As soon as the holidays begin, there is a rush amongst people for last-minute shopping. This leads to a big thrust by PPC service providers to work hard to capture maximum eyeballs, clicks and sales/enquiries. It’s a crucial time of the year to boost the sales as well as get recognized in the local market.
However, It is not easy to do the PPC campaign during the festive season with such a crazy competition. Below, we are suggesting a few tips to ease out this pain endured by the PPC optimizers.
Reconsideration
Comparing the old sales and data gives a basic idea of how to increase them in the current year. Study the trends of the yesteryears and do your initial planning based on what worked in the previous years. Even though the trends change every year but some industries show similar progression year on year. To get a basic idea of the present demand, you should start planning on the strategy way before the holiday season. If this method of marketing works then its good but if it needs a tweak, you will have time enough to make necessary adjustments.
Promotion
Create some attractive offers to lure visitors and buyers. Keep a record of the visitors who did not buy the product. Try to get feedback from them to know more about their choices. Update all the customers about the shipping dates of the product as per their locations to prioritize the sale as soon as possible. Add a gifting option for the popular ones to get attention.
Content
Change the content as much as possible for the upcoming holiday season. The holiday-related words are quite common throughout the web. Highlight few choicest keywords repeated on the listed pages would help. Altering the pages as per the suitable occasion contributes to getting the interest of a regular visitor.
Links
Extensions such as ad extension and call extension play an important part in increasing the CTR of the campaigns. Use them effectively if your business can handle phone calls through a defined process.
Social
The word gets around through social networks very quickly. It is important to use social media for promoting your product. Make it the part of your advertising / PPC strategy and it will surely help you increase your brand visibility as well as conversion rates.
Mobile
Many large e-commerce businesses have reported that they are getting 60-80% of their traffic on mobiles. Many of them have moved to a mobile only strategy. Whether your business can sustain the mobile only strategy or not only you can decide but advertising on mobile and smart phones is a must for your PPC strategy. It goes without saying that you must make sure that your website is mobile-friendly too.
Deadlines
Giving time-bound offers has a major psychological impact on shoppers. Top research firms have reported that a shopper is 30% more likely to make a purchase if the deals are time-bound, limited stock etc.
Budget
With competition looming behind you on your heels, it is easy to go overboard and try and outbid them but remember it can have a real adverse impact on your budget. In a matter of no time you will realize that you have burnt the whole budget within a fraction of time. Keep a check, make sure to keep in the confines of the budget. Test, optimize, open up and repeat the cycle. This approach will certainly help you get the maximum ROI while staying within the budgets.
There are many creative ways that I may have missed out for creating a PPC campaign for the holiday season. The above might be a good start. It’ll be nice to hear more thoughts around this from experienced PPC marketers out there. Share your thoughts in the comments below …
