How to prepare Google Ads campaigns for sales?
The end of the year is a period rich in sales bargains. Stores outdo each other with promotions to celebrate Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Santa Claus, Christmas or post-Christmas sales. While from the customer’s perspective this is the ideal time to buy something, for stores it is a time of increased marketing activities. Many stores clearly increase the intensity of their activities during this period. It is necessary to prepare for this accordingly and plan campaigns so as not to sleep through the opportunity to increase sales.
Good deals on in-store promotions
November and December is a period of increased search for promotions in stores. Every year there are noticeable increases in the number of queries on Google for phrases related to more expensive products that can occasionally be bought cheaper. The number of queries on Google related to consumer electronics, household appliances, toys or simply gifts sees a marked peak at the end of the year. This situation repeats itself every year through, allowing retailers to plan attractive promotional campaigns to improve sales results at the end of the year.
Sales opportunities that will be in November and December 2022 are:
- Singles’ Day – November 11, 2022
- Black Week – November 21-27, 2022
- Black Friday – November 25, 2022
- Cyber Monday – November 28, 2022
- Santa Claus – December 6, 2022
- Christmas – December 25, 2022
- Post-Christmas sales – from December 26, 2022
How to match products to the occasion?
Certainly the first thing to do is to match your assortment with possible promotional campaigns. During Black Friday and Cyber Monday, people are more likely to look for electronics and more expensive consumer electronics/appliances. Santa Claus and Christmas are more about looking for gifts and souvenirs for loved ones. Singles’ Day as a holiday that came to us from China. It is popularized in our market by sites such as Aliexpress and encourages the purchase of products imported from abroad.
What does advertising during the Black Friday period provide?
Increased user interest is an opportunity for greater reach of ad impressions. By choosing advertising forms appropriately and taking advantage of trends, we have the opportunity:
- Test new advertising creations,
- Expand the remarketing base,
- Check the effectiveness of the new landing pages,
- Build higher brand awareness before the holiday season,
- Increase sales based on promotions.
Starting earlier can significantly help you achieve better sales results both during and after the promotion period.
When to launch Google Ads campaigns for Black Friday?
Launching campaigns during the promotional period involves the need for advance planning. Current Google Ads campaigns allow us to achieve higher sales results through tailored rate-setting strategies. Automation and the operation of Google Ads robots help significantly reduce costs per conversion and improve ROAS. When introducing new rate-setting strategies, be sure to launch campaigns early to give the algorithms time to collect the data necessary for optimization. When planning to launch campaigns, reserve at least 2 weeks of impressions for data collection. So, when launching for Black Friday (November 25, 2022), you should launch a dedicated Google Ads campaign by November 10 at the latest. By then, the campaign should already have a set budget and specific audiences. The creatives themselves can be swapped on the day the promotion starts, but keep in mind that the time to check them may be extended during the period of intense marketing activities of the competition.
What types of campaigns to use to increase the effectiveness of Google Ads?
When running sales campaigns, the obvious goal is to increase sales and get a return on investment. In the most general terms, we can achieve this through two types of activities:
- Direct actions – catching people who are consciously looking for products. Search and Product/Performance Max campaigns work well here.
- indirect activities – building brand awareness and acquiring audiences for remarketing activities. These activities are well executed by display and video campaigns.
While we can get clear data from campaigns focused on direct customer acquisition, it is good practice to build brand awareness. By working with multiple communication channels, we can create a synergy in communication that will reduce the cost of customer acquisition. A person who has previously seen an offer on banners, mailings or social media may be more likely to make a purchase.
What else should you keep in mind when preparing for sales promotions?
There are many things to keep in mind when planning marketing activities for online stores. The basic elements you should take care of are: – preparation of the online store’s background, – proper planning of communications, – planning of budgets in the various communication channels, – collection of advertising materials. You can read more about this in the article “How to prepare for Black Friday?”.
