It’s true, retailers like Target are already transitioning their displays, bringing in hints of the holidays even as pumpkins take center stage. Soon, wreaths and Christmas trees will dominate, and the holiday shopping frenzy will be in full swing.
SOON. Smart marketers know it’s crucial to gear up early to capitalize on the holiday spirit, increased searches, and boosted website visits, ensuring maximum impact for their holiday campaigns. Today, we’re revisiting some top-performing holiday marketing strategies from past years. We’ll cover both timeless classics and fresh approaches. P.S.: Don’t overlook our Complete Guide to Cliche-Free Holiday Copywriting
1. Optimize Ad Extensions
It might seem self-evident, but amidst juggling multiple holiday campaigns, overlooking ad extensions is easy.
Elements like sitelinks, call extensions, and review extensions give your ads a competitive edge and guide holiday shoppers towards conversion. Even if extensions are already part of your strategy, reviewing and maximizing their potential across various ad formats is essential, especially with the holiday rush approaching. RELATED: 8 Perilous PPC Mistakes to Avoid During the Holidays
2. Implement Shopping Campaigns
If your business involves physical goods, Google Shopping holiday campaigns should be on your radar. Shopping Ads excel in user experience, providing potential customers with nearly all the information needed for an immediate (often emotion-driven) purchase decision, eliminating unnecessary clicks. Highlighting price and product images directly on the search results page—two key ad components—makes Shopping Ads a potent weapon in your advertising strategy.
Keep in mind, your offerings will appear alongside competitors, making competitive pricing a must. Utilizing distinct product images, even for commonly stocked items, is key, as generic visuals can dilute your ad’s impact. Overall, Shopping Ads remain a highly effective strategy worth considering this holiday season.
3. Harness the Power of Ad Automation
At nexus-security, we advocate for proactive campaign management. A “set it and forget it” approach rarely yields long-term success, which is why dedicating 20 minutes weekly to refine your paid search strategy is recommended. This doesn’t negate the role of automation in your holiday marketing plan.
Ad automation proves incredibly valuable for time-sensitive campaigns like holiday promotions – it just requires meticulous upfront management. AdWords offers a range of tools for automating holiday campaigns, allowing you to schedule campaign starts, pauses, and restarts based on your needs. For instance, Thanksgiving-targeted campaigns can launch automatically in early November, pausing or ending a week after the holiday. As with any automated process, anticipating all variables is crucial. If leveraging ad automation, ensure you don’t inadvertently disable an important campaign or leave irrelevant ones running post-holiday. For deeper insights into ad automation, explore this blog post by Brad McMillen. Related: 14 Fun & Festive Holiday Marketing Ideas to Try This Year
4. Refine Your Ad Copy
Too many advertisers rely solely on time-limited sales or financial incentives for their holiday campaigns, neglecting a crucial element—compelling ad copy. This oversight can be costly. Savvy advertisers know the power of refreshing their ad copy before launching holiday campaigns.
Yes, crafting effective ad copy takes time and effort. However, by investing in unique copywriting for your holiday sales, you differentiate yourself from competitors who don’t prioritize this step. Even without explicitly mentioning holiday promotions, incorporating seasonal messaging signals to potential customers that your offerings are current, increasing the appeal of your ads. This isn’t to say discounts and sales should be disregarded—they remain strong motivators, especially during the holidays, and are even more effective when combined with incentives like avoiding holiday shopping crowds (more on that later). Whichever approach you choose to showcase your products or services this holiday season, prioritize refreshing your ad copy to create compelling, timely, and engaging ads.
5. Turn the Holiday Rush to Your Advantage
The stress of last-minute gift shopping and shipping deadlines is a universal experience. Smart advertisers understand the importance of timing during the holidays, incorporating it into their campaigns early on. Tapping into the desire for a stress-free holiday season is a powerful tool.
The holidays present a golden opportunity to entice potential customers with exclusive time-limited deals. Your ads, landing pages, and social media campaigns should all highlight the ease of checking off holiday shopping lists when customers choose your business, whether online or in-store. Every element of your campaigns, from ad copy to social media visuals, should subtly underscore the downsides of holiday shopping frenzy and how choosing your business provides a solution. Offer free shipping for orders placed before a specific date. Incentivize early purchases with bonus items or two-for-one deals. Utilize social media hashtags and giveaways for product promotion. Add countdown timers to your sales using ad customizers to enhance the sense of urgency. Above all, tap into the shared dread of holiday shopping chaos—people are willing to go the extra mile to avoid those Christmas Eve crowds.
6. Inject Urgency into Your Landing Pages
Building on the previous tip, creating a sense of urgency on your landing pages can be the nudge hesitant shoppers need to convert.
There are multiple ways to achieve this. Some retailers incorporate countdown timers on their holiday landing pages, displaying the remaining time for customers to seize a limited-time offer. Others prominently feature banners announcing special deals like free shipping or discounts. This tactic is particularly effective when paired with compelling ad copy and optimized ad extensions. Think of your ads as the initial hook; landing pages become your chance to provide that extra push for immediate purchase.
7. Conduct Thorough Keyword Research
It might seem incredibly basic, but many businesses stick to the same holiday keywords year after year, then wonder why they aren’t seeing results in leads or sales.
While core keywords are a constant, capitalizing on seasonal search trends and emerging terms is crucial. Tools like Google Trends can help identify fresh keywords to revitalize your holiday campaigns. While forcing connections between your core terms and trending topics just to capture irrelevant traffic is counterproductive, revisiting your keywords before the holiday season kicks in can unearth valuable opportunities you might have missed. Speaking of revisiting…
8. Ensure Meticulous Campaign Organization
Maintaining impeccable campaign organization and account structure should be an ongoing priority, but it becomes even more critical during the holidays. Seasonal products should, of course, be grouped within their own distinct ad groups. Keep keywords relevant and tightly themed. If you need a visual guide for structuring your holiday campaigns, the diagram below illustrates an ideal PPC account setup:
A well-structured account and organized campaigns simplify the coordination, adjustments, and execution of time-sensitive campaigns. This also positively impacts your Quality Scores and other essential metrics. Whatever your approach, prioritize order and efficiency in your campaign management.
9. Invest in Paid Social Media Advertising
If you haven’t already ventured into Facebook advertising, the holiday season is the perfect time to begin. Why? Remember the lengths people go to dodge the shopping frenzy? They’ll undoubtedly be voicing their frustrations on Facebook, creating a prime opportunity for you to offer a timely solution to their holiday shopping woes.
Facebook advertising offers several key advantages. The first is its robust targeting, allowing you to pinpoint highly specific audiences based on demographics, interests, shopping behaviors, and other behavioral indicators. Secondly, Facebook boasts cost-effectiveness. As nexus-security’s resident social media expert Brett McHale recently pointed out, Facebook advertising can be more budget-friendly than many realize, presenting a valuable opportunity for businesses aiming to leverage increased holiday traffic. Lastly, Facebook ads are inherently more visually driven than PPC ads, even Shopping Ads. With only 20% text allowance, you have ample space to capture attention and inspire action – perfect for combining classic holiday themes with your existing brand messaging. New to paid social? nexus-security Advisor now integrates seamlessly with Facebook Ads! Check out our guide to get started!
10. Implement Remarketing
Regular readers know nexus-security has championed remarketing for years, and for good reason—it’s arguably your most powerful marketing tool.
Consider the resources poured into a paid search campaign. Without remarketing, you’re limiting yourself to a single shot at conversion. Viewed this way, it’s almost unthinkable. Remarketing isn’t just an effective year-round strategy—it’s tailor-made for holiday shopping habits. Reflect on your own gift-buying process last year. Did you purchase from the first ad or website you encountered? Unlikely. You probably compared deals, just like millions of others. This presents a golden opportunity for marketers using remarketing, allowing them to re-engage “lost” traffic by appealing to shoppers’ desire for the best possible deal.
Bonus tip: run an end-of-year email campaign
You probably have a holiday greeting email ready to go (make sure it’s a GOOD one!), but consider an end-of-year review email, too! These can generate leads, attract new customers, and even encourage upsells or retain existing ones. Learn more about crafting impactful year-in-review emails here.
If you haven’t begun prepping for the holidays, the time is NOW. The clock is ticking, and the holiday rush will be here before you know it. Get a head start on the competition and launch your holiday marketing campaigns soon!