Bronte Media

Rimm-Kaufman, a search marketing agency, has yet more valuable data, this time on the effect the holiday shopping season has on conversion rates. The data suggests that conversion rates jump by roughly half for the typical online retailer in the run up to Christmas.

Unfortunately, nearly all that improvement filters down into higher CPC bids on the Google during this time.

Online commerce and advertising are quite skewed to the fourth quarter – as much as 35-40% of the year’s activity occur during Q4. Why does that matter? Well as we find ourselves wading through the financial crisis I’ve noticed quite a few wrap ups of quarterly earnings calls focus on sequential (quarter over quarter) rather than yearly comparisons.

Q4 vs Q3 will be up by a mile. The real question will be how Q409 will fare against Q408. Remember this time last year the Lehman bankruptcy and AIG failure were happening and essentially the corporate deers froze in the ensuing headlights. So in some respects Q409 will have an easier hurdle even when comparing year over year. But from all I see (given I look at real estate data all day long) there is very little sign of improvement and it seems for the US economy stablization is about all you can hope for.