Do time and date matter in Search Engine Marketing?

Of course it does. Some people argue the busiest time of the day are morning hours when people get to work and check personal emails etc. Others think lunch time is actually a good time for officer workers to relax and surf the web. Another bunch of people discourage any online marketing at night when people are probably less willing to convert. Have you noticed a lot of daily auction web site such as guilt.com send daily reminder an hour or so before lunch ... As far as day of the week is concerned, it is generally accepted that Monday and Tuesdays are the busiest days of the week and activity drops over the week end.

What does this mean for us Search Marketers?

Well it depends on the industry type, target audiences, services offered etc. If you sell widgets to office workers, don't expect much activity over the week end (even though these busy execs who work the week end might offer better conversion rates). A client of us sells financial services to individuals and their click through and conversions rates are pretty much consistent throughout the week. Their offering is not time/day sensitive and since most of their ads are on Google content network (real estate and personal finance publications for the most part), theirs ads come-up evenly during the week or week end.

Another client offers professional services to (mostly) women looking to remove clutter from their home. Mots of the ads are on the search network so they only come-up when people are actively looking queries in Google. The two graphs below show that they are more likely to click on PPC ads on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Thursdays and Friday see a slowdown in click through. Activity picks-up again over the week end. One of the busiest time of the week is Sunday evening.

The second graph illustrates the bulk of the activity comes between the hours of 10am to 4pm. There is a peak during lunch time.

Google AdWords offers a tool that enable bids adjustment depending on the time of the day. By experimenting higher and lower bids, Search Marketers can increase their PPC at times that matter.