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Understanding Odd Analytics Anomalies

The factors that affect your online marketing campaigns are too numerous to list, but several online marketers will tell you seasonal changes, cultural events, and even top stories in the news can alter your otherwise normal pattern of metrics. Depending on what those individual events are will determine the affect on your campaign metrics, either hurting or helping conversions. This is a list of my favorite analytics anomalies.

Religious Holidays

I’m don’t necessarily mean those smaller secular holidays that no one really knows about, I mean those religious holidays that statutory holidays with significant religious significance. While many people may use search engines on Easter or Passover, for instance, they’re not likely to buy something.

The truth is, if you want to sell something on those days, you might as well lower your PPC bids, or pause your campaigns entirely so that you don’t take a big hit on conversion. People are less likely to spend much time at a computer, and more time with their loved ones.

Seasonal Changes

While the lead-up to changing seasons is normally a busy time for most companies, normally lagging months can actually be augmented to stabilize revenue using pay-per-click marketing. If your industry tends to accept the possibility for seasonal lulls in order volume or sales, it may not be a result of true commerce patterns but a lack of marketing pressure.

If you test the waters in your industry’s downtime, you may enjoy substantially lower keyword bids due to less competition. It’s unlikely you’ll sell a lot of snowblowers in the dog days of summer, so mileage may vary.

End of Month Syndrome

Many advertisers using custom budgeting or the ‘accelerated’ option in Adwords, for instance, will often run out of funds well before month’s end. Less competition means greater click share, better positions, and lower CPC, so make sure your budgets are allocated to cover your spend beyond the end of the month.

In addition, sales prospects working with monthly budgets may be more likely to convert quicker at the end of the month. If your average prospect purchasing decision takes a few days, it’s likely that unique visitors will convert by the end of the month.

Sometimes, agency-side search marketers will also curb monthly spending in an effort to increase incoming revenue. It’s not a practice I would condone, but it’s something every advertiser should be aware of.

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