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Studies have shown that Adwords advertisements that include date or time specifics are more likely to receive clicks.  This works for two reasons.  Firstly, the advertisement appears to be more specific to the customer’s needs.  For example, they came to Google looking for hotels for this weekend.  They will instantly see many generic ads which point to hotels, but if your ad specifies a special deal for this weekend, it shows them that what you offer is going to be tailored directly to their needs.

The second reason is that everyone likes a bargain.  If you can specify that they can receive a discount if they click through on your ad and purchase within a specific period of time, then it sparks interest.  Whether or not the special deal is one that in fact runs throughout the year is up to you.  Disingenuous?   This is merely the same tactic that brick-and-mortar shops employ all the time, where they seem to have a start of season sale, mid-season sale and end of season sale, four times a year, as well as special deals on special dates.  There is rarely a day where you will be offered anything but a sale price.

This is also where you can usurp your competitors who are running reasonably generic Adwords campaigns.  They may be trumping you by throwing more cash at the generic search terms that dominate your niche, but you can catch some great customers if you pay attention to the time of the year.  Maybe your niche includes specific dates of the calendar of great excitement to people.  For example, you may generally receive searches for ‘horse-racing tickets’, but once a year there will be a great surge of ‘grand national tickets’.  Recognizing these yearly events can give you key phrases which have lower competition and a high chance of conversion.  Couple it with landing pages which sell special offers for the respective event, and you’re onto a goldmine if your competitors are not also on the ball.

Finally, date and time specific deals can be the means to tip a wavering purchaser over the edge into sending you cash.  Analogous to a offline business that gives a good deal only ‘for one week only’, this type of marketing reaches a certain type of customer quite effectively.  You can even couple it with Adwords search terms that highlight people who were looking for the quick bargain, and hoover up the profit.

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About the author:

Claire Jarrett runs Marketing By Web, who are a PPC Management Company and also runs AdWords Courses