Seasonality in Online Marketing – Marketing Opportunity Through Usage Fluctuations

April 16, 2009 | By Marc Porcelli | 1 Comment »

Seasonality plays a significant, yet underutilized role in online marketing. We all know about temperate changes in seasonality, but as online marketers, how many of us appreciate the true significance that seasonality plays on our campaigns?

Many online marketers plan their marketing campaigns around important events and holidays. Fine-tuning and tailoring messaging is critical, and it also provides lift. Through consistent messaging and well-planned campaigns, what have traditionally been viewed as “dips” can turn into opportunities. For example, a landing page tailored to the spring season, or a spring sale themed landing page. Marketers need to ensure that their PPC, email, and banner campaigns are all aligned with this messaging to obtain maximum lift. Consistency is very important and should not be overlooked.

By creating a page based on seasonality or holidays, marketers create a deeper relationship with their users. The tailored landing pages provide relevancy, which increases interaction. This interaction can be increased using open and click-through-rates (CTR’s) for email and higher CTR’s for search and banner campaigns.

Seasonality Of Online Users

Seasonality also heavily influences usage patterns online. In the winter months, users tend to spend more time online during the weekends, as well as any day of the year where the weather is poor.

During the spring, there is always a noticeable change in usage. As the climate becomes warmer, users tend to spend a lot more time outdoors and away from their computers, especially on weekends. You really start to see this during and after “spring break” and on the weekends.

As users move into the summer months, usage echoes this. The usage from weekday to weekend levels off from the large shift that occurs in the spring, but is still noticeable. Users are spending less time online during the summer, but CTR’s ironically rise. There are many different theories on why CTR’s rise. One theory is that users are doing less browsing and more tailored and focused searching. This increase in CTR’s is also evident during the weeks leading up to the winter holiday season.

There are some interesting statistics on seasonal CTR’s provided by Marketing Experiments via BizReport . Among their findings where spring shopping CTR’s were 1.98% with a conversion rate of .06%. In the summer, CTR’s rates were 2.44% with a .68% conversion rate. In the fall, CTR’s rates were 1.96% with 0.66% conversion rates. Finally, in the winter during the holidays, CTR’s were 2.26% and 1.47%.

After Labor day when the kids are back in school and the weather starts to turn, usage patterns start to shift. CTR’s begin to fall, and usage rates start to increase back to winter rates. Users again start spending more time on weekends.
During the winter as the weather becomes more difficult, usage patterns have significantly shifted. Weekend usage rates are now more pronounced, with Sundays and Mondays being stronger days for sales online.

Seasonality shifts in online usage should not be viewed as a hindrance – rather, they should be viewed as an opportunity. Here are a few ways to take advantage of seasonality with you online marketing campaigns.

  • Use tailored landing pages for holidays and seasons. Ensure your messaging is consistent.
  • Take advantage of multivariate testing.
  • Plan out upcoming holidays well in advance and where applicable, strategically purchase media in advance.
  • Ensure you partners and affiliates have messaging well in advance of the holiday. Generally you want to make sure they have at least three weeks.
  • Take advantage of what users are searching for during specified holidays. For example, flowers for Mother Day or allergy medications for the spring.
  • Plan special weekend promotions during shifts in usage patterns. Entice users to your site through tailored messaging.

For example a website that sells shoes could offer a weekend special with free shipping. Another great example is eHarmony’s free communication weekend. Both campaigns harness a high perception of value from the end user. Free shipping or free access for goods or a service that otherwise would cost the consumer money works very well.

Holidays (opportunities) to create specific tailored online marketing campaigns include: New Year, Valentines Day, Easter, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Memorial Day, Presidents Day, Forth of July, Veterans Day, Labor Day, Christmas. If you sell or offer goods and services in Canada, capitalize on Remembrance Day and Victoria Day.

If your site has a large demographic of specific clients or is tailored to different religions such as Passover, Hanukkah, Ramadan, etc. then keep this in mind. Also consider other countries outside of North America and the differences in seasonality and holidays.

I have not covered all the holidays, but you get the point. The key is to plan ahead and shift your though process to view “dips” as opportunities.

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1 Comment »

Pingback by When Users Pay Attention To Online Ads | Marc Porcelli
2009-05-08 20:54:01

[...] interested in this will also find my post on seasonality fluctuations relevant. Related Posts: Tagged:  Category: Competitive Intelligence, Marketing [...]

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