Anne Garcia - October 4, 2010
The most wonderful time of year will be here before you know it, and ahead of writing your wish list to Santa, I recommend you plan your Holiday PPC campaign first. Cyber Monday, the Monday following Thanksgiving, is the kickoff of the online holiday shopping season and your PPC campaign should be ready for all of the online shoppers. Here are some tips to maximize your online holiday sales:
- Review previous holiday PPC trends, like your ad spend, traffic and conversion rates in order to make proper forecasts for the upcoming season. Remember to diligently monitor your PPC budgets to make sure your ads do not stop showing due to budget caps. While most retailers see an increase in sales and online traffic during this time of year, advertising spend sees the same lift and I suggest you increase your daily budget allocations in your search engines to ensure proper exposure.
- Add holiday-themed keywords like, “Christmas,” “holiday,” and “Hanukah”, to your existing keywords to create long tail phrases in order to be seen in more searches and garner more visits to your site. Also, don’t forget to update your ad copy to include holiday phrases to entice searchers to click on your ads and visit your site. And it’s always a best practice to create special landing pages with holiday themes to tie to your keywords and ad copy to increase your overall quality score.
- During this challenging economy, consumers have a bargain-hunting mindset and will be searching online for coupon codes and free shipping offers, doing price comparison shopping and online research even though they have plans to make in-store purchases. Additionally, consumers are prone to shop early in the holiday season, but are apt to purchase later. The implementation of Remarketing campaigns would be beneficial during the holidays since it will remind customers of your brand, products and/or offers since they have already visited your site.
- Lastly, don’t forget about the post-holiday shoppers looking for deals on the gifts that Santa didn’t bring them. Leave your holiday ad budget open during the last week of the year to accommodate for these shoppers.
Happy Holiday PPC building!
