Santa Claus is coming to a town in less than two months! Have you focused your PPC strategy to maximize your return on investment during one of the most important sales periods of the year?
Unlike past years, where gift givers would crowd shopping malls to find the perfect Christmas gift, 2020 has forced many people to try out online shopping, some for the first time. This article will discuss how you can use PPC marketing techniques to boost your sales this holiday season.
1. Use Christmas Keywords in Your PPC Campaigns
People are searching for Christmas gift ideas. Optimizing your ads and landing pages for these specific keywords is a super simple way to give your ad views and ad clicks a huge boost.
Using keywords like ‘Christmas gift ideas for women’ or ‘Christmas gifts for wife’ covers an incredible range of products and services. Even if you’re selling more specialized products, ‘Unique Christmas gifts for wife’ will help get your message across to a very specific audience.
And don’t forget to optimize your website pages with these specific keywords too!
2. Seasonal Landing Pages and Ad Copy
Nothing helps build holiday spirit more than Christmas decorations? From colourful Christmas lights to a tacky mistletoe hanging in a doorway, Christmas decorations are an incredibly important element of the season. Your PPC ads, website and landing pages should keep this in mind. Gone are the days of websites with animated snowflakes and Christmas music playing in the background (thankfully).
It’s incredibly easy to add a bit of Christmas cheer with a few well placed graphics as well as a great headline and body copy. What better way to fill your potential customers with holiday cheer, and encourage them to actually make a purchase on your site.
3. Make Shipping Details a USP
One of the first questions people ask when shopping online is how much does shipping cost and how long does it take. Especially during the busy Christmas period, reasonable delivery times and shipping costs are incredibly important to actually making a sale.
Make ‘free shipping’ or ‘guaranteed delivery’ one of your major USPs (unique selling propositions). Mentioning great shipping terms in your PPC campaigns will help increase your ad clicks, and your sales as well.
4. Use The Countdown Widget in Ads to Drive Traffic
Countdown are a fantastic way to create a sense of urgency. Using special coding we can create a daily countdown, highlighting specific items or deals. We can also combine this countdown with special shipping deals in your campaign. There’s nothing like an ad highlighting ‘Today is the last day to guarantee free delivery by Christmas!’ to catch customer attention.
5. Update Your Website
Any messaging highlighted on your PPC marketing campaign should be replicated on your website. This is a super simple way to increase conversion rates when customers click a PPC ad and hit your website. If you’re offering a site-wide discount or free shipping, add this messaging to your website’s header or a banner at the top of your website. That way, if a potential customer clicks to a different page they will still see the same messaging that brought them to your website in the first place.
6. Plan Ahead
Consumer’s shopping habits will change the closer Christmas gets. Some people will definitely complete all of their holiday purchases months in advance, while others will inevitably spend the days leading up to Christmas panicking to find last minute deals. As a result it’s very important to identify key dates that will influence the shopping behaviour of your customers.
Key dates include:
Black Friday – Friday, November 27, 2020
Cyber Monday – Monday, November 30, 2020
Christmas Eve – Thursday, December 24, 2020
Christmas Day – Friday, December 25, 2020
Boxing Day – Saturday, December 26, 2020
New Year’s Eve – Thursday, December 31, 2020
New Year’s Day – Friday, January 1, 2021
The most important thing to take away from this article is that simply letting your PPC campaigns run as-is is a terrible idea. Sticking to a tried and true marketing campaign might appear to be work in the short term, you are leaving incredible opportunities on the table.
Our PPC experts will help you convert clicks into sales this holiday season. Contact us today to get the ball rolling.
