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One for the experts

Huge ROI at first

         

madman21

12:30 pm on Mar 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I am marketing a product that produced 6 sales in the first couple days. After that not another sale for nearly two weeks. I paused it for a few weeks. The other day I restarted it and made 3 sales in 24 hours then no sales for over a week. Is this normal? Please note that the CTR remained roughly the same as well as the clicks per day.

Robsp

1:14 pm on Mar 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



madman,

Unless you have a "time dependent" product this could still be explained with statistical variation. One of my customers called that he did not see any conversions for a week. On the same day (after the call) he had 2 sales. Statistics and the weather are hard to predict :-)

cline

3:55 pm on Mar 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



It's both normal and not normal.

It's not normal in the sense that -- all other things being equal -- sales should cluster so much.

It is normal in the sense that in any random process there *must* be a small amount of unusual patterns. Think of it this way: Most of the time ten coin tosses will come up with something near 5 heads and 5 tails, but toss those coins enough and you'll encounter 10 heads and no tails. The chances are (0.5)^10 , so it should happen about once in a thousand series of coin tosses.

FromRocky

4:13 pm on Mar 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



madman21,

Yours are just opposite to my #1 product but they tell the same thing. I started it out with over 500 clicks without a sale. I was almost to give it up except one point: I still make money if only one sale is made. Suddenly, two sales were made. Although the current conversion rate is about 2-3% but I sometimes still get over couple hundred clicks without a sale.

webdiversity

12:24 am on Mar 17, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Don't look at days in isolation and think that you have the answers.

I'd suggest that you need to evaluate your results and ROI over time.

You could have made 6 sales and lost a fortune, or those sales may have driven a massive perecentage profit.

The only certainty with Adwords (or any PPC for that matter), is uncertainty. There are constant changes made with the way in which ads are served, you might have got caught in that net.

Over time, the kinks iron themselves out. Know how many visitors you need to make one sale, then aim to generate as many times that figure for the least amount of money, aso you require for your business to be profitable, successful and enjoyable and you should be fine.

258cib

2:03 am on Mar 17, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Welcome to retail. This is nothing new.

You hear all of these theories on what magazine covers sell best on the newsstands, but after you do the formulas-- you never know.

Researchers got a Cray computer and studied traffic patterns using scads of data, trying to figure out why people did what they did in traffic. Major conclusion of the study: People are unpredictable. "Dozens of people will, on some days, just sit in a long stuck line and not move to the other lanes which are moving. It's amazing."

madman21

8:55 am on Mar 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Thank you for your replies. I am just getting started and working with a very limited budget.

eWhisper

2:28 pm on Mar 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I'd suggest that you need to evaluate your results and ROI over time

Look for trends. For many products, you'll see certain days of the week or times of the month convert better than other times.

These trends are hard to predict until you have sufficient data to back up your predictions.

Charting ROI/sales by days of the week, days/weeks in the month, and eventually from year to year can help you make some informed marketing decisions.

blaze

6:04 pm on Mar 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Good thread. Never enough of these types of conversations on WebMasterWorld.

I started two campaigns on sundays and experienced the same thing you did - only to realize over time that sundays were my biggest sellers (except for when the oscars were on, then monday was my biggest seller that week)

What day of week did you activate your campaigns? What day of month? What time of year? What industry are you in?

Lots of things can have an impact:

- When people get paid
- Weather
- Tax refunds
- National television events (terrorist attacks, oscars, OJ simpson, etc)
- Different types of activities depending on the season

Any others that people know that I haven't listed?

258cib

6:11 pm on Mar 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I had the privilege of seeing watching who was clicking on what feeds on a major wire service for six weeks.

News about pretty women and dead celebrities are good. Major disease outbreaks are good for clicks. Strikes at grocery stores is good, but only for the areas impacted.

Mostly, life happens. When people are busy doing something else, they're not clicking on your site.

FromRocky

6:50 pm on Mar 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



<<Any others that people know that I haven't listed? >>

1. Number of Competitors
2. Rate of foreign currencies