Holidays 'provide opportunity for effective SEM'

Search engine marketers have been advised to promote their products in the run-up to Thanksgiving, since conversion rates are high on national holidays, reports an expert.

Search engine marketing (SEM) during national holidays can be more successful, according to advertising experts.

The Yahoo! Networks Insight team wrote on the company's advertising blog that conversion rates were higher during the national holidays around Thanksgiving in the US than they were during the rest of November 2008.

It showed that the day after the holiday - referred to as Black Friday - is now a very popular for consumers to make online purchases.

While conversion rates on Black Friday and Cyber Monday were up 147 per cent and 73 per cent respectively on the average day in November, clickthrough was down by 27 per cent on both days.

The team explained: "Not only is Cyber Monday still a top online shopping day, but the traditional offline shopping day Black Friday also proved to be a significant day for online sales conversions."

In order to profit from this trend, the team recommend raising awareness of products in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is on November 26th this year.

14/10/2009