It may be cold and cloudy outside, but it’s time to plan your holiday season. It’s never too early to start planning your summer seasonal campaigns and doing it in advance can bring massive benefits when the actual season starts.
Did you know that last year, users started to search for “BBQ” and “Garden Furniture” at the end of March? And did you know the trend lasted until the end of August?
Search trends can help you identify changing consumer behaviours, as well as reach consumers in the moments that matter the most to them.
At ConversionWorks, we have summarised six key search strategies that we believe are crucial for a successful summer period.
Whilst your competitors are battling over generic terms, why don’t you focus on your longer tail, seasonal keywords? We are not saying not to bid on dresses, but why not extend your keyword structure to “summer dresses”, “summer dresses uk”, “maxi summer dresses uk” and so on? If 15 percent of searches we see every day are new, why do you keep using the same keywords year on year?
A granular account that covers all your products no matter the season we are in with highly targeted ads, ad extensions and landing page will boost your performance.
If you still think users aren’t comfortable buying on mobile device, you’re living in the dark ages of the Internet. Keep in mind that mobile traffic overtook Desktop in the end of 2016 and currently stands at 52% market share. Remember that brands are making a huge effort to improve mobile usability, is not a surprise that KPIs such as ROAS or Conversion Rate are increasing gradually.
For example, mobile bookings increased 35% year on year for the travel industry.
If you are not paying attention to your mobile traffic or if you completely ignored your potential mobile traffic, it is time to re-think your priorities. Maybe is not because of them, but because of you.
You can have an award-winning PPC account, with a granular keyword structure, personalised ad copies, high levels of keyword relevancy as well as full usage of ad extensions and audience targeting but if you don’t look at your landing page data, your account might be completely disconnected from your website.
Understanding your customer behaviour on-site is as important as ensuring you have a good account structure. Tools such as heatmapping, AB testing and personalisation tools can be your last piece of the puzzle to have a strong quarter.
If you know what is coming, why do you wait for the last minute to prepare and execute your strategy?
Analysing what worked well (or not) last year, define your plan for the next season, get the assets such as keyword structures, ads, landing pages or even promotions or coupon codes in advance will improve efficiency so your account manager can focus his/her efforts on real time performance rather than fixing last minute problems.
We normally hear that Google and Facebook are the go-to-market channel when it comes to media spend. In fact, 61% of the global online ad spend goes to Google or Facebook, with Google achieving 44% and Facebook 18%. However you need to bear in mind that if your business covers Russia, Yandex.ru might be your best alternative. If you are talking about South Korea, then Naver is threatening the Google monopoly. In China, Google is almost non-existent and Baidu and Shenma will be your best friends.
And what about Bing? Bing on average has a 9% worldwide market share, but it can achieve big numbers in countries such as United States (33%), Taiwan (24%), Hong Kong and France (19%) and United Kingdom (26%).
Other players have been growing really fast such as Amazon Ads with 44% of the ecommerce searches starting on Amazon.
Considering that you are not in full control of all steps, surprises can happen at any time. A delayed set of banners, disapproved ads, promotions or landing pages not ready on time, tracking issues, etc. Unfortunately, these things can happen frequently, and you should always be prepared with a plan B. For example, display issues can be turned around with display text ads or smart display.
Having a backup plan is often underestimated but it will always be appreciated by your client and your manager, should something go wrong.
With all of the above in your mind, start preparing for the next summer period. Prepare your website, your promotion plan, your assets and your plan B. Write everything in a doc (in a Gantt chart for instance) and keep an eye on progress. Then relax, and enjoy your numbers growing week on week. Roll on the summer!