Four Tips for 2017 Holiday Marketing Success
It may be mid-summer, but the holiday 2017 season is quickly approaching. eMarketer predicts ecommerce will grow 15.8% during the 2017 holiday season, creating a huge opportunity for online retailers. A few Rise experts share what brands should keep top of mind when preparing for retail’s busiest time of the year.
1. Plan Early.
“Consideration is being driven earlier and earlier each year, making it important for marketers to get out in front of this crucial time. Start creating your segmentation strategy now, using tools like Google Customer Match and Facebook Custom Audiences. Building audience lists is key to driving lower costs, more relevant experiences, and higher conversion rates.” - Jeff Teitelbaum, SVP of Account Management
"Invest early in planning and forecasting. There are hundreds of data points out there that should be taken into consideration as you plan for the holiday season and set expectations around returns.” - Justin Garvin, Director of Media
“It’s never too early to plan for the holidays. One of the most important aspects of holiday planning is leveraging your learnings from previous holiday seasons. To do this properly, advertisers need to have the right infrastructure for capturing data to help inform their media strategies. Creating a daily pulse report on how every tactic is performing is crucial. Lots of money is left on the table by not taking advantage of opportunities during surges of activity. When set up the right way, a daily pulse report is also the best tool for making changes to a media plan in real time, as data flows in.” - Steve Tazic, VP of Personalization
2. Reach Your Customers Where They Are.
“While the prime time for making holiday purchases is mid-November through late-December, consumers begin their gifting discovery before they actually make a purchase. It’s important for brands to be included in the discovery phase by leveraging platforms such as Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube. Investing advertising dollars during this phase also creates a larger pool of potential customers for remarketing later.” - Natalie Scherer, Account Director
“Prior to the holiday season, test new tactics and learn from them. This can help you understand what keywords and placements perform best for your brand so that you can scale those tactics in November and December.” - Justin Garvin, Director of Media
3. Take a Mobile-First Approach.
“More and more purchases are being made on mobile phones, and an increasing number of consumers are also using mobile for preliminary research around a purchase. It’s important for marketers to emphasize mobile in holiday campaign plans, including considerations around pagespeed, mobile-friendliness, and the overall customer experience.” - Jeff Teitelbaum, SVP of Account Management
4. Prepare To Be Agile.
“For retailers, it’s important to have a plan for managing inventory changes. Create a communication plan and strategy with your media partner to be sure to pause off advertising when you are out of inventory. Additionally, craft messaging that includes your shipping cut-off date to induce urgency; or, if the cut-off date is late in the season, to drive incremental sales.” - Natalie Scherer, Account Director
“Make sure your product feed and inventory feed are run multiple times a day and pushed to all of your partners. This helps ensure they have accurate information and that you aren’t wasting money on advertising products that are out of stock.” - Steve Tazic, VP of Personalization
For more ideas around planning for the 2017 holiday season, reach out to Rise. Additionally, check out what a few of our partners shared about creating stand-out holiday campaigns.