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Which are your best times for conversion?

A practical tool to determining which days and times work best

Value/Importance: ★★★★★

Recommended link: Optimisation Beacon

Our commentary

I loved this simple, yet powerful way of seeing which times are the peak for conversion. This post from Robert Kingston shows you how to extract data from Google Analytics and then display it on a spreadsheet using this format:

Spreadsheet

You can download the spreadsheet template and Robert also provides a pre-built custom report to obtain the data you need:

You can segment using the filter to a single country if you have visitors from multiple timezones clouding the picture.

Thanks Robert for creating and sharing this great tool!

Marketing implications of time of day for conversion

How can you use this data once you have it? Here are some ideas:

  1. Coinciding marketing activities like email marketing and social mentions to coincide with peaks.
  2. Use it to inform day-parting or varying investment in Google Adwords through the day.
  3. Take decisions about when support lines are staffed.
  4. Through using other measures like visits, revenue per visit you can vary your approach.

How else do you use this type of data?

Related posts

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  • http://www.barker.dj dan barker

    I really like this. I’m a big fan of the ‘conditional formatting’ for heatmaps like this.

    it would be equally interesting if the colours could be for ‘unit sales’ & the numbers for conversion rate. I don’t think excel lets you do that quite as easily though.

    dan

  • http://www.communcatorcorp.com Steve Henderson

    Devil’s Advocate here. Why would you focus marketing around the times when people are purchasing anyway?
    Are the peaks caused by your existing marketing approach; in which case would changing your marketing approach cause those peaks to shift?

  • http://www.smartinsights.com/about-dave-chaffey/ Dave Chaffey

    Can’t disagree with you there Steve, good point, that’s the great thing about this visualisation – it prompts questions like this “Why are we failing to convert at other times?” Is this an opportunity?

  • http://www.optimisationbeacon.com/ Rob Kingston

    I think one of the key insights this report delivers is that you can run more generous offers when conversion rates are low to drive conversion and acquisition. Conversely, you can ease back on the offers when they’re high to ride the wave and enjoy high margins. Steve Henderson definitely makes a good point as I found that some of the peaks coincided with email marketing campaigns and social media – best to be aware of how that influences the heat map.

    Thanks for the share, Dave (I studied marketing with the textbooks you wrote back when I was in Uni – so I’m extra flattered you shared my post :) …

    • http://www.smartinsights.com/about-dave-chaffey/ Dave Chaffey

      Hi Rob, thanks for adding the extra point – always happy to share #measure wisdom.

      Hah! The books are still going – just updating the 5th edition and we have some Ebooks coming on SmartInsights soon. I like the way I can provide intro/framework in the books and they through the blog can dig deeper into how to use the tools in the real world.

      BTW I like to think I know Excel well, but I noticed you have the conditional formatting set up as gradation – didn’t know you could do that – I just use on/off – so I’ll be using that in future.

      Tweet me when you have more similar pieces to share :)

      Dave

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