Holiday season is around the corner and that means pumpkin spice flavor will be added to everything in every store in America! If only there was such a thing as Pumpkin Spiced Paid Advertising – imagine the conversion rate on that, let alone the traffic it would generate.
But even with basic flavors, you can still be successful with your paid media advertising by following three overarching, yet simple and strategic methods to holiday advertising:
- Do Your Homework
- Create Compelling Ad Offers
- Plan for More Ad Spend
Following this approach can prove to be profitable, while mastering them will further elevate your results.
What We Already Know
People are going to be searching for the best deals online during the holiday season, mainly from Thanksgiving to Black Friday to Cyber Monday. That’s a given.
Heavy traffic is going to be pouring into search engines looking for discounts, promotions, and deals on trending products that everyone wants to buy. Most of the searchers have already made up their minds on purchasing since it’s known that the days around Black Friday are the time for great deals. It’s just a matter of whose ads show up in front of the searcher first with the most compelling offer that gets the conversion.
1. Do Your Homework
During the good ole grade school days, homework was possibly the one thing every kid dreaded the most. Who wants to do school-work at school and at home without a great incentive. But what if the reward had direct real-life implications on your company’s sales and growth by upwards of 500% or gaining profits in millions? That can be the case with paid media advertising, especially during Q4, the most important conversion season of the year. Researching different types of products and offers will not only be cost effective but is also imperative to running an efficient campaign that will yield the lowest cost-per-acquisition.
In addition, knowing what new gadgets are trending in the market or what style of furniture is considered fashionable could help you determine which type of marketing strategies should be deployed and what products should be spotlighted in your ads.
2. Create Compelling Ad Offers
The goal for an advertiser, in simpler terms, is to get compelling ads in front of the people searching for offered products as many times as possible. Statistically, this gives advertisers the best chance to generate the maximum number of clicks on their ads over their competitors.
During the holiday season, the competitive landscape will be flush with new and old competitors offering a multitude of ads to lure people to their websites. One way to deflect competition and maintain, or possibly increase traffic, is by adding more compelling promo offerings by using the words: “Free”, “X% Discount”, or “$X OFF”. This will significantly improve the click-through rate (CTR) while potentially improving the conversion rate as well.
In the months and weeks leading up to Black Friday you can run tests to see which types of offers resonate best with your audience, and then unleash your most effective ads for the holiday buying season.
3. Plan for More Ad Spend
Budget, Finance, Investment, Dollars. This is what everything comes down to.
Coming up with the most eye-popping and attractive offers during Black Friday is crucial, but what good is it if you don’t have the funds to make it come to life?
Having adequate budget to make sure your ads are visible throughout paid search platforms is also necessary, especially because the traffic is going to be inexpensive to turn visits into conversions. It’s like a lottery where the odds are in your favor. Look at the demand and trend data around your product categories for last year to see how much demand increase to expect, and budget accordingly.
Forecasting your holiday budget could be a useful approach in understanding how to properly fund the days surrounding Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. It is very easy to run out of budget simply due to the excess traffic, which is why having a backup-budget is a sound option to utilize in case the demand is unpredictably high.
Like they say, money does talk! Who knew?
