Over the past few years, the Black-Friday-through-Cyber-Monday retail period has evolved into a major opportunity for retailers (both in the US and Canada as well). Over the past couple of years, I've also seen overseas retailers joining in!
With the season fast approaching, I wanted to throw out a few pointers for those of you working on your campaigns:
- Target both online and in-store sales via PPC - Your shoppers will have many different behaviours. Be sure to have a holistic approach to your campaigns so you don't miss out on customers.
- Optimise mobile ads with both call and location extensions. We know that many customers will be checkout deals and sales on their mobile devices. Make things easy for them by ensuring you are using the call and location features in your PPC campaigns.
- Create specific Black Friday ads to attract customers to your site. Most customers will be looking for Black Friday sales by name so makes sure you show up when they do!
- Create a sense of urgency - Black Friday/Cyber Monday is a very short time period, inform your audience that your promotions won't last long! Especially if you're looking for more online traffic/sales - create the urgency so they will convert quickly.
- Schedule campaigns so that they are competitive during peak shopping hours. You know what your peak hours are but depending on your business, some shoppers may be lining up (online or in person) to be first to get a deal. Schedule your campaigns accordingly.
- Adjust PPC bids and budgets to ensure you're capitalising on additional site traffic.
- Use up-to-date Remarketing and PPC ads with Black Friday and Cyber Monday text. Don't recycle your old ads - think out of the box and refresh your content so it's interesting to your shoppers. Remarketing is excellent for brand awareness so why not get that going today?
- Plan ahead, but be ready to make last minute changes such as hourly offers. This is key to overall success of your campaigns. With PPC, it's not a 'build it and walk away' exercise. Keep on top of hourly traffic and make changes as the sale progresses to ensure you are bringing in quality, converting traffic throughout.
Happy selling!