November has knocked at our doors: pumpkin spiced latte syrups are restocked, leaves from the trees are falling as quickly as our vitamin D levels, and the weather, formerly being filled with sun and light wind, just drops this beat “Goodbye My Lover” (James Blunt, 2004) and abandons us till the next year.
Thankfully, this season is filled with one of the best holidays of the year, such holidays that many of us start counting “days left till Christmas” while building sand castles on a beach or continuously thinking about which purchases on Cyber Monday should be made (*cough cough*, an Oculus Quest VR headset and a Dyson Airwrap).
During the holiday season, everyone screams, physically or subconsciously “Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas – take my money now!” Hence, marketers should use this busy time of the year to its full potential. Thus, how to turn searchers into actual customers? From where to begin? What are the best practices and strategies that help to drive your sales more than the competitors? Read further and this short guide will navigate you through Google Search strategy planning.
Use Google Ads Insights
There are two types of shoppers. The ones that start planning their gifts and purchases early and the others take to the last minute. Due to early shoppers, Google Ads insights can show forecasts of which products/services related to your business will be trending in Google Search. With this data, you can understand the period (Cyber Monday) and the volume of the subject’s demand. In addition, this will help to make decisions on determining budgets and the scheduling of ads.
Use Performance Planner
Since Performance planner forecasts are always up to date and highly affected by seasonality, it’s highly beneficial to use this planner to see your campaign’s performance forecast, and the effects on performance (clicks, conversion rates, etc). of changing the budget during the seasonal period.
Upload festive images
Making images as relevant as possible for a seasonal event is a necessity. High-quality images, and vivid colors. Green, red, and gold for Christmas, cyberpunk neon for Cyber Monday – you got the picture. By this, you’re not only grabbing attention and attracting people to click but also making it more likely to be shown for relevant search queries.
Specify shipping & working hours information
Specifying shipping options, durations, and locations is another component that should not be forgotten. Especially the holiday last-minute shoppers seek the fastest delivery solution or a solution for their upcoming disaster when they don’t have a gift for their best friend. As an example, order before 22h – delivery next day, generous free returns (60-day free returns), free delivery in the Netherlands, etc. Moreover, including opening hours information of physical stores can also help increase physical store visits.
Offer discounts and sales
During this period, especially with “hello inflation”, people will try to save wherever it is possible. Hence, to make them choose yours and not offered by others, encourage them to click your ads with the best deals. Releasing a sale, adding a promotion code, for example, 30% off, adding gifts with a purchase, suggesting bundles, such as buy 1 get 2, buy this x item and y item is 50% off. Also what helps to do a trick is to add information when the sale ends, for instance, 72h left till the end of the sale, hence it will create an urgency to buy your products now.
Catch those cart abandoners
More than ever, shoppers add items to their carts but leave without the final transaction. They leave because shoppers want to compare the cart subtotal amount with other websites, or they’re not finished adding all the items and they forget, and many more… Hence, creating a remarketing audience list targeting cart abandoners with your remarketing ads would help to remind them about yourself and of course, hopes are high, to seal the deal!
Hide and Seek is an online advertising agency. We are knowledgeable, personal, strategic and different.
