Top Dog at Rocktime Digital Agency

Meet Kobi the office dog

Alex doesn’t realise that when he leaves his desk Kobi get’s allusions of grandeur.

Kobi spends most of his time in Alex’s office and when no one’s watching he likes to root around our office bins.

We are not sure what he is thinking right now, any thoughts !!

Geek Video of the Month

Fantastic five minute video which explains where Web 2.0 came from !! It was created by Michael Welsh, who is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Digital Ethnography at Kansas State University.

He explains how everything on the web is connected moving from technology into social structure, politics and art. The five minute show gives an excellent demonstration on how the Internet has evolved in connecting with others.

It is simply genius work for web fans like ourselves, we hope you like it. If there is anything that you simply don't get, then give us a call and we will explain it further.

UK Online Audience and Social media statistics reviewed: Sept 09

Internet penetration in the UK is up 5% year on year to 72% with “the home and work active digital universe” numbering 43 million in the UK (Nielsen Online, January 2009). In comparison to the rest of Europe the UK has the most active online population, with the highest number of daily visitors (21.8m), the highest usage days per month (21 per user) and the highest average time spent on the web per month per user (34.4 hrs), (comScore June 2007).

"Online is not the medium of a new generation, but the new
medium for all generations"

The online population in the UK now reflects the demographic make-up of the UK as a whole, with a 52% / 48% male /female split. 21% of internet users are 25 to 34 years - and at the other end of the spectrum the over-50s now represent 30% of total time spent online (Source: IAB UK, 2008).

UK visits to News and Media sites are up 28% year on year and these industries are reported as having the second highest growth rate after online video (Hitwise, February 2009). These statistics further indicate that an increasingly amount of people are looking for information online. Google continues to be the most popular site in the UK (Nielsen Online, Feb 2008) and their new search features ‘Show Options’ is allowing people to be more savvy with their searching online, reviewing forum posts, news and reviews, (suddenly social media is in the main search results).

Social networks account for an increasing proportion of UK internet visits and they are also becoming an important source of traffic for other websites. People go online to socialise, to learn, to be entertained, to stay informed and to inform others and for the traditional web users they sometimes go online to buy products or services and learn about the products before they purchase or sign up. Social media and networking also encourages the building of communities: groups of people with common interests who are keen to interact with one another on matters important to them.

The Daily Telegraph reported (April 2009) that it receives 8% of its online traffic from social media sites such as news aggregators like Digg and Reddit, as well as Twitter, which is now becoming more popular with companies using it as a communication tool.

Interest in the social media tool in the UK has risen from 3% use to 49% use in just a year, (Guava UK Search Marketing Benchmark Report, April 2009). Many users of Twitter say that they find it “additive” and research has shown that the time people spend on the site has risen from just 10 minutes a year ago to half an hour now (Hitwise, January 2009), so evidence here that the audience are searching for chat/communication or for something new.

Visiting blogs has become more popular with the UK internet audience, with 41% of people in the UK visiting a blog once a month (comScore, August 09). Blogs have also performed well at driving traffic to websites: Hitwise (June 2008) reported that blogs drive 1.19% of all UK traffic, which is equivalent to one in every 84 visits to a site.

eMarketer (Jan 2009) predicts that social network ad spending is expected to reach around 4.4% of total online ad spending in the UK in 2009. This figure isn’t surprising, seeing that back in Oct 2007 social networks already accounted for 7.7% upstream Internet traffic to all other websites, making the category the second most important source of traffic after Search Engines (Hitwise Jan 2008).

All in all it is pretty exciting Autumn for search engines and social networks a like and we loving the work, get in touch if you would like us to set a social media or search strategy for you.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Key considerations: Affiliate Marketing

Recent Affiliate Marketing Statistics

The UK market for affiliate marketing grew by an estimated 45% in 2007, taking the total value of online sales generated through this channel to more than £3.13 billion. [Econsultancy, January 2008]

– Commissions and fees paid out to affiliate networks (covering payments for both networks and affiliates) amounted to £186 million in 2007, up 40% from £133 million in 2006 (and compared to £83 million in 2005).

The UK affiliate market was worth £3.82bn in 2008, a 22% increase from £3.13bn in 2007. An estimated £227m was paid last year in commissions and fees to affiliates and networks. [Econsultancy Affiliate Marketing Buyer’s Guide 2009].

What is Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is a practice where other sites advertise your products or brand. These are called “affiliates” and in effect can be classed as an ‘online sales force’, a secret army to increase your conversions. Should a user then click through to your site from an affiliate site and make a purchase you pay the affiliate a commission on that purchase. Commissions vary from sector to sector, but I would expect to start at 2% to 5%.

Management, tracking and payment to affiliates can be handled direct with the affiliates but it is best practice for management to take place through an independent 3rd party; an affiliate network.

Affiliate networks handle all of the day to day tasks involved with operating an affiliate program. Along with you they make sure the ‘online sales force’ are happy.

They usually operate on a tiered management system, where you decide the level of involvement you require, from “basic” where they host your product information feed, pay the affiliates, provide an online management control centre, and then leave you more or less to it, to a managed account where they also provide an account manager who will dedicate time each month to optimising your program, acquiring high quality affiliates for you, Basically, actively promote your program.

There are a number of Affiliates networks out there each with a varying number of Affiliate clients. They all perform a similar function to a greater or lesser degree. They are generally judged or measured by the number of affiliates they have, the commission level they charge, and the service they provide to you.

Set up Costs:

Networks usually require a one off setup fee – usually £1,000 to £2,000.

Operating Costs:

Commission - Starts at around 5% - this is what is paid to the affiliate site and is percentage of the sale value.

Override fee - This is paid to the affiliate network – usually 30% of the commission paid to the affiliates.

Management – Depends on level of service required and network, but for a reasonable network £220 per month for basic package and £500 for managed.

Affiliate programs take time to become established but in the long term can be a highly cost effective method of customer acquisition.

Affiliate Marketing campaign goals

Consider the purpose/aim of your affiliate campaign:

• Bring new customers to the site• Deliver incremental business• Compliment existing advertising for brand recognition.• Build relations with your secret sales force

Choose approach

• Incremental sales and brand awareness – campaign structureUse Affiliate marketing to fit in with current campaigns, offers, top sellers. Maximise HALO effect of other marketing media

• Steady sales – flat structureProvides consistent volume of traffic from the affiliates based on small number of ads. Disadvantage of this is that Affiliates can become complacent and tiered commission level remains the same even if products become uncompetitive.

Compliment existing advertising

When using Affiliate marketing to integrate with other online activity and when looking for incremental sales, consideration needs to be given to the below:

• % AD spend: Fixed budget versus unlimited
• Channel conflict: Agency PPC vs Affiliate PPC
• Brand Management: Volume v Control
• Measuring effectiveness: Cost per acquisition and Return on Investment

Monthly reporting can include

• Success of creative and changes required, creative held on central hub
• Sales funnel analysis
• Review quality of customers by each affiliate
• Long term profitability by individual affiliates
• Maintain creative consistency across all affiliate sites
• 30 – 90 day review of affiliate sites.
• All the above working to a 90 day plan from launch – and into the future, be ready to surprise your Affiliates with some great offers.

Need any more information, speak to Rocktime.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Facebook Statistics August 2009

The site has more than 250m active users globally

More than 120m users log on to Facebook at least once each day and more than 30 million users update their statuses at least once each day. Combined, more than 5bn minutes are spent on the site on a daily basis.

The average user has around 120 friends on the site.

Every single month, more than a bn photos are uploaded to the site.

More than 50 translations are available on the site, with more than 40 in development.

Mobile is a big issue, with more than 30m active users accessing the site through mobile devices. It's well documented that users who access Facebook through mobile devices are almost 50% more active than those who don‘t.

[All sourced: Facebook, August 2009]

Introducing the New Web Developer

Daniel Griffiths (AKA: Dan or Danny) started at Rocktime this week, we thought to ask him lots of random questions and share the answers with you. Find out what the above picture relates to below.

What is your current job at Rocktime? : Web Developer

What does being a web developer involve? : Learning as much as possible and excelling in all things web development

What is on your mouse pad? : Was I suppose to bring one in?
(Readers: Anyone want to send Danny a mouse mat! feel free too)

Were you named after anyone? : Nope

What book are you reading? : At the moment, “Iain Banks – Whit”.
(Dan: The Times provided this review: 'Fierce contemporaneity, an acrobatic imagination, social comment, sardonic wit.the peculiar sub-culture of cult religion is a natural for Banks, and Luskentyrianism is a fine creation' - sounds interesting)


What was the last CD you bought or downloaded!? : Haven’t listened to it yet – The Wrens. A suggestion by my girlfriends dad.

What is your favourite sport? : Pool

Are you any good at crabbing? : No
(Dan: Before the summer ends there will be Rocktime crab off down at Poole Quay, so best get your practice in)

What is your favourite kitchen item? : That thing you use to stir spaghetti with. It looks a bit like a clawed hand...

If you were a crayon what colour would you be? : Green

Which do you prefer sushi or a hamburger? : Hamburger

What do you do most often when boredom strikes? : Go to the pub

If you could go on holiday to anywhere in the world where would it be? : Iceland, I’ve never met anyone from Iceland. I want to know what they’re accent’s like
(Dan: For Icelandic accents: watch this Bjork interview on You Tube)

Do you have a special talent? : I can juggle pretty well...
(Dan: Excellent, that's Rocktime's Xmas meal entertainment sorted then!!)

Geek video and viral video advert of the month

If you like power and you like speed then our Technical Director,

Kieron Matthews says that you will love this video
from Samsung, non geeks: watch out for the Jargon alert !!




If you like dancing babies then Sarah Griffiths our Search

Marketing Manager and Viral Fan says you will love, love,

love this viral advert from Evian published as part of their

Live Young campaign (Genius).