We discussed in a recent blog post what day of the week might be best for online sales and conversions. The results we got from analysing our data across all our clients showed the highest amount of conversions occurred on a Monday, overtaking traditional high traffic Sundays. So, we have identified old-fashioned sales patterns can change, however, have you ever wondered what time of day Impressions, Clicks and Conversions peak and could this change in the future?
It’s almost important to realise that aggregated data, such as the graphs below, includes data from a range of B2B and B2C industries, and every business’s operations will be different. Some accounts may have higher conversion rates in the morning, and some may thrive in the afternoon.
Online Shopping by the Hour:
Using the data from our accounts, we highlighted hourly Impressions Vs Clicks:
As you can see, the difference between the number of Impressions Vs Clicks is astronomical but this is to be expected. The important thing to take away is the steady linear trend for both Impressions and Clicks, which progressively increases as the day goes on. Users are clearly more active during the afternoon and into the evening, probably due to the increase of free time they have, once they finish work and other admin tasks.
The Good Stuff:
Now, this might be obvious to some of you but as we can see from the above data, Conversions gradually increase as the day continues, the same way Impressions and Clicks rise. The time when most of us are asleep is when the Conversions are at their lowest, as opposed to the afternoon and evening when people have finished work and have started their online shopping. What’s worth noting, is that between 17:00 and 18:00 the amount of conversions drops before spiking at 20:00. This could be attributed to people finishing work around 5 o’clock, commuting back to their homes or generally performing other household tasks before starting to browse online in the evening.
Future Trends:
It’s important to remember the data we gathered was taken from lots of different industries across our extensive client list. Therefore, this data might not completely match every single industry, however, it’s an extremely good benchmark to go off and to look at future trends.
For retailers, it’s fundamental to take into consideration anything that might skew the above data and affect hourly conversions within your industry. For instance, if a website offers: “same-day delivery” or “next-day delivery” if you order before a certain time then consumers are more likely to order products earlier on. With more and more companies offering faster delivery options and with the highly successful Amazon Prime feature now widely available, ordering goods before 2 or 3 pm is becoming more common.
Another key driver that’s changing hourly conversions is the very popular “Flexi-Work”, which is taking the country by storm. Again, this could be another crucial factor to retailer’s, as it has the potential to disrupt traditional sales patterns. Employees are essentially working when they want, in order to fit around their lifestyle, even if this might be starting or finishing 30 minutes earlier or later. A lot of industries are adopting flexible working due to an increase in employee wellbeing and overall productivity at work. With this, retailers should bear in mind hourly conversions could be drastically affected as employees will be at home more during traditional working hours i.e. 9-5.
Knowing when to bid up or down on your ad campaigns during the day will vary depending on your industry and customers. If you’re currently struggling to analyse when to pull back or be more competitive with your ad campaigns, we have over 12 years of Google Shopping management experience, as well as expertise in Social ads, SEO, Email marketing and Paid search.
