The holiday season, a crucial few months for marketers, is quickly approaching. 30% of all retail sales happen during this time and Amazon reports half of their yearly sales to happen between Black Friday and Christmas.
This is the second holiday season since the beginning of the pandemic with our new normal. Changing consumer habits due to lockdowns and health concerns is a large part of this new normal. During the pandemic, people have been preferring online shopping over brick and mortar more and more. According to YouGov data, almost 80% of shoppers plan on continuing to shop online with the same or even more frequency.
This means marketers have to adapt strategies to an ever-growing online shopping ethos. Facebook dynamic ads are an essential tool to reach and exceed goals during this time.
The Facebook Advertising Network, as well as the season itself, is highly competitive; and this year marketers are faced with some extra challenges. The iOS 14 update and quickly tightening privacy regulations complicate things further for online marketers, especially for mobile.
Online shopping is becoming more and more widespread, accelerated by the pandemic. In 2020, mobile purchases went up 25 percentage points to 40 percent of all holiday season sales. So, we need to find new ways to reach consumers on mobile devices.
It’s perfectly possible to keep up performance and reach holiday season goals, however, marketers need to start thinking beyond the strategies they use to rely on, like retargeting based on Facebook data, and start planning for the post iOS 14 update market.
Well-thought-out campaigns, strong creatives, and a solid plan can make sure your Facebook dynamic ad campaigns can reach their highest potential and get you to your target. Curious about how to achieve these things? Here are our 5 tips for a successful holiday season campaign with Facebook dynamic ads in 2021.
Surely, you have offers for the several special days, weeks, and events of the holiday season. The thing is: everybody does. The key to optimizing here is to give your audience the offers they are looking for. Research shows that people who are shopping online during these months look for, free shipping, promotions and limited time offer, ease of use when it comes to your website or app, and in-store pick up options
So when considering what to include in your holiday season offers, plan accordingly. Free shipping might be more attractive to your customers than a 2-for-1 promotion. And of course, make sure your target audience is distinctly aware of what you’re giving them. Don’t just put your offers in the ad copy above your the creative. 80% of users skim through text without taking in what they read. Putting offers directly on your creatives will make sure your ads stand out and your audience will notice them
them.
The holiday season might technically be at the end of the year but your audience starts looking forward to it much earlier. According to Pinterest, people started researching for the holiday season as early as April this year. In order to meet your audience every step along the way you should align your holiday season Facebook dynamic ad campaigns with the rest of your company’s marketing strategy as early as possible.
By planning for those last two months of the year in advance, you’ll be ready for any scenario you might come across. For instance, when holiday season campaigns are a part of your yearly planning, you can test ad creatives the whole year and use the ones that perform best for this crucial time.
Planning will save you time and company resources. This way, instead of rushing to make new creatives right before Black Friday starts off the season, you can just reuse the best-performing ones from past campaigns with a bit of adjustment.
So, if you haven’t already, make your holiday season campaigns part of a smooth yearlong journey for your users. This way you can be well-prepared for the season, have your best-performing creative assets ready, and have everything aligned with your marketing goals.
Your ad creatives are the most important aspect of your Facebook dynamic ad campaigns. 70% of ad performance depends on ad creatives. Especially during a competitive time like this one, it’s important to have creatives that perform well. While planning creatives for holiday campaigns consider every aspect of your campaign: goals, audiences, and offers. Make sure your seasonal offers are on display, your message is clear and your brand is visible throughout your Facebook dynamic ads. Standing out amongst many ads that look the same is likely to improve your holiday season performance.
The number one way to make sure your Facebook dynamic ads are performing at their best capacity is to keep testing them. Conducting a few tests before the season starts won’t give you any valuable information, neither will simply having a look at last year’s numbers. While you’re planning ahead for the season, keep testing your ad creatives to discover what works for your audience. Do they take action more often when your ads are clearly branded? Does having offers reflected on creatives improve conversion rates? Decide what are the specific questions you want to ask for your company and plan to test to discover the answers. This way, you will go into the holiday season with a lot of knowledge about how your creatives perform and how your audience responds to them.
In light of the pandemic, digital has become the primary way for people to connect, work, be entertained and shop.
Taylor Schreiner, Director of Adobe Digital Insights.
Marketers often focus on the bottom of the funnel, conversion, when it comes to holiday season campaigns and use retargeting as one of their main strategies. However, with the iOS 14 update, retargeting is becoming more and more tricky as users start opting out of sharing their data. So if your Facebook dynamic ads strategy for the season mainly consists of retargeted ads and bottom of the funnel it’s highly likely that your performance will be negatively impacted. Plus, only focusing on the bottom of the funnel with holiday season campaigns might cause you to lose prospective clients on the way.
Do not despair though, as we said above, the season is not just a few weeks out of the year. Customers look forward to it and get ready for it by researching and saving up for much longer. You can use Facebook dynamic ads in every stage of your funnel and meet your audience at different steps of their preparation.
Using Facebook dynamic ads in the earlier stages of your marketing funnel will get your audience ready to take action during the holiday season. Facebook dynamic ads have actually proven to be effective in every stage of the marketing funnel.
If you're looking to reach and exceed your goals this holiday season, consider applying some of these tips in your planning. Sales have surpassed expectations in 2020 for the season and they are expected to grow even larger this year. Make sure you get your share of the attention and outperform those who fail to adjust.