One of the most compelling uses for competitive intelligence in search marketing is a concept that I call critical seasonality. To demonstrate this concept we’ll refer back to the engagement rings example.

The blue line represents the market share of visits to a major online jewelry retailer (I removed this sites name from the chart) while the red line represents volume of searches on “engagement rings.” Notice that in the case of this search query, one of the most lucrative for a jewelry retailer, the retailer missed the most critical search spike of the year by just over a week. An important thing to note is that this engagement ring spike is a recurring spike that occurs each year. Had the retailer had this knowledge in advance, they could have capitalized on a predictable consumer demand pattern.