Although most of us think Christmas marks the end of the holiday shopping season, that's not entirely accurate. Armed with gift cards, not-quite-right presents and unexpected extra spending money, shoppers will still be on the lookout for post-holiday sales and bargains.
For advertisers, this is a great opportunity to boost end-of-year sales, New Year sales and to ramp up seasonal campaigns in popular verticals like finance, health and travel. While you may think December 26th is the time to pull the plug on your holiday campaigns, it may make more sense to take a gradual ramp-down strategy and instead, simply tweak your campaigns to highlight post-holiday deals, keeping them up until you start to notice traffic levels returning to normal. Many online retailers could see a stretch of heightened traffic that lasts through the 2nd week of January.
Try these post-holiday best practices to modify your ad campaigns in order to maximize sales after the season.
Important Post-Holiday Dates
· Day after Christmas (Dec. 26) - Online shopping is a popular way to find accessories, redeem gift cards and find post-holiday sales online, not to mention avoiding holiday traveler traffic, busy parking lots and long return lines.
· New Year's Day (Jan. 1) - Like Dec. 26, New Year's Day is also a popular day for sales as holiday sale shoppers browse for discounts.
Post Holiday Checklist
· Pause all pre-holiday ads or tweak them to be applicable to post-holiday.
· Focus ad copy on clearance, easy returns, gift cards and post-holiday sales.
· Use New Year and seasonal ad copy where appropriate.
· Slowly ramp down keyword bids to pre-holiday levels.
· Review campaign performance, budgets, ad group end dates, etc.
· Review conversion rates to inform your ad campaign strategies.
· Document what worked this year for when you start next year's holiday campaigns.
Seasonal Ad Copy Suggestions
· Make 2010 the year for [keyword]
· New Year, New [keyword]
· Now's the time to make it happen
· Make a Change
· A New You in the New Year
· Your goals are within reach