For most people, the holidays are a wonderful time to relax, eat delicious food and spend some quality time with your loved ones. But for business owners, the holidays can actually be the most stressful time of the year. In this article, I’ve provided solutions to common issues some of Logical Position’s (LP’s) ecommerce clients have faced during the holiday season, so that you can get back to what truly matters: eating all of that great food!
Before we get started…
You’ll want to make sure you get an early start on your holiday strategizing so that everything doesn’t have to be set up last minute. Start doing your research and thinking about what promotions you want to run in advance, so that by the time the holidays are here you’ll have set yourself up for success.
The Problem: Your campaigns are running out of budget too early in the day
Consumers love to wait until the last second to get all of their holiday shopping done. This can end up being a nightmare for your paid search campaigns. Since your ads will be getting more traffic, your campaigns will run out of budget earlier in the day and your ads will stop showing.
Solution: Inflate your budgets
You’ll want to make sure your ads are showing for as long as possible leading up to major holidays. In order to do this, you’ll need to inflate your budgets on the most important days. For example, you could double or even triple your daily budgets in the two weeks leading up to Christmas. If budget is tight, you can lower them back down right after the holiday season or even pause your ads altogether for a short time. Since competitors tend to get more aggressive during the holidays, increasing your bids when you increase your budgets will help you capture more search impression share.
The Problem: Consumers don’t know about the holiday promotions you’re running
The holidays are the biggest online shopping period every year, so it’s important that consumers know about the promotions or sales that you’re running during that time. But how can you use your paid search strategy to spread the word?
Solution: Leverage your ad copy, ad extensions and shopping promotions
Your ad copy, ad extensions and shopping promotions are going to be the best places to advertise any promotions or sales you’re running for the holidays.
- Ad copy: Use your ad copy to let consumers know about any general promotions or sales you’re running. Include any necessary information, such as sales dates or the types of items that are included in the sale.
- Ad extensions: Ad extensions tend to be more eye-catching for consumers, so use these to advertise any specific details you need to convey. You could set up a promotion extension to include a promo code for customers to use, or set up a sitelink directing customers right to your sale page.
- Shopping promotions: Use shopping promotions when you have a specific discount or percent off you can offer consumers. These will display with your Google shopping ads, which will incentivize consumers to buy immediately.
The Problem: You didn’t see the performance you’d hoped for last holiday season
The holidays are a crucial time for eCommerce businesses to succeed. Unfortunately, this success doesn’t always come easy— the holidays are an easy time to get undercut by competition or have your campaigns fall flat. Having an unfavorable holiday season can affect your business for the entire following year. How can you ensure your holiday season is successful?
Solution: Analyze last year’s performance
Analyzing last year’s campaign performance will help you identify what areas of your paid search strategy were successful and what still needs improvement. If some of your campaigns were prosperous, duplicate those to build off of their success. If you notice areas of poor performance, try to figure out what went wrong to see how you can do things differently this year. Were there products that were eating up lots of your budget but not selling? Or maybe your bids were set too low and you weren’t getting enough traffic? Whatever it is, see if you can tweak it this year to help improve performance.
The Problem: You’re getting too many abandoned carts
eCommerce businesses tend to see a spike in website traffic during the holidays as people shop around for the perfect gift. The problem is, since many people often browse random websites, it can translate to more abandoned carts. Getting a lot of abandoned carts could also be representative of a poor checkout process. Businesses need to be able to recapture some of this traffic and attract consumers to buy from their site.
Solution: Utilize remarketing ads
Remarketing ads are the perfect way to recapture some of your website traffic that hasn’t made a purchase yet. Reminding customers about a product they have already viewed by utilizing display ads can help guide them toward buying it. You can even implement custom remarketing audiences within Google Analytics, such as a cart abandoners audience or an audience for people who were more engaged on your website. Google Ads allows you to tailor your bids for these audiences so that you can get your ads in front of the right people at the right time.
No matter what time of year it is, paid search is a powerful tool that will increase your sales and overall brand awareness. But during the holiday season, it’s even more important to make sure you’ve mastered your pay-per-click strategies. With these tips, you can focus less on your business strategy and more on celebrating!
