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How to react on search trends on holidays and other significant events? What are the right bidding strategies for Adwords?

(This tutorial was translated from the German version, here.)

Many occasions that are moving the „offline-world” have also direct impact on search engine marketing. On Christmas days people search for presents, on Mother’s day for flowers and on soccer championship for soccer shirts. At these times the search volume for certain keywords increases alike competition for them. Most events recur on a regular basis and thus becoming applicable for SEM planning. “Flower delivery on mother’s day” provides a good example for showing how to use Search Trends in a beneficial way.

Search Trends: Search volume fort the keyword “Blumenversand” (engl. flower delivery)

Source: Google Trends. Time period: 2004 – 2008.

This example depicts the average search volume for the keyword “Blumenversand” (engl. flower delivery) during the last years. How you can easily see two search trends are coming back every year. At the beginning of February and May due to two holidays the search volume tenfolds for a short period.

Search Trends: „Valentinstag“ (engl. Valentine’s day) and “Muttertag” (engl. mother’s day) 2007.

Source: Google Trends. Time period: 2007

Every year on Valentine’s and Mother’s Day the demand for flowers leaps upwards with a certainty as sure as death and taxes. Let´s have a closer look on how users search on Mother’s Day (11^th of May).

Search Trend: „Muttertag“ (engl. Mother’s Day) in May 2008.

Source: Google Trends / Look@Landingpages. Time period: May 2008.

The green line depicts the daily search volume within Germany. The blue bar shows the AdWords spending while the grey one indicates the corresponding earnings; that is either orders, leads or transactions. Ok, let’s make clear what is it all about. In the following diagram I highlighted the days on witch I made either winnings (yellow) or losses (red).

Search Trend: „Muttertag“ in May 2008, winnings and losses.

Source: Google Trends / Look@Landingpages. Time period: May 2008.

We can make the following observations:

- The search volume starts growing approximately one week before the actual holiday takes place.

- The search volume doesn’t reach its peak on Mother’s Day itself, but four days in advance (in this case 7^th of May)!

- On Mother’s Day the search volume is not significantly higher than on usual days in the year.

- Click through rate and conversion rate grow in conjunction with the search volume, but also collapse altogether (Peak also 7^th of May).

Question: What is to be he right CPC bidding strategy on AdWords?

In my opinion we can derive from our previous observations four stages for which we can apply four distinctive bidding strategies. In doing so the most important thing is not skip one the phases and to manage your SEM campaign in an anticipating way. Furthermore you should keep track of you campaign on a daily basis. This is definitively the most certain way to make sure that you maximize your profits!

First thing to do: Identifying the four Search Trend stages.

Source: Google Trends / Look@Landingpages. Time period: Mai 2008.

1. Stage: search volume starts to grow slightly; raise CPC biddings reasonably!

The search volume is going to step up a few days in advance of the actual hype. In case of Mother’s day the first stage starts approximately two weeks before the holyday takes place. At the same time the competition is also going to raise its biddings. You can figure that from your declining average ad positions, without having reduced biddings yourself.

I recommend going along with the competition. But only that much you need to hold your previous position.

2. Stage: Search volume skyrockets; raise CPC biddings to the breaking point!

Now we have reached the most delicate stage. Here you should choose a step-by-step approach and raise your biddings in conjunction with the search volume. Now you should also consider bidding on keywords which usually won’t pay off. The sense in doing so is that since Mother’s Day (for instance) is such an important event (at least around here where nearly everybody buys flowers, CTR and CR will also perform much better than usually. In order to avoid losses you need to keep a daily check on your campaign keywords. In case certain keywords don’t perform, that is click costs are higher than estimated transaction provision: Do not hesitate a second to cut down your biddings!

Even more important is to determine the moment when the search volume will have passed its peak and the next stage begins! As rule of thumb we can keep mind that:

Rule: The very last day of stage 2, is the last day on which you can order the advertised products while still being delivered in the nick of time.

If we take our example we know that we have to order our flowers two days before Mother’s Day takes place if we want mommy to have them on time. This time period might vary among industries and products, but the point is that you make sure you will never going to miss it. Why? I’m going to tell you in stage 3.

By the way: The end of stage 3 is not necessarily the day with the highest search volume!

Keep an eye on your average ad position every day. For you will get a feeling for prices and competition. In order to stay at the top ranks I bid for instance up to 80ct for the keyword “Blumenversand” (engl. flower delivery), obviously the most important one if you are about to get a slice of the cake.

3. Stage: Search volume declines slowly; nevertheless cut all your biddings immediately!

Now it is all about paying the profit into the bank! The problem with stage 3 is that shortly before the event takes place most products can’t be delivered on time. That is why users search and click like mad, but don’t make orders anymore. As a result all of a sudden the conversion rate slumps down. The search volume is declining, remains on a high level though. So if you don’t pay proper attention there is good chance that you loose a lot of money.

In my example you can see, that I should have paid more attention. Even though I cut down my biddings on a large scale (just above usual level) it just wasn’t enough and in consequence I paid dearly.

My advice for stage 3: Do yourself a favour and reduce your biddings even lower than the regular level! For instance if you bid on usual days 20ct per click you should only go for 10 to 15ct in stage 3! Don’t be greedy and act decidedly in order not to gamble away your budget.

4. Stage: Normality comes back; set biddings on regular level.

Wait until the very end of the search trend. When the show is over, return your CPC biddings to the regular keyword level. Now your SEM campaign should return to balance again.

Handling other Search Trends and Seasons

Besides holydays like Valentine’s and Mother’s Day there are more interesting Search Trends. I’m trying to give you a brief list of the most important ones. Please add your ideas if you have something in mind I might have forgotten.

Holydays (short term trends): Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas, New Years Eve.

Events (mid term trends): Most importantly sports events like football world cup or the Olympic Games. Also fashion trends or events alike occurring in the world may provide good opportunities for online marketing.

Seasons (long term trends): singles, vacations, garden time in spring, summer and beach fashion, barbecue and summer sports equipment, winter fashion and Christmas presents in winter.

Hot offers: New products, upcoming releases and trendy stuff should also be considered! For example, in Germany there’s a big campaign called “VolksDSL“, started by a hugh newspaper. Its a very good product, nice incentives for the customer especially before xmas. You should identify these trends early in order to participate. So have a look at newspapers and TV shows, too! Remember Starsearch, Popstars, Next Topmodel and so on?

For any of these Search Trends our 4 stage scheme applies. For seasons the single stages take some more time, but for the bidding strategy the basic principle stays the same. Regardless whether running search engine marketing as an affiliate, agency, or in-house.

To find out more about hot trends or search trends in general, have a look at “Insights for Search“.

Have your say! What’s your opinion? Do you have other or even better approaches for bidding strategies?

This entry was posted on Montag, Dezember 1st, 2008 at 11:57 and is filed under Optimization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.