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SEM Holiday Seasonality
January 21st, 2009 by Mr E-MarketerSearch Seasonality
Talk about a fickle search market! What is happening when great keywords get a sudden spike in impressions ? We usually put it down to an event or publicity driving interest in a subject that increases the number of people researching using related terms.What about when your CTR drops likes like a stone all of a sudden. Check those Ads !What about if CPA suddenly takes a jump even though CPC remains consistent ? Have we screwed up the Ad or something. Ah perhaps it’s those new competitors again ? Ahh, the joys of Search Marketing. We constantly Worry about each little blip on the trend lines and wonder what evil force is at work ! But what about when Impressions jump, CTR drops, CPA jumps (too much), CPC is flat and nothing has changed ? Simple really. HOLIDAY season !!! Did anybody notice this in some of the consumer goods sectors Post-Christmas ? Amazing. What is it about holidays that defies standard trends and then returns to normal only after you have blown a bunch of time trying to understand what’s happening ? Are people just too lazy to click that mouse button too many times when they are holidays ? Why do they search and yet not buy ? Well nobody will probably ever know for sure but I do have some thoughts. I suspect a least two things are at work here.
ONE - I think the holiday period provides a lot of non-traditional web customers with the time to “play”. Time to scan around and find that non-critical item that they usually de-prioritise because of a perception that it will take too much time. If this hypothesis has any truth, then this is a great thing for Online Marketing. It indicates growth on the edges of our traditional market.Those that haven’t been buyers in the past are beginning to learn how to use online services and will most likely be back. If they have found what they were looking for quickly and easily, they will look for their next buy online.
TWO - I think the holiday season removes the urgency for traditional online consumers. Whilst on their holiday break they have the time to “shop around” and there is no pressure to buy on the first visit. It may even be that bricks & mortar vendors are now more competitive with their Post Christmas sales and our typical online buyer having the time to check them out. Suddenly the online convenience factor is not such an advantage.
Not sure how to prove or disprove either of these hypotheses but one thing seems certain. Holidays can change the mid-set of the average online researcher. Whether that is because there are more searchers overall or because there is unusual competition it will pay us to remember to remain competitive for the benefit of the new searchers (that are always coming online) even if we don’t feel we want to compete with holiday laziness or bricks and mortar desperation sales. Best of all, it is suggesting to me that there is significant online growth just around the corner when even AFTER the Christmas rush, there are more people searching than normal.
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Tags: Search seasonality, SEM seasonality
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 9:45 am and is filed under Paid Search, SEM Stuff, Search Industry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.