When golfers sleep, Golfballs.com turns off the lights at Google

In the months leading to golf season, Golfballs.com Inc. has learned that it can score higher in search engine marketing conversion rates by automatically turning off its Google AdWords when customers aren’t buying, CEO Tom Cox tells InternetRetailer.com.

Using its “dayparting” strategy that runs Google AdWords only during periods of good performance, Golfballs.com has improved the overall impact of search engine marketing campaigns, Cox says. “Since we began dayparting in January, we estimate a double-digit increase in our return on search engine ad spending,” he says.

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“We’ve determined that Google doesn’t convert late at night,” he adds, noting that Golfballs.com expects to generate sales at three to five times the cost of search marketing campaigns.

Using Omniture Inc.’s SiteCatalyst web analytics tool, Golfballs.com determines the times of day that shoppers arriving through Internet search convert at the highest rates. After it discovered that both click-throughs and conversions to sales were too low after about 10 p.m., it developed in-house a tool that automatically deactivates its Google AdWord campaigns during known periods of poor performance, then reactivates them at the start of periods when shoppers are more likely to make purchases.

“We save money on clicks in late-night hours and reallocate that money to daytime bidding,” Cox says.

Golfballs.com, No. 375 in the Internet Retailer Top 400 Guide to Retail Web Sites, expects to do about $7.5 million in sales this year, its tenth year operating online, up from about $6 million last year, Cox says.