Are Seasonality & the Economy Impacting Marketers in Q4? [Traffic & Conversion Data from 150K+ Companies]
By pbump@hubspot.com (Pamela Bump)
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This time each year, nature – as well as marketing – slows down as we head into colder seasons.
As we enter Q4, marketing departments are preparing for a slowdown in business that comes as people tune out towards the end of the year.
But, while seasonal change is expected and inevitable, this year’s economic shifts might cause some marketers to worry that this year could bring a flurry of poor numbers.
As you see dips or bumps in early Q4, you might wonder, “Is my marketing department experiencing seasonality or an impact of outside events, or are our numbers solely based on the work we’ve been doing?”
To help you gather evidence that proves or disproves the possibility of outside impacts in Q4, here’s a look at how businesses across industries entered the first month of it in October.
About this Data: These insights are based on data aggregated from 158,000+ HubSpot customers globally between July 2021 and October 2022. Because the data is aggregated from HubSpot customers’ businesses, please keep in mind that the performance of individual businesses, including HubSpot’s, might differ based on their markets, customer base, industry, geography, stage, and/or other factors.
How Marketing Metrics Are Shifting (or Staying the Same) in Early Q4
To learn how metrics were shifting, we looked at data from sample sizes of 120,000+ businesses.
Overall, we’re seeing that most inbound marketing metrics are down year-over-year. Luckily, the good news is that one major, hard-to-win metric, website conversion rate, is trending upward.
When looking month-over-month, numbers seem to be flatter with a mixed bag of small increases and decreases, which could hint that we’re heading into a seasonal time of slow growth, or starting to see some sluggishness due to the economic climate.
Below, I’ll break down each key marketing metric and walk through what we’ve seen across industries in Q4 so far.
Q4 Web Traffic So Far
Month-over-month, we see that fall and winter seasonality hasn’t harmed websites quite yet with most industries seeing flat, low-change in traffic. Only Technology, Information and Media (up 2% MoM) as well as Trade, Transportation and Utilities (up nearly 3%) saw any real change.
While seasonality might not be impacting the industries below, year-over-year data shows significant dips in traffic across industries (a theme we’ve seen throughout the last few months). Professional and Business Services (down 10%) saw the most significant annual loss, while Leisure and Hospitality saw the reverse with a nearly 7% YoY increase.
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