Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend is coming as the holiday shopping seasons get underway.  Here are a few tips for eCommerce stores preparing for this busy time.

So, you sell men’s sweaters.  Let’s take a look at the Google Trends data for that search term over the last 5 years.

 

It doesn’t take a lot of data analysis to figure out what’s happening.  Every year in November, searches for these products spike.

If you sell a product that’s particularly popular as a Christmas gift, such as men’s sweaters, then this time of year is gangbusters.

Which means that getting your Adwords campaigns aligned is crucial.

If you’re a Marketing 360® client, you’re lucky to have a marketing executive who will execute the tactics for you, and we won’t try to cover them all in detail here.

But there are certain things you should be keenly aware of to make sure you know what’s happening during this crucial eCommerce sales period.

Inventory and Budget

Two obvious but vital things.

First, prepare your inventory for holiday sales.  Make sure you’re stocked up and ready for fast, efficient fulfillment, particularly on items you plan to promote.

You’ll have to plan your promotions, specifically with the discounts you plan to offer.  Black Friday is, of course, the ultimate sales quest for shoppers, so much of your planning here involves what products you’ll run deals on, including how you’ll compete against other price slashing while still getting a return on your ad spend.

You can start with an estimate by comparing your budget to revenue.  For example, if you have a 2k budget for the Black Friday weekend, and your revenue is 10k, your return on ad spend is 5:1.

It’s important to consider return on ad spend because to compete you’ll need to increase bids while lowering profit margins, particularly during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping spree.

Don’t get caught flat-footed when the shopping spikes, but also be diligent to make sure the whole effort puts you in a competitive position that’s profitable.

Run Specific Holiday Campaigns and Promotions

The amount of digital noise during the holiday shopping period is overwhelming.  To have any chance at all, you have to run specific campaigns with holiday ads, promotions, and landing pages.

At Marketing 360®, your marketing executive will work with you to create different ad sets.  These will include text changes that reference your holiday deals, promotion extensions, and holiday-themed landing pages.

For events like Black Friday, promotion extensions are vital.  These extensions highlight your sales in text ads:

Add a time-frame for the promotion, which creates scarcity during holiday shopping sprees.

(Note that with Black Friday shoppers, you’re not looking as much to retarget shoppers.  With these discount motivated, time-sensitive shoppers, you need to convert them on their first visit.  As Christmas approaches, you’ve already missed your chance with most shoppers).

Refer to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or your holiday special in the ad text itself:

 

If you are using sitelinks, make sure they go to products or categories you’re promoting.

In addition, make sure your landing pages and product pages are aligned to match your offers.  Repeat all text regarding your deals, including promo codes.  Of course, make sure your pricing is a match.  If you’re running ads to category pages, give your design a holiday facelift.

 

This may seem like a lot of work, and it may not be feasible to do design changes if you’re running deals on a lot of products.

But remember that search spike.  If there is any time of year it’s worth the work, it’s the holidays.

Keyword Optimization

You’ll want to run the same keywords on products you do throughout the year, with several additions.

Run exact match or broad match modified for:

• Black Friday + your product
• Black Friday deals + your product
• Black Friday sales + your product
• Holiday deals + your product
• Holiday sales + your product
• Cyber Monday + your product
• Cyber Monday deals + your product
• Cyber Monday sales + your product

Bid aggressively during the target time periods and make sure your extensions and promotions match the query.

Google Shopping Ads

Google Shopping Ads are vital for holiday eCommerce.  Chances are they’ll account for more than half your sales.

You don’t have as much control overall with Google Shopping, but there are a few tricks to employ.

First, create a new shopping campaign for products you plan to highlight with your holiday promotions.  This will make it easier to track those products and manage the ads.

Next, use the promotion feed to make a special offer with product pricing.

You have two options for the promotion feed.  You can discount the price and have the ad show a percentage drop, or you can have a special offer with something like a discount code.

 

Again, keep in mind how price-conscious holiday shoppers are.  If your pricing doesn’t compare well to other ads on display, you won’t do well during this period.  This is why it’s worth it to create campaigns with single product ad groups for products you want to push during this period.

The retail and eCommerce sales cycles will – in all probability – remain entrenched in the holiday shopping period.  If this is your first year facing the holiday crunch, take heed of the tactics we discussed here.

After it’s over, work with your marketing executive to understand the data.  If there is one thing you want to get better at every year, it’s selling during the holidays.