This is the hierarchical data year on year but there are the occasional exceptions. This one is no different. I was searching for some historical data and found that for 3 years straight there were 2 very poor months for our client, then as if by magic, those two months in the last 2 years became much more effective and returned 3 times more searches than in the previous years.

Now this can be attributed to a number of factors outside the realm of search. A big advertising campaign, a story in the news, or population flux, much like we hoped the world cup would provide. Obviously this data is what we use to show clients that there are poor months when they come back to us without any true understanding that the internet is not a comparative machine. This month your budget will get you this and that month it will get you that. They really expect an exact amount for their budget. This is impossible to explain to them especially when they are not performing. We are doing our best to measure the internet traffic and with tools such as Google insight and Forecast we are getting closer to mapping our year to the profitable months per client.

Forseeing these events can aid you in your use of Adwords over the months. Drop your prices in the low months and aim high during the saturated months. This can only yield better results and with further analysis and perhaps forecasting we will be able to get the best results. So for this coming Christmas, historically poor across the board i will be adjusting my budgets to perform against the results from last year. This is the Google forecast although forecasts are usually never accurate you must be ready to compensate for both reactions.