I love following the markets (another bloody day today), and if you have ever studied finance or the stock markets you are most likely familiar with the term A Random Walk. It is a theory that stock market prices evolve randomly and cannot be predicted. It was coined popular when Burton Malkiel a famous Princeton Professor wrote A Random Walk Down Wall Street.
Random Walk and Affiliate Marketing
So what does this have to do with affiliate marketing and conversions? While I don’t agree that the markets are 100% random, there is some truth in that. Day to day conversions can at many times display randomness, they go up and sometimes they go down. Granted you may have an overall 3% conversion rate, but how you get there over the course of a month maybe somewhat of a roller coaster. Don’t freak out from day-to-day conversion highs and lows.
The Summer Doldrums
Now that we are in the peak of the summer, you may notice that you’re conversions are taking a dip. Looking at my campaigns, some of them have slowed down a bit, while others have actually done a little better than average. It’s all part of the game, it is the summer, people are on vacation, the economy is slowing down, your offer is seasonal, etc… If you haven’t promoted your offer for over 1 year, you really don’t know the seasonality trends of your product. Like the market they fluctuate. At times sales come in bunches, 200 clicks and no sales, and then the next 100 clicks, BAM 4 sales.
A Simple Test
Ok, so I wanted to have some fun with this in excel. They have a RAND function that let’s you display random numbers at your choice. Assuming an average 3% conversion I took a sample of 30 ‘days’. Below you see the results:
Notice the 3 days circled in red, less than 1% conversion for 3 straight days. That would get anybody down … but the average for the whole month is still 3%. I know this is not real life, but it’s the principle that I’m trying to get across.
When I first started out, I would always be checking stats and when I had a bad day I knew something was wrong. Changing bids, tweaking ads, copy, etc… was really kind of pointless. Unless you are doing a valid split-test, you will be better off focusing on something more worth your time, like creating more and more campaigns.
Hope this encourages you guys 
It does, thanks man