Optimizing PPC for Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Ecommerce
Nov 02
Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the weeks that follow typically give e-tailers a 30 percent boost in sales. But if your pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns aren’t optimized to capitalize on these holiday surges, you’re losing out.
Consider implementing the following strategies to ensure you’re making the most of your PPC budget.
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Optimize your landing pages and mobile site with call and location extensions.
Adding a “call” button to your ad makes it easy for customers to contact you with one click. Likewise, adding location extensions allows you to target people who are physically near your store. For example, a woman reading a fashion blog may be shown an ad for a nearby shoe store.
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Remarket to previous site visitors.
Consumers who visited your ecommerce site but didn’t convert are still hot leads. Install remarketing tags on your site’s pages to tag along with visitors after they leave your site. These cookies will help PPC networks display your relevant ads on the websites these consumers visit next.
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Adjust your PPC bids early.
Don’t wait until early November to start planning your PPC holiday marketing campaign. The fourth quarter is typically the most profitable for e-tailers, and with some larger businesses starting their holiday marketing in summer, you’re PPC bids need to rely on how and when you apply that budget, not its size.
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Incorporate Black Friday and Cyber Monday mentions into your ad copy.
Create event-specific ads that use keywords tying in certain shopping days in order to show up in popular searches.
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Pause ads with high conversion costs to accommodate holiday-specific ads.
To avoid blowing through your PPC budget in a saturated market, put your “effective by expensive” ads on the back burner and focus your funds on spending for your holiday-specific PPC campaign.
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Create urgency.
Adding a time limit to your great deal, free shipping, buy-one-get-one (BOGO), or free gift wrapping can create a fear of missing out (FOMO) for consumers, increasing conversions. Consider adding a countdown timer or changing ads hourly for an additional feeling of time sensitivity.
Optimizing your PPC campaign can make it effective no matter your budget.