A number of factors play into the effectiveness of advertising in generating sales. Some of the primary determinants include the targeting of the media, the relevancy of the creative, and the clutter and frequency of impressions. One of the most interesting and actionable factors is time of day—hourly conversion rates can vary as much as 50 percent from the overall average.
This Digital Marketing Insight is dedicated to understanding the impact of daypart in the context of direct response interactive marketing. More specifically, how does time of day affect an impression’s ability to generate conversions? Are users more likely to respond to impressions delivered at particular times of the day? Do surfing habits vary enough from hour-to-hour to justify paying higher CPMs for better hours of delivery?
For this study, six widely different advertisers were analyzed over a period of three months. These advertisers encompass such distinct product offerings as online social services, brick-and-mortar retailers, information services, and consumer electronics. The conversion data was indexed and averaged among all advertisers to avoid biasing the aggregate results towards any one particular advertiser’s data.
Microsoft Advertising Institute publishes Digital Marketing Insights (DMIs), a series of publications by digital marketing experts that help our customers improve their digital marketing effectiveness. Many of these findings are also made available to the digital marketing industry at large. Each DMI is designed to help marketers more successfully build value with their customers, throughout the customer lifecycle: from awareness to acquisition and from retention to growth. Microsoft Advertising Institute also provides education in digital marketing to Microsoft customers. Learn more about Microsoft Advertising Institute.
Download the complete Digital Marketing Insight report to learn more about research findings and key takeaways.
