Christmas shopping 2024 is upon us and is now more relevant than ever, with its extended season and changing consumer behaviours. To navigate this peak season, Adfreak shares key insights and strategies to maximize your digital marketing through Google Ads. Let's dive into their valuable advice and techniques..
Changed consumer behavior
During the extended Christmas shopping period from October to the end of December, we have seen a change in shopping patterns.
Identified profiles such as The Deliberate, The Deal Seeker, The Determined and The Devoted indicate greater variation in how different groups approach their purchase decisions. Financial aspects such as timely payroll also mean more money available to consumers, potentially driving sales even further during the 2024 Christmas shopping season.
Strategies for success
- Set the right goals: Focus on changing your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) to maximize growth. Use tools like Performance Planner to predict and adjust campaign results. Here you can get an indication of how your ROAS interacts with budget and your business goals within the specified period.
- Optimize budget management: To avoid budget constraints, leverage Performance Max-budget tools and seasonal budget adjustments. Adjusting the budget is like adjusting the hours of a brick-and-mortar store—you don't want to close the store halfway through the rush. Also add a new custom column in Google Ads that shows your spent budget in real time at the campaign level. Use the calyl: Cost/report_days_count()/Daily budget – and then add the custom column to the campaign overview.
- Customize campaigns effectively: ”Use Seasonal Bid Adjustments” to manage conversion rate changes and use Performance Max to leverage seasonal promotions. Don't forget to both raise and lower the expected conversion rate.
Important settings in Google Ads
- Broad matching: Make sure to reach the right target groups before the peak season through broad matching on the keywords. This allows you to be seen with your products and services in a period when users are looking for inspiration. A search might start with someone looking for the nearest yoga place and they might later want to shop for organic tea.
The closer you get to the peak period, the more specific the search terms become.
Example: A person may start searching for "shoes" and later search for "men's black trail shoes size 44". Here you want to be part of the entire customer journey in the search and guide customers with the right information. - Performance Max: Get the most out of your campaigns by using seasonal tools and tactics. Create a new asset group in the same Performance Max campaign that has Black Friday-related content and targeting.
The advantage of this is that you browse the existing campaign's historical data and avoid a new one machine learning period. Pause your regular asset group while you have the Black Friday asset group posted and change back afterwards.
The downside to this is that you cannot control bidding strategy separately for Black Friday and the regular content of the original asset group. In this case, it is recommended to create a new campaign.
If you want to shorten the learning period, you can then kick-start the campaign by running "maximize conversions” such as bidding without any bidding targets and at the same time having a high budget. This means that the campaign receives more data during a shorter period and can thus be optimized more quickly. - Optimize product flow in Merchant Center: Increase click-through rates and conversion rates by using more attributes in your shopping flow. One recommendation is to create an add-on feed that changes the titles of specific products in the Google Shopping feed.
Structure of the title: "Occasion + Product Type + Attributes". Example: "Christmas gift iPhone 16 Pro 256 GB Black". - Use the attribute "sales_price” in the Google Shopping feed to expose your discounts in the product ad.
Flexible budgets for better returns
One of the key takeaways from this year's analytics is that if you have a static ROAS goal, flexible budgets are critical. This means being able to both adjust up and down based on real-time data and seasonal variations.
For businesses with less flexibility, focusing on maximum conversion value is encouraged. In this case, you need to ensure that the campaign is optimized from the start and that you show ads for relevant searches.
Adaptation according to seasonal variations
For those facing large changes in the conversion rate, it is suggested to use the regulator's drastic seasonal adjustments, which can go up to 300 %. Adjust these in real time to optimize results and maintain stable ROAS.
Have an active customer service and show relevant content
During peak season intensity, fast and efficient customer support is essential. It is recommended to be extra active in customer service and deal with customers immediately as they have less patience and make decisions faster. A chat or popups with customized messages, which contain different kinds of prompts based on which campaign the customer came in from, which page they visit, if they are a repeat customer, etc.
Relevance is the key to customer trust
Surveys show that customers:
- Think it is 2.6 times more importantly with content that resonates with their interests
- Feeling 3 times more comfortable buying from a brand that displays relevant content.
- If they feel safe with their purchase from a brand, they are 9.9 times more likely to be satisfied with the purchase.
- If they feel secure and satisfied with their purchase, they are 5.8 times more likely to want to shop again.
Having the right message in your ads leads to higher trust, a higher chance of conversion, a more satisfied customer and a higher chance of a customer returning again.
It is important to consider these areas when adapting your text content:
- Timing: To be seen at the right time with the right message in advertisements.
- To show the correct stock status of products (only 5 left) and availability of services.
- To display their reviews from existing customers in the ads. It can be with reviews in ad extensions, videos of customers describing their positive experience, quotes from reviews in ad texts, etc.
- Be clear about what benefits it means for the customer to buy from the company. Free delivery, free returns, price guarantee, customer satisfaction guarantee, etc.
- To adapt their messages in the right language, which can be based on the browser's primary language - if you can set this up technically.
- Have a clear call-to-action: Buy now, See more, Apply now, Book now or our own favorite within Lead Gen "See your price".
Summary: Preparation and adaptation are key
We have now gone through significant tips that can ensure your success this Christmas shopping. Setting the right goals, managing your budget smartly, and being prepared to adapt in real time will be critical to optimizing your campaigns and meeting the changing needs of consumers.
If you want help implementing the right Google Ads strategy for your company - then you are welcome to contact us here: Contact Adfreak
