November is nearly here, and it marks the beginning of a couple of months of shopping frenzy – from Black Friday (November 25th, 2022) to Christmas – the holidays are coming up fast. People are buying gifts, food and decorations like there’s no tomorrow!
Are you ready for the holidays? Is your campaign and marketing strategy up to boot? Are you updated in all the hot trends and new fashions? Even if you aren’t, don’t worry – we’re here to get you up to speed with all the important info about marketing and advertising for November and Christmas 2022.
Start Early (like, right now)
Customers begin spending early: in 2021, more than half of the consumers in the US began holiday shopping before Thanksgiving, and 31% even began buying before Halloween. This is especially true for 2022 and the inflation it brought – people are trying to get the best deals (Black Friday and Cyber Monday offer great deals), so they won’t wait until the last minute. This means you have to be prepared right now!
Holiday content: gift guides are needed!
The fact that there are so many options, so many shops and gadgets and items to choose from, can be confusing to many people. An eBay survey showed that 56% plan to buy thoughtful gifts for the people they love this year. 30% say they plan to buy functional gifts and 23% want to buy essential items. So, people are looking for useful gifts that fit the person they buy them for.
Do you have a niche you’re an expert in? Do you know all there is to know about fashion, beauty products or car accessories? Write it up! Create a unique, interesting gift guide with ideas for holiday gifts. Try hitting all sorts of budgets and personalities, in order to make your gift guide popular and maybe even viral.
Consumers are saturated and tired of advertising
People are getting dozens of newsletters, everybody is painting their ads in red and green, and push notifications are trying to be festive. Every advertiser, publisher and marketer out there is trying to get the attention of buyers. In order to do so, you need to be unique and compelling. You can’t just throw the old-and-known stuff at your users, with generic deals and offers. Try something new and exciting, an ad that gets people’s attention without being too aggressive, some useful content that can help them this holiday, and so on.
Remember mobile advertising
Mobile first, people. Mobile phones are the main traffic source for most websites these days. Some sites get 80% of their traffic from smartphones. People are shopping from cellular phones, and search engines are giving an advantage to websites who look and perform well on mobile phones.
Make sure your website or app work well for all phones, and check to see the ads appear properly and function on mobile phones.
Social Media influencers have a huge impact
Consumers are looking for inspiration – they want to get great gifts for their loved ones, and ads don’t always offer heart-warming ideas. Polls show that over half of consumers say that social media has an influence on their holiday buying decisions, and data from Facebook shows that around 30% of US consumers think that influencers help them discover gift ideas during the holiday season. There’s no way around it – influencers have an effect, and you can utilize it to sell more.
Keep an eye on your budget
Since everybody is advertising fiercely, ad prices and CPC are rising – and it will stay this day through Christmas. Check your budget, increase it if necessary and remove caps in order to compete better. Also, make sure your campaign is always active, so you won’t miss out on this delicious traffic.
What should you promote?
E-Commerce sites: this is the most profitable ad type during the holiday season. There’s a ton of e-commerce activity, and most e-commerce sites with an affiliate program allow you to plant your cookie, which lasts for 30 days.
Try buying pop ads to spread your cookie around. On Black Friday itself, we recommend setting up a push notification campaign to attract more buying users.
Sweepstakes: Stores are eager to attract customers and get their products out there. This is a perfect month to promote the gift card variant of sweepstakes. The mere opportunity of extra money in any of the major shopping chains has the potential to increase your ROI and attract a lot of leads.
Shopping-oriented Creatives: adjust your creatives to fit the holiday season. If you are promoting a dating offer or a Nutra offer, offer special holiday promotions.