Sunshine, Searches and the World Cup

What happens to searches when there is great weather and or great content on TV? Is search activity permenantly lost or deferred to a later time when there is less competition for your audiences attention?

Over the past month we have had a good chance to observe both occurances.

The relative search volume seen on a given day compared to the previous four corresponding days (that is Monday compared to the previous four Mondays and so on) is plotted for the period of the World Cup (England's anyway).

Days of extreme weather and England match days are highlighted.

Warm and cool weather have an inverse impact on search volumes as intuition would suggest. Match days also seem to put a dampener on search activity. There also seems to be an overall effect on searches for the period when at least a game a day was played.

Is this reduction in activity permanently lost? Days immediately after England matches as well as the last week on the chart provide evidence that not all is. A component is deferred rather than lost for ever.

This is no-doubt good news for e-Commerce managers looking to forecast trading through future events.


Posted by Jonathan Marsh, UK Retail Team