Update on our analysis answering the question: should we pause recruitment outreach over the holidays?
In early December, we published some interesting data on recruitment media performance during the holidays. Eric Christophersen and Robert Coltharp showed that holiday campaigns are just as good - and often better - than the rest of the year. So OF COURSE we had to pause and look at the recently completed holiday season - did the trend hold, or did we jinx ourselves with a bold prediction? It turned out that, across the board, we saw campaign improvements in all studies when compared to the period leading up to the holidays. In fact, these improvements were even larger than what we saw in the aggregate data. Here are three of the biggest movers over the holidays. Two of the programs had similar patterns: improvements in the top of the funnel, with a similar improvement in conversion rates once people entered the pre-screener - that is, we saw more traffic, *and* that traffic was more qualified. Study 3 shows a different pattern, with a huge increase in interest and the qualification rate staying relatively flat. One major difference in this program is that it's primarily in Europe - we think that holiday online behavior may be even more strikingly different outside the US, meaning keeping the campaign active enabled us to engage a very new audience that we would not have otherwise.