It's that time of the year again, and the chaotic shopping season is upon us. For ecommerce sites, the holiday season is a make or break event. Although online sales transactions rapidly increased in years past, last year's holiday sales declined 3 percent from 2007, and the outlook for the 2009 season is still unclear. Extraneous factors like the struggling economy and distrust in online transaction safety influenced the disappointing trend in 2008.
What does this mean for PPC advertisers gearing up for the holiday season? Although online sales decreased from 2007 to 2008, the online sector still managed to rake in more than $25.5 billion in sales during the holiday rush. Now, more than ever, holiday PPC campaigns need to be effective enough to attract the frugal online shopper of today. If you've been struggling all year, this could be your last opportunity to earn some much needed revenue.
PPC holiday guidelines
Launching a holiday campaign can be as complicated as launching a traditional campaign, if not more so. You have to keep your end goals in mind, while also branching out into uncharted territory. A targeted holiday campaign can seem daunting; however, a successful campaign can be broken down into three major components: keywords, ad copy, and landing pages.
Below, I'll discuss how you can use each of these factors to increase the performance of your 2009 holiday campaign. For the purpose of this article, I'll be using TeaFlection as an example of how a well-run seasonal campaign could make your holiday magical.
Keyword strategy
Including holiday-themed keywords in your campaign is extremely important. Not only should you add generic keywords such as "holiday gifts" and "holiday specials on green tea," but also specific holiday keywords like "hot tea for Christmas" or "peppermint tea for Hanukkah." Covering a variety of religious preferences will help extend your marketing reach to a larger group of shoppers.
When you're adding holiday-themed keywords, be sure to avoid any awkward keyword phrases. For example, consumers may interpret "teas for holidays" differently than "holiday teas." The first keyword describes a variety of teas as gifts for the holidays, while the latter sounds like tea with holiday spices like cinnamon or nutmeg. That's fine if you have cinnamon and nutmeg-spiced teas, but if you don't, you're leading your customer to an empty click and no conversion. Walk in your customer's shoes for a second and imagine what they see; by making your keywords transparent, you will facilitate quality leads.
You also need to make sure you don't wait too long to start running holiday keywords. In 2008, the keyword "holiday gift" saw a rise in searches as early as August and experienced a 58 percent increase by the end of November. Getting a headstart on running holiday campaigns will capture the early bird shopper audience. As for the tea retailer, the long-tail keyword "tea gifts for Christmas" experienced a rise in search volume by early November and a 70 percent increase by the beginning of December. If TeaFlection hadn't started running its campaigns by early November, the company would have lost out on a good amount of potential customers.
Ad copy strategy
OK, now that we have the keywords, it's time to talk about the ad copy. Tailoring ad copy could be the most important part of a successful holiday campaign. Creating a relevant headline is a must. Something like "Tea Gifts for Dad", "Mint Teas for Holidays," or even "Tis the Season for Tea" could appeal to the holiday shopper. The body text should also include a holiday reference like "Give grandma the gift of warmth with our chai tea this Christmas!" Grab the shopper's attention by relating to his or her holiday shopping needs.
Another way to catch the customer's attention is with sales promotions. These days everyone is looking to save a buck or two, and this is the perfect opportunity to show how you can help them. Advertising holiday sales, specials, or clearances will draw the customer to the ad. Ad copy with headlines like "All Teas on Holiday Sale!" or "Ho Ho Ho, 20% Off All Tea" will help to lure the shoppers in.
As always, remember to test your ad copy frequently. It should change from the early to the later stages of the holiday shopping season as the shopping environment also changes.
A great way to grab a shopper's attention early in the season is by writing ads with a sense of urgency, such as, "Beat the Holiday Rush -- Buy Our Warm Winter Spice Tea Now!" Urge the shopper to take advantage of the early bird specials so they don't have to shop later. On the other hand, something like, "Don't Be Left w/o a Gift for Mom -- Order Soothing Earl Grey Tea Now!" would be an effective ad for the end of the shopping season. Remind the shopper that time is running out to order a gift for the holidays.
Landing page strategy
Once the shopper has clicked on the ad, it's time to guide him or her to a landing page. With holiday campaigns, it's important to intertwine landing page strategy with ad copy. Holiday-themed copy needs to be reflected in a holiday-themed landing page in order to be effective. Sending the customer to a landing page devoid of any mention of holiday sales when the ad copy wording includes holiday themes leads to confusion, and won't help the Quality Score of your keywords. Make sure your keywords, ad copy, and landing page flow smoothly with one another.
The special landing page is also an opportunity to do some great cross-selling. Look back at the previous year's highest selling products and use these as suggestions for gifts for friends and family. While looking for organic tea for his wife, the shopper could see "Apple Spice tea that grandma will love this holiday season!" Don't let your customers forget to purchase tea ball infusers while they're at it. Cross-selling related products or your big hits is a great strategy for adding extra sales dollars to each customer.
After the holidays
A final thing to remember is to put the holiday keywords and ads on pause after the holiday season is officially over. This sounds like common sense, but marketers do forget -- a lot. Failing to suspend these ads looks sloppy and could hurt your brand's credibility. Also, make sure your active ads aren't sending the customer to the holiday-themed landing page.
Conclusion
The 2009 online holiday shopping season is expected to bring in more than $25 billion in sales, and it is rapidly approaching, if not already here. Mapping out a thorough game plan and implementing the right strategies early in the holiday season will help you capture a portion of these tremendous sales. People have struggled this year, and now they are ready to shop! You need to take advantage of this, or your competition will be waiting with a jolly grin this holiday season.
Brian Easter is the CEO of NeboWeb.
Other contributors to this article include Kimm Lincoln, director of search engine marketing; Chris Allison, SEO and social media specialist; and Jennifer Vickery, search engine marketing specialist.
On Twitter? Follow NeboWeb at @NeboWeb. Follow iMedia Connection at @iMediaTweet.