Best Digital Marketing Strategies for the Holidays

SMX East 2014

Holiday Marketing Challenges •  The holidays offer a tremendous opportunity

•  Holiday spending reached an all-time high in 2013 ($42.75B), up 10% from 2012 ($38.91B)1

•  Cyber Monday was biggest online spending day ever ($1.735B)

•  However, the holidays also present significant challenges •  Customer shopping behaviors shift rapidly •  Promotions change frequently •  Retail competition escalates dramatically

Sources: 1.  ComScore

Retailers need specialized strategies to win the holidays

#SMX @Adlucent

Product Ads Strategies •  During the 2013 holiday season, Adlucent observed that

Product Ads outperformed non-brand text ads across a variety of metrics1

•  Clicks (3X) •  Ad spend (10X) •  CVR (10X) •  Revenue (5X)

Clicks Ad Spend CVR Revenue

Holiday Season 2013

Non-Brand Keywords

Product Ads

Sources: 1.  Adlucent. “2013 Holiday Discoveries: The Impact on Retail.”

#SMX @Adlucent

Product Ads Strategies •  2014 is the first holiday season under the new Google

Shopping Campaigns paradigm for Product Ads •  Use your campaign structure to your advantage by selectively

promoting seasonal high performers

New nested campaign structure

#SMX @Adlucent

Product Ads Strategies •  Construct your Google Shopping Campaigns to capitalize

on seasonal sales opportunities: 1.  Tag products according to seasonal marketing and

merchandising strategies (use the custom labels attributes) •  Best-sellers •  Seasonal items •  Shipping cut-offs

2.  Create a separate high priority Shopping Campaign 3.  Add product groups targeting the new custom labels 4.  Bid manage these product groups more aggressively to

generate more traffic and sales

#SMX @Adlucent

Product Ads Strategies •  Use Google Merchant Promotions to advertise holiday

promotions, like discounts and free or expedited shipping

Google Merchant Promotions can increase CTR by up to 7% and decrease CPC by up to 11%1

Sources: 1.  Venus/Google case study

#SMX @Adlucent

Product Ad Strategies •  Customers are 83% more likely to visit a store if they can

check the availability of an item online first1

•  Use Google Local Inventory Ads (LIAs) to •  Increase foot traffic after shipping cut-offs occur •  Capitalize on shopping days when mobile traffic exceeds desktop •  Move unsold inventory off shelves

Sources: 1.  Google

#SMX @Adlucent

Intent Optimization Strategies •  Mine query reports regularly to identify valuable new

search terms •  Add keywords or edit product data to improve query matching

•  Focus your attention on non-brand terms, which are more likely to provide opportunity to capture new customers looking for gifts •  Customers searching for category terms (“skateboards,” “sweaters,”

etc.) are three times more likely to convert during the holidays1

Sources: 1.  Millward Brown/Google

#SMX @Adlucent

Bid Management Strategies

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•  Use year-over-year data to set bids in anticipation of season increases in CVR and AOV

#SMX @Adlucent

Bid Management Strategies

Sources: 1.  IBM. “Seventh Annual Online Retail Holiday Readiness Report.”

•  Re-evaluate Mobile Bid Parting scheme to serve ads where customers are shopping most

2013: 19.1% of sales from Mobile1

#SMX @Adlucent

Bid Management Strategies

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CVR

•  Use Day Parting to accommodate CVR fluctuations •  Last year, one apparel retailer saw a 45% day-over-day drop in CVR

following the Christmas shipping cut-off1

Sources: 1.  Adlucent

Shipping cut-off

Christmas day

#SMX @Adlucent

Testing Strategies •  Rotate ad copy to determine the optimal variation

for the holidays •  Try holiday-specific sitelink text •  Identify key phrases to motivate customers

“Shop Early!” Ad Variation

CTR +20% CVR +14%

•  In 2013, an Adlucent client tested ads that had a “Shop Early!” holiday theme to instill urgency •  These variations significantly

outperformed the historically best-performing ads for the account1

Sources: 1.  Adlucent. “2013 Holiday Discoveries: The Impact on Retail.”

#SMX @Adlucent

Testing Strategies •  Test landing page variations during the period prior to the

seasonal peak and use winners during the holiday rush

Control Test

One Adlucent client increased mobile revenue by 89% over the Thanksgiving weekend by testing mobile landing pages1

Sources: 1.  Adlucent. “2013 Holiday Discoveries: The Impact on Retail.”

#SMX @Adlucent

Merchandising & Search Marketing for the Holidays

SMX East 2014