Prosper Insights &  Analytics polled more than 5,000 families about their favorite commercial and website to gauge consumer sentiment. Walmart emerged as the favorite with 20 percent of back-to-school shoppers voting for the discount offer and 18 percent of college shoppers favoring the ads.

Walmart was the leading website, with 14 percent college and 22 percent  school shoppers liking their web designs best. Walmart.com promoted free shipping on college essentials, and featured a user-friendly school and college micro-site that helped parents and students find exactly what they needed.

For Easter Walmart ran a mobile ad campaign within the New York Post iPhone application with an Easter-themed mobile game.

The banner ads featured the Walmart logo and read, “Play Easter Egg Game.” When consumers tap on the ad, it expanded to an optimized page that lets them play an Easter-themed mobile game. The landing page also included a store locator feature that lets consumers find the nearest Walmart store.

To play, consumers tap as many eggs as possible while avoiding Easter bunnies as they pop out of the ground. When users tap on an egg, it is decorated with a logo from one of five big candy brands that Walmart sells.The five brands are Mars, Cadbury, Reese’s, Starburst and SweetTarts.

After consumers finished playing the game, a call-to-action prompted users to find Easter ideas at Walmart.

When users click-through, they are directed to a page where they can swipe through three different types of candy – sugar shockers, classic candies and peanut butter candies. Consumers can tap on each featured candy to be automatically redirected to Easter section on Website.

According to Think insights, Google consumer survey, some of the key findings for Holiday Season offers are:

Engage Audiences at an early stage

Retailers targeting holiday season shoppers during the early shopping stages, while they are researching brands and products online, need to be ready with their offers and prepare to be present with their offers early in the purchase cycle.

Consumers look for the best price

Holiday season sales market is price led with shoppers choosing retailers based on price and therefore Retailers need to be early in the market with the best possible price offers.

Use video and display to create awareness for your offers, deals and promotions  to attract new customers, run remarketing campaigns to follow-up, and keep them coming back with offers through the purchase cycle.

Most Holiday Shopping takes place with mobile searches

Shopping-related search queries from mobile devices were up 59% year-over-year in July. Eighty-four percent of shoppers use smartphones in-store as shopping companions. And one in three shoppers turn to their phones instead of asking an employee, according to research conducted by Google.

Key Takeaways

1. Engage consumers with an interactive ad unit encouraging consumers to click-though for an offer or a special event.

2. The landing page for Mobile should be a mobile optimized site as search queries are primarily routed through mobile. The key offer or discount should be clearly communicated  and customized.

3. Consumers start shopping early and are often looking for best price, the retailers looking at generating sales need to be ready with their offers early so that they can advertise their offers well in time and create a mobile search strategy to be in the consideration set.

4. Shopping-related search queries are on the increase as is mobile shopping therefore it is important for you to tailor your marketing mix to include mobile apps, SEM and SEO for mobile to build awareness for your offers. Mobile Videos and In-app advertising could lead to greater purchase influence and conversions.

5. Create offers that are likely to get posted on social networks and spur purchases within a social graph.

Source: Retail’s Big Blog, Think Insights Google and Mobile Commerce Daily