Peaks & Troughs

..are almost identical month on month, for no reason..

[wrightee]

When we overlay traffic patterns from a campaign month on month, the peaks and troughs are almost identical in their placement, and quite violent in their range.

Other than the end of the month, there's no obvious reason why this should be so in our market, which leads me to conclude that this must be the "fault" of Google. In particular if we have an outstanding day of clicks, it is almost always followed be an equally underwhelming day.

Just to help me clarify one more piece of the puzzle - does anyone else see this apparent acceleration and throttling through the month?

[poster_boy]

does anyone else see this apparent acceleration and throttling through the month?

Yes, sharp deceleration leading up to and through weekends, acceleration starting on Mondays. Are your patterns tied to day of week?

[wrightee]

Actually - now you mention it yes, Monday/Tuesday show the big spikes, and there's no real reason in our market why that should be the case. Mysterious... Thanks for the feedback.

[Wlauzon]

Quite simply, peoples browsing patterns pretty much follow the day of the workweek. Been that way for years.

Not sure why "your market" should be any different.

[eWhisper]

It's very common to see strange patterns in search behavior. When you can understand why that pattern happens, then you can do some creative advertising.

I remember one account I worked with where the patterns didn't make any sense until laid over a calendar and investigated. The conversions were highest the first weekend after the 2nd payday in the month. Turns out that's pretty common for high-ticket items and the fact the first paycheck goes to rent/mortgage and the 2nd to disposable income.

There might be a pattern in there somewhere that's worth finding.