With just a month away from the biggest shopping day of the year, you should be going full steam ahead. But are you putting your money and effort into the right places? A lot of small businesses slow down their Google advertising after Thanksgiving weekend, thinking that:
- The biggest shopping day is behind them
- They don’t need SERP (search engine result page) traffic when they have Facebook and other social campaigns running
- It is too expensive to compete during these times
- The ROIs (return on investments) aren’t worth it
During peak shopping days, from Thanksgiving weekend through to December 15 is when you should increase your budgets if you are hoping to get higher CTRs and ROIs and ultimately make the most of all those online Christmas shoppers at the ready to buy.
To prove this, we analyzed over $50 million worth of 2016 holiday sales to compare average costs, ROIs and CTRs before and during peak holiday shopping period.
Let’s look at the stats.
AdWords Holiday CTRs
In our case study we were able to prove that the average CTR increased by as much as 14% from pre-season (October 23-23 November) to peak season (November 24 – December 15). What does this trend mean? That during peak season you are likely to get 14% more clicks on your AdWords current ads.
AdWords Holiday ROI
eCommerce stores who invested in AdWords campaigns enjoyed a whopping 36% increase in ROIs during this period.
As we mentioned, a lot of eCommerce store owners are afraid of increased holidays bids. However, while there was an increase of 9% average, ROI is going to be up by 36% and that’s what counts. This means that despite an increase in spend, traffic will actually cost you less during peak shopping days.
To take advantage of the 36% average increased ROI trend, you need to throw more money into your campaigns. Taking a look at your metrics and putting more money into your already-successful campaigns can help you go a long way to boosting those sales and getting quick pay-offs for your spend.
The Bottom Line
In short, if you are not planning on increase your AdWords budgets or create AdWords holiday campaigns, you will miss out on a lot of conversions. Don’t miss out on those sales just because the cost per click is a bit higher – the visitors are worth it as they purchase intent is much higher.These stats also give us very key insights into the behavior of shoppers during this time. Although shoppers begin searching holiday purchases as early as September, they are waiting for those big promotion days before committing to checkout. They are sitting back, waiting for the best possible deals they can get for their holiday purchases and therefore are more likely to purchase during peak season times.
Here are some tips on how you can make AdWords work for you this holiday season.
1. Remarket, Remarket, Remarket
Your previous shoppers are also waiting patiently for the best deals, and therefore by creating AdWords retargeting campaigns that target customers who know your brand at just the right time will help you rake in the sales. Why? Because shoppers need to be reminded who you are – the brand they bought from and trust, and AdWords remarketing campaigns enable you to do very specific targeting which is what you need to get those conversions up.2. Automate Your Optimization
We all know that AdWords take work. To make the most out of your campaigns during peak times you will need to monitor, tweak and optimize them in order to ensure the best possible ROIs. However, some small business owners just don’t have the time to deal with this during peak seasons because they are busy fulfilling orders and beefing up their customer service.If this is the case for you, the solution is as simple as hiring someone else to do it for you. Or instead, for a nominal fee, use automation apps like our Traffic Booster that will take all that maintenance off your hands.
3. Push The Right Promotions
From November 24 to December 15, most of your sales are coming from people looking to capitalize on deals for Christmas shopping. By running campaigns that focus on Christmas shoppers’ pain points, you can up those clicks. Some promotion ideas you can use include:- Free gift-wrapping promotion, where shoppers are able to ensure their order comes gift-wrapped and ready for the Christmas tree
- Target Thanksgiving weekend shoppers by offering early Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals and promotions
- Create a sense of urgency with very limited-time deals
Get your campaigns up now and be ready for more sales for your spend in 2017. If you haven’t started your AdWords strategy yet, it isn’t too late. AdWords results can be instantaneous and therefore you still have plenty of time to cash in on these results.
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