Time of day – Google Ads
This is a question that I have been asked quite a few times and I can safely say that it depends on your individual business. Think about it, would Pizza Hut have more conversions between 9am and 11am or 5pm to 7pm? The answer is obvious, but what about less cut and dry businesses like typical B2B businesses.
As with any problem in the land of online the first step to figuring out the problem is solid data analysis. So crack open your favourite tool, mine is Google Analytics, and start crunching. Some fancy SEM tools such as Kenshoo run this analysis for you on the fly, whereas Google Adwords / Google Analaytics need a little bit of massaging.
Start off by creating an advanced segment for paid traffic. Then go to the visitors tab and select a date range that will be large enough to give you heaps of data for each of the 24 separate hour blocks. I tend to do this over a 3 month period, but if you have more or less traffic you can do shorter, or longer periods. The caveat here is that your website hasn’t changed considerably over the time period as this would impact the results.
In the visitors tab change the view to ‘by hour’. and export.
Next create another advanced segment, but this time do paid traffic + Converting traffic. Go back into the visitors tab and select ‘by hour’ and export.
Now match up these 2 charts and you have paid visits by hour of the day, and conversions by hour of the day. The chart below is what you receive and if the visits and the conversion rate are not lining up then you have a problem. This client received about a 200% increase in productivity from this change alone.
Everyone talks about the growth of online marketing but you really know there is a shift when a stalwart marketer like Proctor & Gamble say it “has set itself the target of reaching one billion shoppers around the world using digital media”. They have identified the need to shift from one way communications to media that allows them to engage consumers and online fits the bill perfectly.
WARC also reports that brands now need to ensure that their vision and values are communicated clearly as these are becoming more and more important to consumers. Online is the most flexible and measurable communication medium and lets brands have deep connections and engagements with consumers.
Last year Booze & Co did a research project talking to hundreds of CEO’s and CMO of major companies and asked them about their marketing spend intentions over the coming years and the results were very interesting. According to Booze & Co (see picture) most major companies are intending to shift their marketing spend away from one way mediums such as TV and Radio, and move it into two way communications with a focus on Online marketing.
Last week I had the privilege of attending a Melbourne University Alumni event at Masani where Andrew Bassat, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Seek.com.au. This was a fantastic event and was great to tap into some of the thought processes behind the building of one of the great Australian success stories… particularly online.
Some of the highlights from the discussion for me were;
- Online is far more of a winner takes all game as opposed to the offline world where 4 to 5 big players can survive
- Classifieds are even more cut throat with it difficult to even sustain 2 main players.
- Thus, getting to critical mass is one of the most important aspects of success in the online world.
- It is important to have investors that have faith in the vision of the company. Often, early on, there is pressure to start delivering profits and these need to be resisted until the businesses position has been solidified.
- For online ventures it is far more important to get the critical few right than getting 4 projects out of 13 right.
It was great to spend some time listening to Andrew’s thoughts and I have to say thank you to Melbourne University for holding the event and Andrew for his open and frank discussion.
Welcome to the Online Strategy Solutions blog and company website. Over the coming months and years I will publish my thoughts and experiences in the broad area of online strategy in Australia. For too long this industry has been shrouded in secrecy but I am very honest and transparent with my clients to ensure you that understand where your money is being spent, and most of all, you have an accurate idea of your Return on Investment.
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Tagged Online strategy
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