Way to Christmas: Plan Your Campaigns NOW!
When to start? - Now!
The festive season is approaching and you may wonder whether it’s time to (re)start your Christmas ads. Is it too early yet? When is the best time to start advertising your articles to customers shopping for their gifts?
While we use here the example of Christmas, the same can be applied with a little shift of dates and perspective to any other important holiday.
So our answer is: you should start your ads NOW. Especially if you are in some e-commerce delivery-bind type of business.
3 YES for an early campaign start:
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20% of holiday shoppers say they start their holiday shopping in October; 49% start it in November
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traffic auction prices are way lower now than in December, and so are your CPMs
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you have time to gather audiences, educate algorithms and test campaigns - to use the best-performing ones at the right time
Another tip to consider: 56% of surveyed US shoppers use their phones while shopping in-store (Ipsos). Even more, they are using mobiles for holiday shopping research. So you should focus on mobile advertising to grab their attention.
Way to Christmas: Black Friday, Cyber Monday
SocialCode made a report stating that CPMs are highest on Black Friday for retail. And on mobile, CPMs actually hit their peak on Cyber Monday.
It is widely known that people use those bargains to shop for approaching holidays. It would be smart to prepare your Christmas while advertising your Black Friday deals.
An additional value of Black Friday is that you can easily get the interests of your audience. This way you know what to retarget on them just before Christmas: electronics, fashion, toys, etc.
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GEO vs Dates
Several online commerces are advertising their offers worldwide. If you are one of those, you need to check the differences between holidays across the world, be it dates or traditions. For example, it is common knowledge that your Christmas gifts should be ready by December, 24th. But this is not the case for Russia, where Christmas is celebrated on January, 7th and most of the gifts are offered on New Year’s midnight (so should be put under the Christmas tree by December, 31th).
Here is a non-exhaustive list of different holiday traditions worldwide.
Shipping & delivery
Certainly, you are aware that there is no point advertising for Christmas decorations on December, 23rd if you are dropshipping them from China with an average delivery time of 2 - 3 weeks. Even less so if you consider the number of parcels arriving at the post offices in December. Sometimes the parcel “traffic jam” may be so bad your Christmas gifts will arrive in time for St Valentines.
You have to consider those delivery times so that you don’t disappoint your customers. A good way of doing it is to prepare a well-seen disclaimer concerning estimated shipping/delivery times at the end of the year. Also, it provides you with the possibility to create a sense of urgency as customers read it.
Until what dates is it worth to run a Christmas ad-campaign if you are a shop next door or a business dropshipping from abroad?
To help you sort it out we made the above table with end-of-the-year delivery estimates.
Delivery vs advertising dates table
Traffic source: Google
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Festive keywords
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Automatic start-end dates
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More value to your ads with adds
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Sense of urgency, delivery disclaimers
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LPs
Traffic source: FB
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Audience (prepare it beforehand)
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Festive masks - https://t.me/Medianads/312
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Target differently (women for men’s gifts, etc)
Who would you advertise a razor and a necktie to? And what about some high heels and a French fragrance?
Of course, people are different and you never know, but statistically, the neckties target audience would be somewhere along the lines of “25+, men” and high heels would be targeted at “20-40, women”.
Beware of those stereotypes, especially around the holiday season.
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Even if the high heels would be most probably worn by a woman in her twenties rather than by a man in his fifties, he could still search for a gift for his daughter. So change your targeting from those the items are designed for those who may be looking for presents.
It makes sense, doesn’t it?
You may figure out there is more value in advertising “manly” products to the female audience and the other way around. Or forget that sexist approach at all. Who is saying a daughter cannot buy perfume for her mother (or father, for instance)?
If you have some historical data from last Christmas it may come in handy. You want to set a separate audience for purchases made around November - December only and target for similar kinds of products. Chances are, they want to find gifts for the same people this year.
Article's Author: Konstantin Ivanov
Konstantin's Twitter: https://twitter.com/Charodei_Ent
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