It’s November, which means the holiday season is about to be in full swing! Now more than ever, it is time to start thinking about marketing your business during the holidays and utilizing Black Friday and Cyber Monday to your advantage. 

Effective marketing can benefit your company by increasing sales. To successfully do this, you need to identify which marketing strategies best fit your business. Stay relevant to your target audience by hitting their key emotions in your campaigns. Using your online presence to connect with your target audience will also be beneficial. Social media and email marketing need to be your best friend during these times. When promoting specials this holiday season, you will want to use social media and email marketing to get the word out by running ads, creating captivating content, sending coupons, etc. 

Optimizing Your Ads

If running ads is part of your holiday marketing game plan this year, you may want to consider optimizing your ads, which will help to broaden your reach. The advertising technology available today is providing marketers with more visibility than ever before. This transparency allows for more objective decisions to be made in real-time. 

Some quick tips to optimizing your ad campaigns are:

1. Analytics
2. Timing
3. Consistency 
4. A/B testing 

A/B Testing

The A/B testing method is used to compare two versions of a web page, ad, or app against each other to determine which one performs better. It is essentially an experiment to determine which of the page variants performs better for a given conversion goal.  Here are some examples of A/B testing from some of the world’s most innovative companies have seen through A/B testing with Optimizely:

Ads Format Matters!

Now is the time to start running ads that will allow your audience time to check out the deals and plan. Optimizing your website for mobile to increase conversions is another key ingredient for success. You want to ensure that your customers are happy with the purchasing experience and not caught up in technical issues. Feature your best-selling products to showcase your products and deals. Choosing the proper ad format is crucial in achieving your advertising goals. Examples of format options include:

1. Single Image and Video Ads 
2. Collection Ads
3. Story Ads 
4. Dynamic Product Ads 
5. Video Ads such as Reels and YouTube

The holiday season is also a perfect time to engage your audience through gifts. Take into consideration both offline and online touchpoints, allowing for a balance in your campaign to cover your entire target audience. 

Here is an example of a campaign that prioritizes emotional appeal over function: Apple: Make Someone’s Holiday to get your mind thinking about what holiday marketing campaign you want to run.

If you’re looking for help preparing for the holiday season but need some assistance figuring out the logistics, contact us today to get started!