With marketers focusing on  Holiday season shopper engagement to bring in loyal customers post the seasonal sales, here is a checklist for advertisers that can help them get the best Return on Ad Spend from their campaigns in the month of December.

 

 

Online Search 

According to Bing Ads Insights at least 80 percent of Shoppers plan on buying at least one Gift Card and 62 percent plan on buying their last gift in the week of Christmas.

Bing recommends planning your search campaigns with the following tips to maximize the campaign performance:

Highlight incentives and discounts in ad copy with 
phrases like “20% off holiday sale” and “free shipping.”

Update ad copy to create a sense of urgency, “Order now for delivery by Christmas” and “3 days left for free    shipping.

Offer “Free gift wrapping” as an incentive for 
last-minute shoppers.

Keep campaigns fully funded through December to catch 
post-Christmas shoppers redeeming gift cards.

Google has shared a Holiday Survival checklist that will help advertisers focusing on Best Sellers.

Manage seasonal or strategic products with a separate 
campaign at a higher campaign priority.

 Uncap budgets to match search growth for your products leading up to Prime Seasonal Days.

 Add new click share columns to find product groups that have the biggest headroom for more clicks.

 View overlap rate and outranking share from the auction insights report to compare performance with competitors on high value  products. 
Bid for categories that will help you boost conversions. Use eCPC to increase Click-share for products that are your  best sellers.

Gift Cards Promotion Strategy

Gift Cards are the number one gift that people wanted to receive and the Top Three Gift card categories are Department Stores (38 percent), Restaurant (34 percent) and Coffee Shop (21 percent). The phenomenon of self-gifting is bigger than earlier with users choosing to gift themselves over others. Nearly 60 percent of consumers plan to splurge on themselves.

Plan your Gift card Strategy by engaging audiences when they are most likely to be shopping for last-minute gift ideas. Plan an email marketing and in-app messaging campaign to remind your audiences about the offers on your gift cards. For advertisers on Google, there are restrictions on using Google Shopping for Gift cards.

 

Social Media Strategy

Twitter has shared tips that will engage the last-minute shoppers by reaching audiences by being in the conversation for holiday shopping. Brands looking at being on Twitter Holiday season shopping chat can  join the conversation with ‘Tis The Season.

Twitter recommends planning a Mobile App Promotion and targeting new audiences for mobile app downloads with a surge in sales of Mobile devices in Q4.

 

Messaging Apps Campaign

If your core target audience is younger audiences, text messaging and messaging apps can help you reach audiences within Christmas context with 14 percent using messaging apps every day . Engaging your audience on Messaging Apps can help you reach the target audience within a context that helps you build a conversation. Developing your target audience profile based on unique app ids can help you engage audiences with UGC content or contest and promote offers across apps on social media networks and entertainment apps for Holiday Season campaign. Facebook is the most downloaded app and Targeting audiences with  Facebook Custom Audience, based on Unique app ids for your retail app and messaging app, with common conversation thread for Holidays, as seen for Starbucks and Match can create buzz and encourage sign ups for your seasonal offers and campaign.

According to App Annie’s report on retail,  Intelligent Product Suggestions can boost engagement with the mobile-first consumer. If Your app has the ability to recommend products based on consumers shopping behavior, now is the time to up sell and cross-sell.

 

Segment Your Audiences and Optimize Campaigns Based on Shopping Behavior

Optimize your campaign for different target segments based on Digital Shopping Insights shared by Prosper Insight and IAB;

18-34 year olds are more likely to read a product review on their smartphones (44 percent vs. 32 percent general population) and less likely to do so on tablets (32 percent).  They’re also inclined to check prices on a smartphone (42 percent vs. 33 percent general population) and are less likely to do so on a tablet (32 percent).
Those who are 35-54 are more prone to use tablets to read product reviews, locate stores, check store hours, and check product pricing (40 percent vs. 35 percent general population).
Adults ages 55-64 are more than twice as likely to make a purchase on a tablet (34 percent) than on a smartphone (15 percent).
Consumers 65+ are more than twice as likely to make a purchase on a tablet (26 percent) than on a smartphone (11 percent).  They are also nearly twice as likely to read a product review on a tablet (31 percent) than on a smartphone (17 percent).
Google Shopping Campaigns bring in higher conversions and here is a video shared by Google on “How To Optimize Shopping Campaigns” for boosting conversion rates from your campaign.

For optimizing your campaign on Google for bestsellers during the holiday season, cpcstrategy has a step by step guide.

Email Marketing

Set up a new email promotion workflow specifically for new offers and campaigns post Cyber Monday based on what holiday products, promotions, or categories a user you would like to promote in the weeks leading to Christmas. Include video in email where possible.