Are your holiday promotions ready ?
Is your product inventory up to date?
Is your customer service department willing to respond to customer inquiries?
You are now able to tackle advertising platforms to share your offers! The holiday season is a great time to introduce your brand to new prospects. Here is some recent supporting data:
- According to a study conducted by CNN in March 2021, 40% of respondents said they had discovered a product or service they did not know before shopping for the holidays.
- According to a study conducted by Facebook in 2020 ( Facebook Holiday Discovery Moment Study), 65% of online shoppers said that the Internet made them increasingly spontaneous and impulsive in their shopping habits.
- According to a study carried out by Tiktok in 2021, 39% of Tiktokers surveyed had discovered a product or a brand that they did not know before on this platform, 77% had bought something they had seen on Tiktok and 47% said that Tiktok could inspire them for a gift idea this year.
INSPIRE NEW CUSTOMERS
Going to find new prospects always has a cost. As we already mentioned in our 2018 article , during the holiday season, the CPM (cost per thousand) increases due to the high volume of competition and the traffic of advertisers on advertising platforms.
Indeed, when we observe the average CPM on Facebook from 243 Adviso clients in 2020, between the week of November 26 and the previous one (in 2020, Black Friday took place on November 27), the CPM increases by 24 % and decreases the week of December 3 by 36%, to finally decrease again after December 31 by 41%. Many advertisers want to share their offer at this key period, but the pool of users does not increase proportionally, which is why prices go up; it's the law of supply and demand!
You must therefore do this as soon as possible to secure your audience.
HOW TO EXPAND YOUR AUDIENCE, AT THE BEST COST?
Whether on Facebook, Pinterest, Tiktok or any other advertising platform, expanding your audience pool before the holiday season will allow you to attract new customers, secure your pool and reduce your CPM.
For example, if you're a women's underwear business and you usually only target women, wouldn't it be a good time to present couples with an ad for their partner, or to offer new potential customers to treat themselves or offer a gift thanks to incredible discounts? Absolutely!
Another interesting tactic is to offer a promotional sale beforehand. For example, a flash sale of a few days on your products will allow you to have a lower CPM than in busy periods (and therefore benefit from an interesting audience pool) while increasing your retargeting audience (visitors of the site interested in promotions, but did not convert) for the next promotions.
BUILD YOUR FIRST-PARTY AUDIENCES AND USE THE TOOLS AVAILABLE TO YOU IN ADVERTISING PLATFORMS
We've been talking about it for quite a while now, but with the iOS 14 update (read: iOS 14 disrupting the Facebook Ads ecosystem ) and the disappearance of third-party cookies (read: The impact of the cookie apocalypse on the digital media ), it is becoming increasingly difficult to retarget users and build your retargeting audiences on Facebook.
In fact, in the United States, 96% of Apple users refused to be tracked by mobile applications following the iOS 14 update . Since the majority of social media ad impressions are on mobile, and more specifically on iPhone (see graph below), it is essential to adapt quickly.
Source: Impressions by device ( device ), 243 Facebook advertising accounts (Adviso clients), from October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021.
How do you ensure that you have an interesting and relevant audience volume for the holidays?
Build your first-party audiences and use the tools available to you on the Facebook platform, such as video views or engagement, so you don't have to rely on audiences based on the Facebook pixel. Once out of the platform, it is definitely more difficult than before to trace your audience in their web journey.
Here are some tactics to consider for nurturing your audiences:
- Keep your email audiences up to date (newsletter subscribers, contest participants, recent buyers, etc.);
- Create a contest ahead of the holiday season, aimed at potential new customers, to collect email addresses to retarget with your holiday promotions;
- Create an audience of people who have interacted (reactions, comments, shares , etc.) with your publications (high engagement), without having visited your website;
- Create a prospecting video views campaign, an audience that can then be retargeted with your holiday promotions.
As you can see by looking at the graph below, for an anonymous client campaign, the reach obtained from first-party audiences (email lists) reached more people, with a lower CPM (-22%) than the audience of site visitors*.
*Source: Campaign of an Adviso client, from September 12 to October 3, 2021. Reach obtained and CPM between the different categories of audiences of the campaign.
In any case, it's always better not to put all your eggs in one basket and test the performance of different audiences, to let the algorithm optimize the results according to your campaign objective.
AFTER THE RIGHT AUDIENCES, YOU NEED THE RIGHT ADS!
Finally, it is important to remember that even with the right audiences, you must first have the right ads, both creatively and message-wise. So we wanted to remind you of some best practices.
- Mobile first : Always think about small screens!. Since the majority of social network users are on mobile, avoid having too much text and make sure to grab attention quickly.
- Videos : If you can, add a video format (also suitable without sound) to your creative portfolio. Video captures the user's attention quickly while allowing more images and information to be presented. Facebook also revealed, in an article on Black Friday published in 2018 , that 30% of mobile users (United States) who responded to a survey believed that video was the best way to discover new products.
- “ Hurryyyy! » : Especially in retargeting, remember to create a sense of urgency in your message, to arouse in customers the fear of missing something ( fear of missing out ).
- Emojis : A simple and easy addition to increase the click-through rate on your ads ( discover the most engaging emojis according to Hubspot, 2018 ).
- Test and learn – Always test with at least 3 creatives per ad group to let the algorithm optimize and test different variations of visuals and messaging. You will then have learned relevant lessons, which you can reinvest in your next campaigns!
The holiday season is a key, often stressful time for many businesses. So be sure to prepare yourself adequately in advance, to respect industry best practices, both in terms of your audiences and your ads.
There is no doubt that with rigorous and thoughtful planning, you will be ready to conquer the hearts of new customers!
Do you have questions or need professional support? Our team will be happy to help you!
