As retailers of waterproofs, our sales are definitely affected by the weather. This is especially true during the Irish summer months. If we have a prolonged spell of wet weather our sales will generally increase. If the sun shines for a few days our sales will more than likely drop.
Managing our online advertising spend during the summer months can be an interesting task. If the weather is really nice for a few days I normally decrease the daily spend on Google Adwords – sometimes turning it off altogether for a few days of really sunny weather.
I have also been experimenting again with Facebook ads recently. I have set up a few different ads and have been turning them on and off for periods over the last few weeks depending on the day’s weather. Here’s one of them:
The tool that I find really useful in managing these ads is the Met Eireann Rainfall Radar.
The Rainfall Radar is updated every 15 minutes and shows an accurate picture of the rainfall pattern over Ireland. The colour codes show the intensity of the rainfall and it can be animated on the Met Eireann site to show the progression of the rain in the last few hours. Here are a few examples:
It’s raining over most of the country. Decision: Turn the Facebook Ad on for the day.
It’s mostly fine throughout the country. Decision: No Facebook ads running and reduce the spend on Adwords.
The overall Met Eireann site is very easy to use and provides accurate weather information, forecasts and statistics. I am sure that they expect farmers and fishermen to use their information to decide on their course of action but they might be surprised to learn that an online retailer also makes use of their information to make important business decisions.
