Clickthinking

Clickthinking is a South African web development company with international offices and agents. It offers strategic and web-based solutions for companies seeking to lead in their respective categories on the web. Apart from designing web strategies, Clickthinking offers online site performance, search engine optimisation and professional analytics services.

Founded in 1998, Clickthinking started out with its key focus on search engine optimisation, quickly growing into a fully-fledged web development company with leading South African as well as international clients, like Adidas, Steers, BNP Paribas, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, British Council, Standard Bank, CC Africa, Mitsubishi and many more, operating in Europe, the UK, Asia and Africa.

The company focuses on results-orientated e-marketing strategies and specialises in elegant but functional design. A team of graduates and professionals are result and conversion metric-orientated, and work towards meeting goals that are set collaboratively.

Clickthinking also invests in new ventures and start-up companies with strong foundations and technologies depending on using the web as a business channel. In July 2008, Clickthinking won the prestigious WAA (Web Analytics Association's) Web Analytics Championship. Clickthinking has also been invited to Microsoft in Seattle in an advisory capacity to form part of a select group (MSN Search Champs) providing feedback to their search strategy. Several Clickthinkers sit on a number of boards and judge various web and technology based competitions.

Founding
1998 - 2001
Clickthinking started out in 1998 when co-founder Peter Stewart became fascinated by search engines and how to use them to get websites to the top of listings. He teamed up with co-founder Dave Murray, who brought his knowledge of metrics, their engineering and algorithms to the table. Dave started building automated tools and systems to help identify patterns amongst search engine results.
2002 - 2008

Clickthinking branches out into building conversion platforms - the identifying and targeting of ways in which websites succeed online, whether their goal is generating leads, making sales or publishing information. The team expands to a staff compliment of twenty five.

Products
Online marketing (Traffic generation)
Clickthinking has always specialised in driving qualified traffic through organic and search marketing, e-mail marketing, viral marketing and social networking.
Web development

Developers build bespoke websites backed by sophisticated back-end applications that are easy-to-use, functional and accessible. The development team works on open source technology as well as products tailored for a range of high-end strategic clients. Technologies used are:

• PHP, MySQL

• Microsoft ASP, MSSQL

• Database driven Flash, Action scripting
• AJAX development (Web 2.0)

• Omniture Site Catalyst website reporting

• Dreammail (previously Dartmail) Email Marketing

Functional design
Under the watchful eye of Creative Director Joanne Reidy, a sophisticated creative process takes place, which has to meet several criteria before being signed off. The design process takes place in conjunction with the development and construction of the project and neither dominates nor plays second fiddle to the technical team, resulting in an organic and interactive system of communication.
Site performance
A growing field of expertise has resulted in Clickthinking formulating online performance research and scent optimisation and multi-variate strategies. Best practice usability and web analytics form a part of this product offering. Strategic planning is incorporated in every aspect of site performance.

Business culture

Clickthinking offices are situated in Cape Town, at the tip of the African continent. A well-known holiday destination, Clickthinking encourages an open and collaborative working environment, which is unconventional in many ways. There are no offices separating management from employees and there are no strict hierarchies between colleagues.

Sharing of information and ideas are put before dress codes and it is a value proposition-based approach that all team members are required to buy into. Many of Clickthinking's staff - and clients - have been with the company since its inception.

Corporate affairs
Corporate structure
Co-founders Peter Stewart and Dave Murray are respectively the Managing Director and Technical Directors. Under them, are an executive team of five people and a bigger staff complement of 25. Registered in South Africa as a PTY limited, the company has an international presence, with agency representation in the UK and Australia.
Transformation
Clickthinking has BEE certification and is strongly committed to transformation in the new South Africa. The company works for several non profit organisations and does a set amount of pro bono work each year. Donations are also made to carefully screened projects and individuals.
Environment
Clickthinking is committed to saving the environment. As an official policy, paper is recycled and used at a minimum. Electricity is also conserved.

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