Sales Drop at Certain Times

[Interiorsdan]

Good evening!

Ok, so we have a bit of a head scratcher...

Most days we'll get a good string of sales; one after the other for a good 4 or 5 hours, then the sales will just drop out altogether.

Our Adwords budgets are not running out, our traffic (all round) is as steady as before so can't think it's anything to do with cpc bids etc. I can't think how to steady it out. The products we sell are not impulsive buys, so people check the product on a number of occasions before purchasing.

There is no pattern whatsoever! Sometimes the sales are in the day and then drops in the evening, sometimes thin through the day and busy in the evening. No clue!

I'd really like to know how to keep the good string thoughout the entire day? Any ideas??

 

[Erno Horvath]

Hi,
As far as I can tell it's completely normal for most of the advertisers. I haven't seen any campaign where the leads are coming in equally distributed during the day. However you think there is no pattern, but there are patterns.
Are you using bid modifiers? (you can break each day into six time frames and increase-decrease the bids accordingly) If you don't use this feature that your competitors might use them. So they might overbid you in a 2-3 hour slot during the day. I don't think however this is the case, because only 2-3% of companies using hourly bid modifiers correctly.

If you check a longer period of time eg: 30-52 weeks usually the patterns can be identified, so pick a large time frame first. At Campaign level use the 'Dimensions' tabs and then 'View/Time/Day of the week' so you can see how much you are paying for a conversion in each day, and then use the 'View/Time/Hour of day' to see how much you pay for a conversion at different time of the day.

If you see larger difference than 20% I think you should implement proper day/hour bid modifiers.
These settings however won't change complete the completely silent periods, however helps you to decrease the bids/spending when the conversion is less likely.

 

[webgeek]

Usually this is due to a small dataset. If you have a few here and a few there, gaps occur as a matter of luck of the draw. If you have 100's here and 100's there, with gaps between, then as Erno related - segment the periods, vary things a bit and recheck the new comparisons.

 

[StevePoster]

Sales drop at certain times is depend on the customers behavior in which they weigh anything in terms of product such as the price, quality, updates, selections, etc. these factors determine your sales performance so i therefore conclude its not normal.

 

[Steve Alphabet]

Any reason you can't go for the straightforward route and ask your customers? "what made you buy this product/what day/time is best for you to shop online" etc? Might well be an AdWords thing, but at least you'll get some feedback.