As the holiday season rapidly approaches us, Google AdWords has just published some valuable information that will help anyone who does online marketing to get the most out of this seasonal shopping experience. In their post, they talk about the fact that people are starting their holiday shopping earlier than ever, and in some cases the shopping even continues well after Christmas with people looking for post-holiday deals.
In an attempt to help digital marketers and brands, Google has analyzed data from their analytics system for the 2013 holiday shopping season, and released some interesting information that can help people choose how and when to use their display advertising.
Marking the Right Days
One of the most important things you can do is to make sure your ads are running well on the days that see the most transactions. For example, the number of transactions per day shoots up by 170% on Cyber Monday, and 114% on Black Friday. These are huge jumps, and create massive opportunity for companies and marketers who are looking to make sales online. You can see some of the other top transaction days from last year in this chart provided by Google:
Taking that information, you can start planning out which days you want to run sales or other promotions. It is also a good idea to consider raising your bid prices for display advertisements, so you’re sure to get in front of as many people as possible. Looking at this chart, you can see that the conversion rates go up as you approach Christmas:
This essentially means that each click you get is far more likely to generate a sale, which makes it a smart move to be willing to pay more per click. While these charts can make it seem like you want to focus all your efforts on the week after Thanksgiving, there is actually a significant amount of benefit before and after that. For example, the week of thanksgiving offers a 37% improved transaction rate, yet many marketers neglect this time period.
Similarly, the weeks between thanksgiving and Christmas have over a 50% spike in transaction rates, and are in fact performing better than just the week before Christmas. Using historical data to help make marketing decisions is an extremely effective way to help ensure you are getting as much as you can out of the holiday shopping season. Take some time to look closely at these charts and see how they can benefit you.
