Although we are only in November, Christmas not is that far away and many of your prospects have already started researching how they will spend their money this holiday season.
Depending on the industry of your business, the holiday season may be your biggest sales months of the year. So it only makes sense to have a bulletproof PPC strategy to maximize your revenue.
Not sure what to do this Christmas? Here are 6 tips to help you get started right away.
1. Allocate Larger Amounts Of Spend For November and December
If your business usually has its biggest sales month in Q4, it only makes sense to allocate a larger budget for the holiday period. Your prospects are actively searching for things to buy, increasing your click-through rates and conversions without having to adjust your copies.
Their intent to buy over the next few months is elevated, and placing as much media as you can in front of them will increase sales.
It’s a common scenario for consumers to overspend during Christmas and be cash strapped for January and February. If it’s viable, place a greater emphasis on marketing in November and December over January and February.
2. Use Carousel Ads
Carousel ads on Facebook are one of the most difficult ads to setup as they require a lot of testing. But they are also the perfect media units to serve prospects who have an idea on what they want, but have not yet narrowed their search to the specific product (for example, they want a laptop but not sure which one).
Use Facebook Page Insights to find your most engaging posts of the year and place them in a carousel ad, this will save you hours of testing and finding which copies convert best.
3. Monitor Competitors’ Strategies
Christmas is the time of the year when a lot of businesses go gung-ho with their marketing and start offering all kinds of deals. If your biggest competitor has discounted some of their product range or is offering free coupon codes, you’ll be able to quickly adjust your own campaigns to compensate if you monitor them.
For example, you may find your ad copies aren’t gaining as much attention and blame it to poor targeting or a dull ad copy, but it may actually be because your competitor is running a huge promotion stealing your customers.
Keep a close eye on their website, social media accounts and Google and Bing campaigns, be prepared to make adjustments where necessary.
4. Seasonal Keyword Research
There’s only one time of the year people search for seasonal keywords such as Black Friday gadget sale or Christmas clothes sale, just ask Google Trends:
Find seasonal long-tail keywords that relate to your business which consumers may be searching for. Avoid targeting keywords that are too generic (Black Friday sale, Christmas sale) as you’ll often be paying over the odds and receiving prospects who are at the beginning of their shopping journey.
Create Retargeting Campaigns For Individual Products
Prospects are going to be bombarded from all angles with choices and products that they’ll often visit your website only to forget about it a few seconds later. You must create numerous retargeting campaigns for your products to give prospects a friendly reminder that they should choose you.
If your budget is tight and you have a lot of products, setup shorter retargeting campaigns that only keep prospects in your custom audience for 7-14 days. A prospect who visited your website 48 hours ago is much more likely to re-visit and take action than someone who last viewed your website 25 days ago.
When working with a larger budget, create a number of retargeting campaigns and offer each audience unique offers. For example:
- 1-7 day custom audiences – no offer, just a retargeting ad back to your website
- 8-14 day custom audiences – a 15% coupon code for purchases over $100
- 15-30 day custom audiences – a 25% coupon code for purchases over $100
The further out prospects are from your retargeting funnel, the more incentives you need to provide to bring them back.
6. Make All Your Content Seasonal
As I mentioned in last week’s article on reducing ad fatigue, making sure all your ads are seasonal is huge. Consumers enjoy getting into the Christmas spirit and is why seasonal ads work so well.
If you cannot make your own seasonal images, hire freelancers who can Photoshop your visuals to give them that little holiday kick. This will increase the likelihood of prospects liking or sharing your ads that are on social media too (free advertising).
Summary
If you’ve ever had doubts about PPC as a value marketing tool to drive targeted traffic to your website, now is the time to get started. If consumers are not using search engines to get ideas for presents, they’ll be logging into Facebook and Twitter asking friends and looking through their newsfeed.
How will you be using paid search this holiday season?
Nick Bridges
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