Dramatic End of Month Conversion Dips

[bostonseo]

Does anyone else see fairly dramatic and consistent conversion decline on Google Adwords? Every month this year (with the month of March as an exception) one of my clients see's their sales conversions really decline in the last 5-6 days of each month. It's very perplexing; and not just 1 or 2 keywords causing this...very much across the board decline on all terms.

For the same exact term on Yahoo and MSN this client does not see a conversion decline. Google is quick to point towards the fact that it is end of the month as a reason; they say people are researching not buying at the end of the month. I might be inclined to cut them some slack for this being the cause, but again Yahoo and MSN see virtually no conversion decline.

Because Google has been unwilling to really research the reason for the conversion decline I thought I'd ask and see if anyone else experiences the same thing.

My thinking is that it must have something to do with distribution search partners changing somehow towards the end of the month. I am NOT on content match.

Any thoughts would be appreciated; especially if you experience the same thing.

P.S. Google is not happy that I pause ALL ads at the end of each month...I get calls from them every month asking me why I continue to pause :)

[bostonseo]

If you have experienced this scenario I'd appreciate your acknowledging it.

Thanks

[jim2003]

Hello,

I have noticed this as well. My only theory is that maybe some percentage of people are paid monthly on the first, others are paid bimonthly on the first and fifteenth, and that spending increases when the checks come in. (Given that almost 100% of online shopping is credit card driven, this is a weak theory). I havent really come up with another reasonable explanation.

[netmeg]

You don't mention who you're selling to. I haven't noticed any dip in conversions on consumer sales, and my clients who sell primarily to businesses or government/military actually go UP at the end of the month.

[Murdoch]

This is a common occurence to us as well. We have counteracted it (semi-successfully) by implementing ads in the last 12 days of every month with "Pay by (blank) 30th and receive (blank)" Where the blanks are obviously the month in question and whatever gimmick bonus you can come up with.

Note that although this seems to work it has not this month, however we are in travel and this month (being the "Back to school" month) is typical of a decrease in traffic...

[bostonseo]

I am Marketing a free product; request for free information so there is absolutley no payment involved. And again, there is no decline in conversion on Yahoo or MSN...it's clearly an issue with Google search partners somehow changing at the end of the month...something thay deny, but I know much more about the behind the scenes than they'll admit to.

[DamonHD]

Hi,

I had a very ugly day in general yesterday, in spite of a nice ad with Answers.com and reasonable conversions on that (~50%).

And I had the same sort of drop for TribalFusion as G, so I think the end-of-month and end-of-quarter end-of-budgets and end-of-salary idea is the most plausible so far.

"There's so much month at the end of the money."

Rgds

Damon