Conversion Rates / Adwords

[ITGuy2009]

I noticed on one of our e-commerce sites that the conversion rate dropped significantly over the past 7 - 10 days...sorta since July 4th....and at the same time, i've noticed a sharp decrease in the amount of Adwords competitors...so while my CPC is dropping because of less competition, less of these people are converting...

Anyone else seeing any similar trends...I realize everyone talks about the economy and all that wreaking havoc with people's spending, but this seems quite odd.

[ecommerceprofit]

July starting around July 1st has always been slow for me - every year for the last 10+ years - I think it's because people go on vacation - are out on their lunch breaks during work - stay out late during the summer because it's light out - could just be my industry but that's what I've noticed. The 2nd slowest for me is Dec 24 - Jan 1

[ITGuy2009]

Yeah, I have heard that typically July is slow for a lot of e-tailers. It's not been completely stale, but gives us a chance to come up with some new ideas and promotions and see what we can do to make the most of it.

[NetElixir]

July is definitely one of the slowest times. I think the holiday season (late Oct. to end of Dec.) is usually one of the times of highest conversions though. Retailers should start preparing for this season early since it accounts for up to 50% of yearly profits for some companies.

[HugeNerd]

i've noticed a sharp decrease in the amount of Adwords competitors...

This means that you're getting A LOT MORE of the "window shoppers" and "information gatherers", as I like to call them, than previously.

"Window shoppers" are stopping by to check price at every place they can find before they purchase. They'll click every link available...then call a few places and try to haggle over price. With fewer competitors, you'll show up on their radar a lot more. The 'economy' tact works on this one as well -- many more people are price sensitive now.

"Information gatherers" just want to see what every site on the internet says about an item before they go to Wal-mart/Sam's Club/Big-Box-Store-in-your-Industry where the employees likely have little or no product training/knowledge. That way, they know what they want to buy and don't have to bother asking fruitless questions of your neighborhood's high schoolers. In my industry, where many of the item's require a tradesman's expertise to properly install, this is a significant amount of our traffic and callers and can greatly skew our conversion rate.

Unfortunately, these are both signs that your AdWords campaign is doing it's job...brining in visitors to your site on related key words.