This year has been highly unusual, and the upcoming holiday season will likely be no different. With more people relying on online shopping for gifts and potential shipping slowdowns, consumers are expected to shop earlier and for a longer period than usual. This means your ecommerce strategies for the 2020 holiday season will be more crucial than ever before.
Image source Despite the unique challenges of this year, certain advertising and ecommerce principles remain essential for providing your customers with the best possible holiday shopping experience. This post outlines eight tips and best practices to help you:
- Differentiate your business from competitors
- Attract holiday shoppers
- Drive strong holiday sales despite the current economic and marketing conditions
8 Effective Practices for Holiday Advertising Success
While many of these suggestions are fundamental, the anticipated increase in online consumer activity makes it even more important to ensure a smooth and positive customer experience. This can be a deciding factor for shoppers faced with numerous choices. Let’s dive in.
1. Keep Product Information Up-to-Date
There’s nothing more frustrating than discovering a product advertised on social media or Google is out of stock. Using product feeds or catalogs and regularly updating your inventory can prevent this. Platforms like Facebook, Google, and others offer tools to ensure you’re only promoting available products. For text ad campaigns or standard website traffic campaigns, maintaining accurate ad copy that aligns with your inventory is essential. Don’t make promises your business can’t keep. RELATED: 8 Risky PPC Mistakes to Avoid During the Holidays
2. Leverage Automation for Holiday Sale Promotions
Similar to out-of-stock frustrations, advertising a sale that’s not reflected on your website is equally problematic. Ad scheduling can prevent this. Various platforms offer ad scheduling to control when your sale-related ads are active. These platforms include:
- Google Ads (ad scheduling setup help here).
- Microsoft Ads (ad scheduling setup here).
- Facebook/Instagram (ad scheduling setup here).
- **Snapchat (**ad scheduling setup here)
- Twitter (ad scheduling setup here)
Explore the ad scheduling features of the platforms you’re using to ensure your customers see accurate promotional information at all times.
RELATED: 16 Simple and Effective Ways to Boost Holiday Sales
3. Set Realistic Shipping Expectations
Consumers rely on websites to provide accurate delivery timelines, especially with services like Amazon Prime setting high expectations for fast shipping.
Be transparent about your shipping timelines. Even if you offer two-day shipping, it’s important to communicate potential delays to your customers. Failing to do so can negatively impact your brand image, even if the shipping company is at fault. In short: Provide clear shipping expectations, particularly as the holidays approach, and be upfront if you anticipate delays. It’s better to potentially lose a sale than fighting off bad reviews later.
4. Optimize Your Website’s Speed
Increased online shopping during the holiday season can strain network bandwidth, leading to slower internet speeds for some users. This makes it crucial to optimize your website’s speed to provide a seamless experience. A valuable tool for this purpose is the Google Developer PageSpeed Insights tool.
Example of a PageSpeed Insights report using Google.com. This tool analyzes your website on desktop and mobile devices and suggests improvements for faster loading times. Share these insights with your development team or address them yourself. However, it’s essential to avoid removing ad pixels.
RETAIN YOUR AD PIXELS. While some developers might suggest that ad platform pixels hinder website speed, they are rarely the primary cause. Removing them, especially during the holiday season, can be detrimental as it limits performance insights and optimization opportunities. Therefore, unless they are redundant or unused, keep your ad pixels active.
5. Ensure Mobile-Friendliness
Many consumers shop online for holiday gifts while at work for various reasons, such as maintaining surprise or limited access to computers. With the rise of remote work, mobile traffic is expected to be even higher in 2020. This emphasizes the ongoing importance of having a mobile-friendly website.
Dick’s Sporting Goods’ mobile speed score requires attention before the 2020 holidays.
6. Offer Multiple Payment Options
Consumers appreciate the convenience and security of using familiar payment platforms. In 2020, consider incorporating options like PayPal, Apple Pay, or others to enhance the checkout process.
Numerous payment options are available. Integrating these options into your ecommerce site can significantly improve user experience by simplifying checkout and reducing the need for repetitive data entry.
7. Showcase Customer Reviews
Despite online noise, customer feedback holds weight, especially for online purchases. Highlighting positive reviews, particularly during the holiday season, can be highly influential for potential buyers.
Many sites like Dick’s Sporting Goods have integrated review features. If your website lacks a review feature, utilize available solutions. Companies like Trustpilot offer tools for seamless review integration. Social proof can be a powerful tool for customers comparing products. For local businesses, positive Google reviews are crucial. These reviews directly influence your ranking in local search results. To attract holiday shoppers searching for nearby stores, focus on acquiring high-quality Google reviews.
8. Use Realistic Product Photos
This holiday season, with potential limitations on in-store shopping, showcasing products through real-life photos is more important than ever. Customers value the ability to physically interact with products in a store.
While both images showcase the same thermos, they provide different perspectives. The first image displays the thermos’ appearance, while the second provides a size reference and depicts its look in natural lighting. High-quality, realistic photos can bridge the gap between online browsing and in-store experiences. For tips on product photography, refer to this post.
Brumate leverages user-generated photos on Instagram to showcase its products. Supplementing traditional product photos with real-world images can enhance the customer experience, especially when physical interaction is limited.
Prioritize the Online Shopping Experience in 2020
This year, prioritize your online shopping experience. Shift your perspective from a business-centric view to a customer-centric approach. Focus on simplicity, ease of use, and a smooth experience to build trust and encourage purchases. Here’s a summary of the strategies discussed in this 2020 holiday advertising guide:
- Maintain up-to-date product information
- Use automation for sale promotions
- Set realistic shipping expectations
- Optimize website speed
- Ensure mobile-friendliness
- Offer multiple payment options
- Highlight customer reviews
- Use realistic product photos For additional holiday marketing and advertising resources, explore these articles:
- 6 Tips to Elevate Your Holiday Marketing Campaigns
- 7 Ways to Increase Your Instagram Sales This Holiday Season
- 13 Ecommerce Holiday Marketing Tips for Immediate Implementation!
- Our All-Time Top 10 Holiday Marketing Strategies!