It may not feel like the holiday season is getting close, but now is the time to start planning your Christmas marketing campaigns, to ensure that you tap into all the key dates and events, and maximize your outreach performance.
And this week, Facebook has launched a new set of data insight tools to help. Over on the Facebook IQ blog, The Social Network has announced two new tools - a data tool which enables you to sort through insights from the holiday season over the past two years, relative to your region, and a 2019 Holiday Insights Guide, which showcases a range of trends and functions to assist in your planning.
First, on the new insights tool - as per Facebook:
"Our Holiday Season Insights tool has nearly 30 searchable insights from the 2017 and 2018 holiday seasons across 25 markets, and is available in 17 languages. Explore this robust resource to ensure your 2019 holiday season is filled with insights and magic."
This is definitely worth a look - as you can see here, the tool provides you with options to filter your results by 'Market', 'Year' and 'Shopping behaviors' - which includes 'In-store', 'Messaging', 'Post Purchase', etc.
As you switch the filters, you can get detailed data insights, based on 2017 and 2018, which can help to guide your strategy - for example, here are some of the insights you can view on messaging trends over the holiday period.
Being able to view such trends over the last two years could help solidify your thinking around the next stages of each shift, informing your approach - and as noted, you can change regions, activity focus, there's a heap of ways you can dig into the data to improve your strategic planning.
But the bigger addition is Facebook's new Holiday Marketing Guide - a 63 page eBook of holiday season data and insights to assist with the development of your strategy.
The aim of the guide, Facebook says, is to help marketers get their products in front of the right people at the right time.
As per Facebook:
"Though the holidays may appear to be dusted with magic, behind the scenes a different story is being told. The truth is, all kinds of businesses are using Facebook to get the right products to the right customers throughout the holidays and year-round in all the moments that matter."
The guide includes a range of relevant insights and data-backed trends:
The guide also includes a holiday planning calendar, covering November and December, to help strategize your approach.
There's also info on how to utilize Facebook's ad tools, and dedicated trend data:
And there's even a preview of upcoming Facebook ad tools to assist:
There's a lot to take in here, a range of insights and trend data that will absolutely provide benefit in your holiday planning. If you're looking to use Facebook as part of your 2019 holiday marketing strategy, you need to take a look at these new resources - they could help change your approach entirely, and improve your results.
You can access the new Holiday Insights data tool here, and you can download Facebook's 'Holiday Marketing Guide 2019' here. Definitely worth a look.