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Written by James Scott Channeladvisor
Wednesday, 28 October 2009 14:27 |
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With the festive season on its way once more it is time to swing into action with your plan for festive selling. 2010 is predicted to be one of the most competitive Christmas on record and it would be a wise man to have a plan in hand.
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1 Put a plan in place
Concentrate on building a plan for your Paid Search advertising. By using the tips and suggestions found in this white paper, you can assure that you’ll be prepared and well on your way to a successful Christmas.
2 Understand historical reports
Track data from past Christmas seasons to predict exactly when Christmas traffic will increase. First, combine your historical data from October 2009 through January 2008 with industry data. Then, plot your biggest days from last year to estimate your busiest days for this year. Most importantly, identify your most profitable keywords from this year and previous years and make sure these keywords are active and appearing 100 percent of the time.
3 Define goals
Establish an overall ROI (Return on Investment) goal for your paid search efforts. Then break this goal into areas based on margins. For example, you may sell a product that has a 10-percent margin. Avoid combining the goals for this specific product or product areas with another productor product area that has higher margins. Be sure to watch your product and marketing costs for each item. Doing so will ensure that you promote the most profitable products.
4 Focus on the ‘Big Three’
Set up your accounts for efficiency. Since the “Big Three” search engines—Google, Yahoo! and MSN—essentially have the same structure, architect your accounts identically—including campaigns, ad groups, keywords and ads —so you can cut and paste changes. This makes life easier for you, improves your quality scores and allows for better budget control.
5 Get entire catalogue online
Add your entire product catalogue online. Research your keywords thoroughly and consider adding:
• Category-level keywords that may be missing or have been bid down over the past year.
• Product-specific keywords that are relevant based on in-stock inventory.
• Product category names plus “gift” or “gift cards”.
• Frequent misspellings and variations of your brand words.
• Vendor-brand keywords corresponding to the types of products you carry.
6 Leverage promotions
Test creative messages, landing pages and promotions. Now is the time to start. Once the season starts, it’s risky to make major creative changes because it resets the click-through rate and gives affiliates and competitors a chance to gain position. Write ad copy ahead of time for all phases of the festive period. Some engines allow you to create copy, pause it, and launch it when needed. If you offer free shipping and express shipping closer to Christmas, integrate these offers into your ad copy and launch when appropriate. Adjust messages as the season progresses.
Consider a timetable for ad copy techniques:
• September/October: “Start your Christmas shopping today.”
• November/December: “Order now for easy Christmas shopping.”
• December: “Last day to order for on time Christmas delivery.”
7 Check budgets
During the year, you may open up your budgets or set targets higher than normal, but may not be hitting them. As November and December approach, you will likely come closer. Make sure these budgets correspond to what you are willing to spend. Have an open budget based on a specific ROI metric, meaning you are willing to spend whatever it takes to maintain a desired ROI. This is where automated bid managers come in handy. The more campaigns you launch, the more control you have over whether keywords are getting flighted and also over your spend per day. Keep in mind that with Google, settings like ad scheduling, geo-targeting, conversion optimiser are all set at the campaign level.
8 Evaluate landing page performance
Create Christmas-specific landing pages and measure their conversion performance. Perform ongoing landing page audits to ensure consumers are directed to the most relevant pages. Another often overlook element on landing pages is the benefit of including promo pages and gift guides. These elements have shown to increase conversion rates and average order value.
Check to make sure promotions included in advertising creative are apparent on your website. Monitor landing pages with out-of-stock products and either bid the keywords down that point to that page, pause the keywords, or change the landing page to point to another relevant page.
9 Include shipping timeframe
Shipping is usually a factor in a customer’s buying decision. If you include free shipping for all or part of the Christmas period, it will boost your revenue and conversion rates. Make sure you include compelling “Free Shipping” language in your ad copy. Also, include “remaining days to ship” or other countdown verbiage. Expedited shipping can entice searchers to click and buy, especially if they are last minute shoppers.
10 Stick to your plan
Now you are armed with the knowledge needed to be successful this Christmas season, take this information, build your Paid Search plan around it and then implement it to the letter. If you do this, you will have a successful season and the momentum to carry you into the first quarter of next year. Good luck.
James Scott
UK Managing Director
Channeladvisor
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 14 October 2010 17:11 )
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