the office (several times), and once, to my horror, misplaced the corporate credit card (it later turned up several months later at the bottom of my desk draw).

My wife might agree with my office manager. Every trip we go on, her every second question is “have you got your passport?” Puh-lease! Like I am ever going to lose such an important document. What am I, five years old?

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Chennai Expat Guide Launched!

I’m absolutely thrilled to announce that the Chennai Expat Guide book has been launched!

The book is the only guide that expats moving to Chennai need to adjust to life in the city. Based on my own eight years of experience living in the city and filled with the funny stories and anecdotes of over 50 contributing expats it covers every aspect of relocating to Chennai.

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A Most Distinguished Guest

I’m told by my team mates that there are plenty of advantages of being a foreigner in India. For example, they claim that whenever we go out for dinner together, they get better service in restaurants. Now that’s not for me to comment on because I’ve got nothing to compare it against. I’m friendly to waiting staff and they mostly seem to be friendly to me.

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The Uluru Outback Adventure

If someone said to you why not spend nearly a thousand pounds to fly four hours into the middle of a desert to look at a rock, you might politely enquire what medication that person is currently taking.

Incidentally, that’s exactly the reaction I got from my wife when I suggested we forgo a trip the Great Barrier Reef and go to Uluru instead while on our Australia holiday.

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