With Black Friday and Cyber Monday now just being over, you should have a good sense about the success of your Holiday campaigns. If you've been successful so far, then just keep doing what you’ve done. If not, there’s still time to adjust. Regardless of the results, there are still great opportunities ahead. According to the National Retail Federation 18% of shoppers begin gift hunting in the first two weeks of December and a small group of 4% (which I unfortunately belong to) start their Holiday shopping in the second half of December. With Green Monday coming up on December 12th and Free Shipping Day on December 16th two more major shopping dates are just around the corner.

For those of you who haven’t yet seen the results you had hoped for, the easiest way to catch up is by reviewing your keyword list. Is your keyword list too broad, so that people click through to your site, but don’t convert because they can’t find what they are looking for? Or is it too specific, so that traffic is limited?

The image below shows you a row of keywords in the upper arrow moving from generic terms on the left to more specific ones on the right. Obviously someone searching for “Holiday Gift” does not have a clear concept of what to buy, while someone looking for that “8mm White Pearl Necklace” is very decided what he wants to purchase. As a result, you will see many more impressions for the generic terms, but a much higher buying intent on the specific terms which translates into more clicks.

So, the more your keywords are on the right side of the arrow, the more likely you’ll see high click-through rates. As there is less competition on more specific keywords, costs per click will typically be lower as well. For the generic terms, the opposite is the case: lower CTR’s and higher CPCs can be expected, but on the other hand you have the chance to convert the undecided shoppers into customers.

 

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Now, here's where the fishermen come in.

Looking out of my office window, I see Seattle’s Space Needle and the Queen Anne Hill, right behind there is Fishermen’s terminal. While daydreaming how nice it would be for a change to go out with one of the trawlers instead of staring at Excel sheets and an always convoluted email inbox, I realized that there are actually a lot of similarities between what they do and what we do as marketers; if the web is the ocean and the customers are the fish, it’s the net you use that determines success. Are you going for the big ones (determined by wallet size) only? Then your net needs to be wide enough to let the little mackerels slip through. But if you care more about volume and you need many smaller sales to reach your margin, then your net needs to be a tight one to catch as many of the little guys as you can. The keyword list you create basically has the same function as the fishermen’s net; to catch a tuna, you need different gear than to catch a herring.

What’s most important: fishermen and marketers alike have to make the decision of what they want to catch upfront, but there’s also an important difference: If the boat is already far off the coast, the decision what gear to use can’t be reversed, but your keyword list can always be changed quickly.

So, with four weeks to go, look at what you've caught so far. Do your conversions live up to your expectations? Is the ROI trending in a positive way? If yes, keep on fishing … if not, adjust your net. Look at the arrows above again and try to find the right balance between the generic and the specific keywords, so you can attract the type of buyer – from the undecided to the very determined – which is right for your business.

Thanks for reading,

Peter Haubold, Vertical Specialist