Andrew Girdwood

Digital Strategist | Union

I used my 20-plus years of professional digital marketing experience to help land my role as a digital strategist at the Union. Before I, or anyone else, could claim to be a ‘digital professional’, in those early years of the Internet, I learnt the techniques of a digital trailblazer to pay my way through university and pizza. Today, outside of work and as a hobby, I run several blogs to take more digital marketing home, but I try to eat less pizza. It’s a passion. 

As a digital strategist, I help ensure our websites are in the best possible shape to make money, represent brands and act as growth engines. That means, for example, how and what Google Analytics should measure and search engine optimisation (SEO) before a line of copy or code. My team coordinates media buying, such as paid search (PPC), social media, biddable media, and similar, ensuring campaigns are accountable, tailored, and use the best possible data. Most of all, as a digital strategist, I work to ensure that marketing today is not done in silos and that we’re thinking about the future. 

Previously, I led digital strategy for some of the world’s biggest brands while (at the time) working for the world’s most successful digital agency. I’ve also worked at prestigious legacy agencies to boost their digital offerings. I came to the Union to find an agency big enough to cope and small enough to care.