PPC | October 21, 2016
PPC Hints and Tips: Seasonality Adaption
CHRISTMAS. There, I said it. It’s that time of year where your average human being will wince at the thought of the festive season. But remember how we promise ourselves every year that we’ll prepare better for Christmas next year? The same should go for your PPC strategy.
Now that we are entering the 10th month of the year, hopefully the seasonal changes to your PPC account for Christmas are in the pipeline.
Do I have to?
No. But the trends graph below shows two large peaks in the online shopping industry in 2015. The first one hits the week before December, it cools a little and peaks again the week before Christmas. With this in mind it could be worth at least testing seasonal ad copy.
Imagine for a minute, a sudden surge of traffic in your industry, your competitors upping their game, upping their bids, upping the quantity of campaigns – all fighting for the top spot. Do you really want to run your ads as normal over this period? Exactly.
So if you haven’t prepared for Christmas just yet – don’t panic. Here are some hints and tips that can help when adapting to seasonality:
Analyse Your Seasonal Trends
I talk about Christmas, but does this apply to you? Maybe your business does well for Halloween, but not so much at Christmas? Maybe it doesn’t see a difference at all. Check out your annual sales, leads and trends. Once you understand your company’s (and industry’s) sales/conversions pattern you can then begin to plan your strategy around this. Use this data to learn where best to attribute your budgets.
Look at Last Year’s Results
If you have had an account for a year or longer, take a look at what went on the year before. Analyse what went well, what didn’t and what you can take from this and what you incorporate into your seasonal marketing strategy this year.
Check Out Your Competitors
Don’t do yourself a disservice by presuming your competitors have got it absolutely right. But don’t assume you are at the top of your game either. There is always a lesson that can be learned from looking at competitors. Are they doing something you hadn’t thought of? Something you can copy? Something you want to avoid doing?
Create Custom Dashboards in Analytics
Every marketing strategy and plan, benefits from careful and considered monitoring and reporting. That’s not to say you should spend hours on end in Analytics; staring at your screen watching every lead roll in is unlikely to be the best use of your time, so creating custom dashboards in Analytics will make a quick check on your campaigns simple as well as making it easy to share the results with others.
Automation
No matter what your Christmas plans are, I’m sure we can safely assume it’s not going to involve wolfing down a mince pie, excusing yourself and hibernating in the office whilst you make changes to your account. The automation feature is there for a reason.
Test Ad Copy
This one may seem obvious, but many forget that writing holiday-specific ads helps to reach a wider audience. But just like with your day-to-day ads, it’s not wise to assume they’re absolutely fine as they are. Try a couple of variations, test your text, images (where applicable), landing pages etc.
Get Your Campaign Ready Early
I know this might not be much help if you’ve let your seasonal changes slip through the net and you’re now hurriedly reading this post last minute for tips, but if time is on your side, remember it could take a bit of time to get your ads approved. It’s generally recommended to set your new campaign up, pause it and then when you’re ready to go live, simply activate it.
Have Fun!
It may not seem it at the time, but planning for a large seasonal change can be exciting – especially if it’s for a thrilling season which sees the entire internet react, such as Christmas.
Read more:
You Know It’s Christmas When… 5 Digital Signs Santa’s Coming to Town