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Will we, won't we, should we, shouldn't we....

I genuinely sympathise with Theresa May. Like her or loathe her she has a monumental task on her hands. Few people, male or female could stand up to the immense pressure, negativity, hostility and abuse she deals with on a daily basis.

Regardless of your politics or your views, this nastiness and aggressive nature of politics seems to have migrated to us from the States  

I voted remain, acknowledging the EU was seriously flawed, but hoping we could help steer, cleanup and continue to keep some of their more hair brain policies in check. But I'm in a minority (just), so now just want to crack on with things and bring some stability back to the country and economy, especially from a business and personal point of view. (move house, interest rates, inflation, household costs etc).

I haven't read (and haven't got the will to read) the 500 page Brexit document. I've absorbed about as much speculation as humanly possible, it doesn't seem to be the brilliant deal the leavers prophesied, but it's a deal. So let's get on with it.  

We were in a club and we're leaving. It's their club, their rules and we've decided to quit. End of story.

Why we think we have the right to demand that some of the club rules still apply to us once our membership has expired is beyond me. Try that argument when your AA or RAC breakdown cover expires, or maybe your membership to a book club.

Watching the Tories go through one of their traditional imploding self destruct routines, whilst the country is on the brink of chaos with a population confused and bewildered, will no doubt usher in a Labour government within the next 12 - 18 months if not before.

I'm no fan of  Mr Corbyn or any of Labour's policies, but one part of me wonders how much worse a job could they do? Maybe it's time for a coalition between all of them. Even get Vince Cable back in there as a voice of reason. 

Anyone else think it's time to end the nastiness in politics and for MP's to start thinking about the Country first rather than self interest and egos  

This made me smile as this listing was flagged in the moderation queue this morning.

I love the address.  If you need some Royal Appointment SEO, you now know where to go 

It's like an SEO pitch from yesteryear. We literally used to get hundreds of these SEO services listings a week, until we filtered them out, now it tends to be  a few novice amateurs a month. The IP address location tends to reinforce a stereotype  

It really is disgusting. I genuinely love iPhones, although very happy with my (now obsolete) 6S and have no plans in the near future to upgrade.

Big business just seems to what it wants, as long as it keeps the shareholders happy. From mobile phone companies deliberately slowing phones down to insurance companies deliberately ripping off customers who decide to auto renew 

<rahh rahh rant rant>  Oh my god I'm turning into a leftie 

Fascinating to see how Google has gone from a funky and cool startup, with people desperate to join, to a monster corporation now facing industrial action and staff walkouts over worker rights.

Google staff walk out over women's treatment

Interesting to see how Google CEO Sundar Pichai is handling it:
"I understand the anger and disappointment that many of you feel," he said in an all-staff email. "I feel it as well, and I am fully committed to making progress on an issue that has persisted for far too long in our society… and, yes, here at Google, too."

Nice approach, which hopefully be followed up by the appropriate change in policy. No doubt we shall be hearing a lot more about this.

Originally Posted by Rebecca (PayforPrecision)

“For once you and I totally agree Steve! ”

Blimey  Left and Right unite

People just love to moan or make idealistic or political points, especially on social media 

It's simply an act of remembrance and respect, how people choose to do it is up to them as long as they do it. Buying RBL poppies and merchandise obviously directly benefits veterans. I take the kids every year to our local war memorial service, then we exit stage right before the procession goes back to the church to finish off. But church, synagogue, mosque or raising a glass of beer in the pub, it's all the same, respect.

Watching people rant about how offensive they find it miss the irony of who those gave so much to preserve their right to whinge  But those who deliberately profit from this as a scam deserve to lose their right of citizenship IMHO.

Sometime you wonder how low some people will go 

If you are one of the millions that give your support to the annual poppy appeal, then be aware of any fake merchandising. The Intellectual Property Office and The Royal British Legion have teamed up to bring awareness to the scam. Buying counterfeited Remembrance Day items means  the charity loses out from any donation, whilst you will have substandard and fake merchandise.

Make sure you buy any products from official Royal British Legion sources.

Here is the official release from the IPO: British public urged to be aware of poppy merchandise scams

Junk mail is a fact of digital life  

GDPR was supposed to take care of everything like a golden bullet, but spam tends to be sent by those who don't play by the rules and couldn't care less.

Buying email databases is a tactic of yesteryear. You could end up in potential hot water from a GDPR perspective, plus 99% of the data will be rubbish.

I get regular spam where my email is associated with the wrong company. It's on an email DB somewhere and I get spam enquiries asking if my haulage company needs this that or the other! It's been going on for donkeys years, and shows that same rubbish mail database is still in circulation and getting sold! 

Yep quite a bit.

Have used FB adverts for MLS and also our Trusted Trader brand. They have never really done very well for MLS, but did spectacularly well for TT.  A £500 spend gave us a superb return. Then a second and third attempt bombed spectacularly and we couldn't recapture the ROI of the first one.

Analysing the stats, we were targeting a niche and exhausted our target base on the first campaign. 

But what does work very for us is occasional post boosting . If you have a post that's doing well, then squirting a few quid at it can generate some good interaction which for us leads to some conversions.

FB ad's are great for highly focused targeting, so experiment with a small budget. If it's working, add some budget but keep an eye on your conversion rate.

But for ongoing campaigns, I swear by Google PPC, which is consistent.

Hope that helps.