Cost of living website costs and statistics: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for information about the Scottish Government's website, gov.scot/costoflivingsupport and the associated media/promotional campaign designed to direct members of the public to it:

1. The total cost of media and promotional campaigns, including development/agency costs for the content, for promoting the website and cost of living advice service. Please provide a breakdown, for example TV advertising, print advertising, social media advertising, development of TV ads, etc.
2. The total number of hits the website has had, since its launch on September 28. Please provide a weekly breakdown if possible. If recorded, please also include the average dwell time (i.e how long people stayed on the website) for each week.

Response

1. In September 2022 a new Cost of Living campaign aimed to:

• De-stigmatise the need for financial support and advice amongst the general public.
• Drive awareness of the types of help and support on offer to help those most in need through the cost of living crisis.
• Promote the key touchpoints where the public could receive support and advice and apply for finance support. This included telephone numbers and website addresses for various organisations and charities as well as gov.scot/costoflivingsupport.
  
  The paid-for media campaign ran from 28 September to 22 November 2022 while activity in relation to PR and social media is ongoing. The total cost for media, production and agency fees relating to this campaign which ran across TV, radio, digital, press and outdoor is £636,321, to date. A breakdown of which is supplied below.

Media

• TV and Video on Demand advertising - 7 weeks = £307,870
• Radio advertising - 6 weeks = £66,563
• Out of Home advertising - 5 weeks = £22,750
• Print Advertising - 2 weeks = £21,437
• Digital advertising - 7 weeks = £50,702 of which Social Media advertising = £20,831

Production and agency fees

• Creative production and agency fees across all advertising formats = £118,111

PR and Partnership costs

• PR = £16,360
• Partnership activity = £32,528

2. In response to your final request, the total number of visits to the website, since its launch on September 28 until 3 January 2023, is 441,522 unique page views.
   
   The weekly breakdown to the 3rd January 2023 is as follows:

Date	Unique pageviews	Average time on page
28/09/2022 - 4/10/2022	48,175	00:00:51
05/10/2022 - 11/10/2022	48,637	00:01:00
12/10/2022 - 18/10/2022	46,300	00:00:59
19/10/2022 - 25/10/2022	37,875	00:01:01
26/10/2022 - 01/11/2022	42,420	00:00:57
02/11/2022 - 08/11/2022	36,252	00:00:58
09/11/2022 - 15/11/2022	28,446	00:00:56
16/11/2022 - 22/11/2022	35,254	00:01:01
23/11/2022 - 29/11/2022	21,593	00:00:54
30/11/2022 - 06/12/2022	18,914	00:00:53
07/12/2022 - 13/12/2022	27,823	00:00:52
14/12/2022 - 20/12/2022	21,108	00:00:57
21/12/2022 - 27/12/2022	11,506	00:00:57
28/12/2022 - 03/01/2023	17,232	00:00:55

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The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.