Google Trends For Affiliates
At times it does seem that Google can’t last five minutes without launching some kind of tool, program, application to “enhance” our lovely little world. Normally they are good for a day or two whilst you tell your mates about it and try and figure out exactly how this new gizmo is supposed to make life easier… and here in lies the problem, they usually don’t.
Google’s latest offering (launched just over a week ago) was Google Trends. I’ve held back on posting about it slightly as I wanted to see if this was just another one to add to the “I’m bored of that now” pile. I guess the fact that I’m blogging about it now proves that it survived my boredom test and avoided the Google graveyard.
For those that don’t know what I’m talking about, Google Trends is a nifty little application that allows you to visualise search patterns across time and region whilst simultaneously comparing them to others. As google so eloquently puts it…
Google Trends allows you to See what the world is searching for.
So for example, check out the snap shot below which shows the trend for all search engines during 2005.
What can we see here? Well the first thing that jumps out at us is the two points Labelled A and C on the Blue Google trend line. A little investigation into what was happening around this time last year reveals that Google’s Shares were soaring following their initial IPO (point A) and at it’s peak (point C) Google launched their Google Talk product.
For those amongst you who are thinking “hang on a minute, I thought Google is the best search engine out there and way more popular than the other two, why is their trend so low?” Well, it’s worth noting that this graph is not a true reflection on how popular each search engine is to one another. Remember, this is Google’s new tool, Google’s search data, and more importantly who the heck searches for Google when you’re already on Google?
My immediate test searches were those of the very serious kind, you know, those answers you’ve always wanted to know.
- What’s better, daddy or chips?
- MCFC vs. MUFC (as a city fan I just loved this, especially the regional differences)
- Sylvester Stallone vs. Jean-Claude Van Damme vs. Arnold Schwarzenegger
Then of course came a few work related searches:
This is all fine when drawing simple retrospective comparisons to visualise growth and discover what caused huge spikes but for me to actually continue to use this as a tool in an affiliate marketing manner there’s going to have to be a way for me to extrapolate this data so I can plan ahead - as the saying goes it’s better to be proactive than reactive. That’s when this tool really is trendy.
Let’s look at one of the affiliate programs I manage - fancydress.com, and let’s say as an affiliate you’re looking to sign up and promote this program but not sure if it’s the right time of year to promote such a program. Well a quick search on Google trends shows all sorts of helpful information:
Firstly, take a snapshot look at 2004, then again in 2005, see the pattern? Yep, they have virtually identical landscapes. What’s more is that you can also see that there is growth in this sector with the larger peaks over time. Finally you can see clearly that towards the end of October is peak season. Why? Well because it’s Halloween and Fancy Dress season of course!
Searching around for the main keywords associated with various merchants and affiliate programs has lead to further confirmation that Goole Trends can be a really helpful tool when planning out your affiliate marketing activities throught the year. It has also thrown up a few seasonal surprises that I wouldn’t have expected but I’m keeping those to myself for now.
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