Weathering The PPC Strategy: How Effective Is It?

For many years, marketers have noticed trends in overall PPC performance fluctuate around the weather. For example, if the entire East Coast is under a Hurricane Warning, realistically people are more concerned about their “offline” world, than doing a Google Search on the best new BluRay player. However, the idea of targeting people based on weather conditions seems a little far-fetched, it does open a window of opportunity for Testing. There is a company based in the UK named WeatherFIT, that is taking this idea to the next level. In this post, I will discuss how WeatherFit works as well as who might best benefit from it.

How does weatherFIT work?

Basically, weatherFIT is integrated into an advertisers Google AdWords account, giving the option of adding weather detail to existing campaigns to control when and where adverts are displayed.

How can Advertisers Benefit from weatherFIT?

Generally speaking, certain advertisers will benefit more from this tool than others. Depending on the product or service, advertisers can leverage certain areas of the country by putting more Ad budgets in those areas who would normally be preparing for a storm or cleaning up from a storm. A good example would be Hurricane Sandy for those on the East Coast. If you look at the image below, you will see an obvious spike in searches for “home generators” within the New Jersey and Philadelphia areas.

How much of an Impact will this Make?

Determining how effective this tool can be depends on a few things.

1. The “weather-related” significance to the product/service that is being offered.
2. An efficient Budget+Search Volume to maximize visibility
3. Brand Continuation of Messaging between the Weather event and the Product/Service

NOTE: This 3rd party tool is not for all advertisers. In fact, PPC Marketers have been doing this same strategy manually for years without the need for a tool.

How Much does it Cost?

How can I buy this tool?

Currently, weatherFIT is only available within the UK, and even though it’s not available in the U.S., I am sure that it will be soon.

In Conclusion:

PPC Marketers have been optimizing campaigns according to weather as well as outside media and news events for years, with great effectiveness. However, as more and more 3rd party tools become available, it just opens the door to more and more testing. In many cases, understanding the performance based on the weather has re-aligned strategies for both online and offline campaigns. Bottomline: We live in a constant fluid world of communication that enables people to migrate from “offline” and “online” in order to fulfill their human behaviors.