The festive season is here! Is your marketing playbook ready?
If not, no worries, here are some tips to help you polish your digital advertising holiday campaigns.
Holiday calendar for 2022
First things first – don’t forget this year’s special dates! Stay organized with this handy calendar we’ve put together for you.
Holiday shopping behaviors have changed
Year over year, the holiday shopping season is becoming longer and more challenging for both marketers and consumers. Conscious consumerism, COVID-19, and spending time with friends and family rather than standing in long lines – all these have changed people’s shopping behaviors. They are more than happy to get what they need from the comfort of their homes – no mess, no fuss – and then spend holiday days with their loved ones or doing recreational activities.
Tip! Get ready to stretch the duration of your holiday season campaigns and add an extra budget for better results.
We’ve dived deep into the data, and explored CTRs vs. verticals* – and the results are in. CTR increases occur around certain holiday events in specific industries. Take a look and see how your vertical is impacted:
*Outbrain Platform Insights, The Marketer’s Guide to Boost Sales in 2022
Now that you know when is the best time to advertise in each industry, use Contextual Targeting or Interest Targeting to reach consumers based on their past and real-time organic reading habits and to serve relevant campaigns based on consumers’ actual interests.
Contextual Targeting in Zemanta is based on IAB categories. Publishers’ content is categorized at the page and article level, allowing you to target content that is specific to your audiences, rather than broadly targeting at the domain level. Reach consumers as they browse in-moment with razor-sharp relevance.
Interest targeting in Zemanta targets consumers based on their characteristics, regardless of which publisher page they happen to be on. It relies on first-party data to reflect what users are truly interested in, based on their browsing habits across combinations of articles and topics.
Tip! For best results, make sure to keep these 2 targeting options in separate Ad Groups in Zemanta and not under one setup.
Holiday shoppers prefer mobile
Further data analysis reveals that mobile has the most impressions, clicks, and spend of all devices during the holiday season* – which, as mentioned, is getting longer every year. Encourage immediate action by developing compelling creatives, offering discounts to action-takers, and using countdowns or limited offer periods. Provide transparency upfront by highlighting pricing, delivery times and/or free shipping.
Tip! For your mobile campaigns, make sure to create urgency at the right moments to reach holiday season shoppers and drive them to convert.
We hope our recommendations on how to maximize your holiday budgets will be helpful.
We wish you much success with your holiday marketing campaigns!
*Outbrain Platform Insights, The Marketer’s Guide to Boost Sales in 2022