If you haven't started preparing your PPC marketing plan for Black Friday, you better get on it. Online shoppers spent $2.4 billion on Black Friday last year, according to Adobe, and you don't want to miss out on that type of revenue, which is sure to rise here in 2015.
To make things easier for you, I've provided three PPC tactics you should be using for Black Friday 2015.
Structured Snippets
We often hear about using rich snippets in SEO to drive traffic and increase clicks, but not a lot of people realize that structured snippets are also available in PPC through the Google AdWords platform.
Released in Q3 of 2015, structured snippets are non-clickable ad extensions that allow you more real estate within your ad to highlight special offers and discounts. Structured snippets help to increase CTR and can be set at the account, campaign, or ad group level.
What does this have to do with Black Friday?
To help advertisers out this holiday shopping season, Google has rolled out Black Friday and Cyber Monday structured snippets.
Are you having a sitewide sale or offering a buy one, get one offer? These are the types of deals that should be highlighted with a structured snippet.
Black Friday extensions will be eligible to appear in ads from November 20 through November 27, while Cyber Monday structured snippets can be seen from November 20 through November 30.
Pro Tip: Use callout extensions for even more real estate within your ad.
Remarketing
You've hopefully had a remarketing code on your website for quite some time now, so your cookie pool should be pretty full, but it's how you use that cookie pool that really matters.
How?
Set up a remarketing audience that cookies users who have been to your website but not to your thank you/confirmation page-this will make sure that you're only showing ads to users who haven't purchased in the last 30, 60, or 90 days.
On the flip side of that, maybe your business is built on repeat purchasers. Set up an audience to only show ads to users who have been to your thank you/confirmation page, perhaps offering them a special discount for being loyal customers.
You should always be creative with your remarketing audiences, and don't forget to be creative with the design of your ads and the copy.
Pro Tip: Use dynamic remarketing to put specific products in front of past website visitors who put an item in their cart but didn't purchase.
Optimized Website & Landing Pages
It's really easy to get caught up in the design and creation of your PPC campaigns, but you can't afford to let your website and landing pages fall by the wayside.
By now, you know the basics of making sure that Google Analytics, remarketing, and conversion codes are on the site, but have you added a holiday theme to your website to reflect the holidays? Have you designed specific pages, banners, and calls to action on the site for Black Friday or Cyber Monday?
Your marketing and web teams should always be working together, but that especially rings true around this eCommerce super holiday.
Another thing that you can't afford to neglect is the content of your website or landing page. Don't forget: because of quality score, the content on your site is going to directly reflect the CPCs that you pay to Google, so make sure that your site content, ad copy, and keywords are all cohesive.
Pro Tip: Use an onsite pop up to collect data and drive email newsletter sign ups.
Now, schedule that meeting with your marketing and web teams and get to work!
Images via Shutterstock