Major Events and Impact on Web Traffic • Perfect Audience Blog

Research of the Week filters through hundreds of research studies and finds the most interesting and thought-provoking research for marketing professionals. Then we provide practical strategies and tips on how to apply the research to influence your marketing programs. Enjoy!

Major events impact our business. Right now it is COVID-19, but it can be anything, at any time that impacts how people and companies use the web, visit our websites, make purchases, decide when to purchase, what to purchase, etc.

Take a quick look at web traffic changes as a result of COVID-19. For example, here is a chart that shows web traffic for the City of Seattle website, http://www.seattle.gov/. As COVID-19 news increased, the Seattle website traffic patterns skyrocketed.

John Graham-Cumming outlines impacts on internet traffic in a recent Cloudflare blog post. John’s research shows that web traffic in Seattle had a big spike of traffic after the first reported case of COVID-19 in the Seattle area on January 21. The traffic jumped in January and stayed elevated. As new COVID-19 news unfolded, the traffic continued to spike. These traffic patterns are similar to many sites and regions.

Staying home changes media patters of individuals. Here are two examples of major storms and increased television viewing.

The bottom line is that business and marketing leaders need to be quick to analyze current events and how those events will impact them. In every economic cycle, there are winners and losers. Your ability to spot the trends (some are quick and some are more gradual), make quick decisions, and implement those decisions is the key to success.

For example, you may want to do the following based on your analysis of web traffic patterns and customer needs:

• Increase your advertising spend on certain products and decrease for other products.
• Pause your advertising spend, analyze the situation, find the new opportunity, shift your focus to that new opportunity, and double down.
• Test a new offer based on your analysis.
• Use different messages for ads, emails, and web pages.
• Create new content for your blog.
• Create new online resources for your visitors.

The good news is that technology platforms allow you to be agile in your digital advertising campaigns. Many times, winning and losing comes down to the speed and accuracy of decisions you make. Don’t “wait it out” but instead, get the data and expert help you need to make the right decisions today.

If you want to recalibrate your digital advertising campaigns, Perfect Audience has experts available to work with you. Click here to schedule a meeting.