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Optimize Your Paid Search Strategy to Boost Holidays Sales

Everyone knows that holiday seasons are full of shopping excursions—but they’re also just as full of ads.

When you’re vying for the attention of shoppers online, it can be difficult to know how to set yourself apart. Two of the most fundamental things for holiday advertising success are knowing which keywords to use and analyzing the design and placement of your PPC ads.

Shopping patterns change during the holiday buying season as consumers focus less on specifically desired items and more on gift-giving in general. How can you use this to your advantage when attempting to market your products or services during this time of year?

Boost Holidays Sales by Optimizing Your Keywords and PPC Ads

‘Tis the season of gifting. If you operate a t-shirt company, your keywords for most of the year are likely things like, well, “t-shirt,” “tees,” or possibly “design your own shirt.” Brick and mortar companies might also include location data in their keywords.

But when the holidays roll around, it can really help bump up business if you think about your product as a gift. Possible keywords to add might include “gifts for men” (or women, girls, boys, and so on), “gifts under X dollars,” “Christmas gifts”, “Hanukah gifts”, “stocking stuffers,” “best gifts,” and other holiday-related terms that can draw in people from outside your usual pool of customers. These keywords can be used in PPC ads, and you can also take this idea further with CTAs like “click here for the perfect gift.”

Invoke urgency. How many procrastinators search for something like “last minute Christmas gifts” each year? Quite a few. If you can find a way to invoke urgency with your keywords and PPC ads, you’re bound to draw more people in. Let people know that they only have X days left to ensure their gift arrives in time. Remind them that the big day is only a week away. Ask them if they remembered everybody on their list.

Show your holiday spirit. While you don’t want to go overboard and turn people off, subtly invoking the holidays with the color, design, and textual choices of your ads can go a long way towards convincing them to click through. Include whites, reds, greens, and blues. Mention loved ones, spending time with family, and showing people how much you care. Include words like “gift” or “giving.” These may seem like blatant psychological ploys, but there’s a reason businesses use them. As long as you don’t go too far, they’ve been shown to work.

Optimize for mobile. Though not a change that’s specific to the holidays per se, many businesses still overlook the prevalence of online shopping through mobile phones. Without a proper mobile web presence, your business will be overlooked. Before traffic floods in, optimize your mobile experience so the website is visually appealing and easy to navigate, and create PPC ads with keywords designed to entice those on mobile devices and show up for people who are searching for gifts when they’re out and about close to your store. At a time when people have to do so much shopping, convenience is a big factor.

Give people a break. Besides convenience, one of the biggest things that can help you to drive sales is to offer and advertise holiday discounts. Show potential customers that you know this time of year can be tough financially by creating PPC ads highlighting sales and coupons and using keywords that reflect your low prices.

Discounts are one of the biggest draws during the holiday season, so plan yours accordingly. People tend to buy more than they mean to when there is a good sale going on, so take advantage of the window of time where your items go on sale by showcasing more expensive items. The amount they’re saving will help your audience rationalize spending more money than they would have otherwise.

Analyze competitors. Do a search for your product types online and take a look at the other PPC ads that pop up. What keywords and language are they using to draw in customers? What about adjustments they made to landing pages? Just like your approach changed during the holiday season, it’s likely your competitors’ did also, so scope it out for ideas and to ensure you’re staying on top of trends.

Now that your advertising has been meticulously planned out, all that is left is to track your progress through analytics and adjust when possible to see the most success. And at the end of the season, don’t lose track of that data as it can prove valuable for next year’s holiday planning.

3 thoughts on “Optimize Your Paid Search Strategy to Boost Holidays Sales”

  1. Pingback: How to Create a Holiday Gift Guide for Your Retail Website

  2. Pingback: How to Prepare for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

  3. Thanks for sharing this valuable information. It is very nice article . I completely agree to this article. I got many new points through this article. What is the keyword phrase and what are the rules we have to follow.

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