How’s that for an alliterative title? It’s more than three months till Christmas, but the time is now to make sure you are designing the very best (as in, your Mom’s amazing sugar cookie recipe that has turned you off all other Christmas cookies for life) holiday 2018 campaigns. Here’s what to focus on for holiday 2018 to move consumers from “Browse” to “Add to Cart” to “Purchase.”
Holiday 2018 Tips
Utilize your first-party data to target your loyal customers and those who have abandoned carts: Your regular customers are not necessarily a sure thing for holiday 2018, when they are barraged by ads for cheaper, better, faster-delivered products by other brands. Get in front of them early with email messaging and targeted display ads. Use your first-party data to create customized prospecting audiences for holiday 2018 and apply lookalike modeling to your onboarded CRM data to layer on more users for added scale.
Offer discounts and free shipping on peak days and in the last days before last shipping: The last days to guarantee packages will be delivered by Christmas for holiday 2018 is Thursday, December 20 for UPS 2nd Day Air® (delivery on Monday, December 24) and Friday, December 21 for UPS Next Day Air® (delivery on Monday, December 24). Discounts or free shipping are the kinds of offers that can make last-minute shoppers choose one brand over another. Make sure your creative is amplified to your customer base and prospects with this kind of messaging for holiday 2018.
Promote offers/specials/products on all your social media platforms: Fifty-four percent of visits to shopping sites were expected to come from smartphones and tablets during holiday 2017—more than desktop computers for the first time ever. Shoppers are still more likely to complete a purchase on desktop, but that still means you need omnichannel holiday 2018 campaigns across all channels to drive conversions. With 79 percent of social media usage on mobile devices, it pays to promote your holiday 2018 campaigns across social media on mobile formats.
Reach customers via mobile strategies and make sure your website is mobile-friendly: Related to the previous tip, mobile is table stakes at this point. comScore says mobile advertising is more effective than desktop advertising throughout the purchase funnel—according to their report: “Mobile ads caused point lifts up to 3x greater than ads on desktop across four key brand metrics and performed especially strong in middle- and bottom-funnel metrics, such as favorability, intent to buy and likelihood to recommend. Less ad clutter and proximity to point of purchase may be driving better effectiveness for mobile ads.” For holiday 2018, optimize ad creatives for mobile so they are hyper-relevant to time or location, such as a coupon redeemable on a phone, and target audiences by what people have done, such as a visit to the mall in the last 30 days.
AlwaysOn Digital is here to help with your holiday 2018 campaign needs. Get in touch with us today.
Photo from Creative Commons