Temporal Patterns in User Conversions: Investigating the Impact of Ad Scheduling in Digital Marketing

Abstract

This study explores the impact of ad scheduling on user conversions by analyzing temporal patterns in user behavior. In the increasingly competitive landscape of digital marketing, optimizing the timing of ad placements is critical for maximizing user engagement and conversion rates. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset from Kaggle, which includes variables such as user ID, ad exposure details, and conversion outcomes, we employed both time series analysis and survival analysis to uncover insights into how different ad scheduling strategies affect conversion rates. The ARIMA model, used for time series analysis, provided reasonable predictive accuracy with a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 389.92, Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) of 463.97, and Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) of 2.26%. This model effectively identified specific hours and days with higher likelihoods of conversion, particularly during evenings and weekends. On the other hand, the Cox Proportional Hazards model, used for survival analysis, demonstrated superior performance with a concordance index of 0.97, indicating its exceptional ability to predict the timing of user conversions based on various covariates such as the number of ads seen and the specific hours of exposure. The findings suggest that strategic ad scheduling, tailored to align with user temporal behavior, can significantly enhance marketing effectiveness by targeting users during peak conversion periods. These insights offer practical implications for digital marketers aiming to refine their ad delivery strategies to achieve higher conversion rates and improve return on investment.