Did you know? According to AdMaven, holiday retail sales have reached a whopping $789.4 billion in the year 2021!

It's the holiday season! Everyone right now is on a shopping spree and this is the time, businesses have to be on their toes. If you are not playing with your Facebook and Instagram right now, you are at a big loss in this game of Holiday Ads! 

Let us begin by jumping into some holiday insights for the year 2022. Interestingly, shopkeepers have been receptive to trying out new brands across various niches this time round. 

 Peak Season 2022

Did you know?

92%
of holiday shoppers surveyed are likely to try new brands during the holiday season.

45%
of holiday shoppers surveyed said they are likely to try new food brands during the holiday season.

40%
of holiday shoppers surveyed said they are likely to try new electronics brands during the holiday season.

53%
of holiday shoppers surveyed are open to shopping from new brands they discover on social media.

42%
of holiday shoppers surveyed said they are likely to try new Apparel brands during the holiday season.

34%
of holiday shoppers surveyed said they are likely to try new Toys brands during the holiday season.

Furthermore, focus on building a holiday shopping journey for your customer that is:

    PERSONALIZED

 ENGAGING

 SEAMLESS

 MEASURABLE

1. PERSONALIZED

Speak to people’s needs.

♦ It can either be on one of the sides making you overwhelmed or overjoyed. We know that social media allows us to reach the closest to our customers. Having said that, presenting our users with what they want and also with what was not expected on their feed would work wonders for your business!

♦ One of the perks of social media is that you get introduced to a product or brand you didn’t know existed. This is how you know what you needed but were not looking for.

Count on machine learning through dynamic ads & campaigns.

2. ENGAGING

Immerse and entertain shoppers.

♦ Interesting creatives help attract holiday shoppers and get them invested in the brand. According to Meta, content diversification gives up to 32% increased efficiency and 9% growth in incremental reach. These figures are attained when you show your customers what they wish to see.

♦ Every customer will have a different response to an ad, hence finding out different entry points for different people becomes a game changer!

Diversify your creatives to appeal to a diverse consumer base.

3. SEAMLESS

Simplify and shorten the path to purchase.

♦ “The Average Cart Abandonment Rate Across All Industries is 69.57 Percent”, says Drip. Almost 70% of customers are jumping out of the purchase journey and this is something to be worked upon.

♦ If your website gives a smooth navigation experience then the chances of cart abandonment are less. The journey from arriving on your landing page to successfully making a purchase must be seamless.

*Pro tip: You can try ads with product tags.

Start driving conversations ahead of the Peak Season to conduce a healthy relationship with your customer once Black Week begins.

4. MEASURABLE

Quantify real business value.

♦ A study by the Harvard Business Review, in Oct 2020 says that advertisers who conducted 15 experiments a year before the Oct 2020 study, had their ad performance escalated to 45%!

♦ From the above fact, we can infer that employing various A/B tests or doing brand lift studies to amend creatives does have a long-term effect on the performance of ads.

Start testing today.

Plan Your Brand Build-Up in These 4 Stages to Peak Your Sales in This Peak Season

Season sets off: October Beginning-
Establish your foundation and make sure that people are aware of you and your products.

Mid-October – Early November-
Now that people know of you, compel them to consider you. This is when the cost impressions need to be low to capture your target audience. 

It’s Black Friday!
Needless to say, strive to boost your sales!
On Black Friday we see skyrocketing prices but conversion rates too. So, assure and brace your audience way ahead of the peak time.

 Where to Look for Inspiration?

Some inspirational examples are:

The abovementioned giants have aced their game in the online advertisement sector!

Meta Ad Library-

♦ Here’s how the Meta Ad Library looks. You can choose your target country, different ad categories, and specific keywords.

♦ Once you select the country and the ad category with any specific keyword, complete details of the published ads are displayed accordingly. You can now watch them and fetch inspirational ideas for your business.

CASE: HOUDINI SPORTSWEAR

For any business that is running ads, giving customers a personalized experience plays a decisive role.

1. The first ad (from the left) focuses more on creating awareness about the brand rather than shopping. The ad helps us learn more about Houdini as a brand.

2. The second ad focuses more on attracting people to the brand products by giving out product experience to the customers.

3. The third ad is the same as the second one, but with a differentiator of displaying the products showcased in the video ad. You can then click on the product you liked.

4. The last ad is for customers who have concluded upon buying a product (jacket as shown in the ad) and are one step away from buying it. The CTAs direct customers to the product link.

Varied creative experiences attract a diverse consumer base.

The image above displays a variety of ads catering to a varied audience. Some are review based, while some are newsletter ads etc.

Catalog Ads give out a smooth shopping experience and hence the above fact states that there are 42% more sales with catalog ads as compared to non-catalog ads.
Considering the image above, if you are planning to buy a jacket and this ad with grabbing visuals pops up on your screen, you are probably to buy it.

Diversifying creatives help attract different holiday shopping audience. Doing this motivates a large variety of audiences to try out different products. We select the top 3 creatives every month and produce distinct creatives on the lines of the selected top 3 with minimal but significant differences that look visibly different. Now they are tested and studied to analyze which one of them unlocks a new audience.

The above image shows 3 creatives catering to different audiences. The first one caters to a customer who wants something for the kids; the second one caters to one interested in their upcoming latest products, and the third one is a motivational ad to buy their expensive exclusive products.

Use the right ad for the right placement.

The first ad measurements (1X1) are for Facebook, followed by Instagram and then Stories. So, to make your ads successful follow these measures for placing your ads on social media.

Conversion API

Conversion API plays a crucial role in the holiday season. How?

♦ Consider that Pixel is helping you out with your Facebook events but gets hampered by changing things and the need for more data, and relies on the browser. Now, if the customer decides not to see the ads anymore and blocks them, even after buying products he won’t be able to see our ads. This will stagger the results expected from Facebook.

Here Conversions API comes into play.

♦ Connect your website’s server to other interactions like Voyado to grow your ad hits. It is suggested to have more than one connection connected to your server. Thereafter, connect your server to the Conversion API which will send all the data to Meta to optimize your ads.

Here are 3 ways to integrate the Conversion API:

Conversions API Gateway- A fairly easy way to set up with.

 Direct Integration- This is more label-heavy and demands a lot of manual work. Integration would take a couple of weeks.

 Partner Solutions- The easiest way to set up along with an impressive hit rate and good connections.

You can hear the detailed discussion by the experts along with apt examples.

CONCLUSION

Make the most out of this super-hectic holiday season. Peak your businesses with thorough planning and preparation and ace your advertisement game.

Facebook and Instagram are the 2 kings of this game. Play with the kings to win! Are you still not convinced? Look at these statistics!

56% of people rely on social media to look for products or services during the holidays!

Hurry up and begin strategizing your holiday advertisement with Facebook and Instagram.

Do you want a detailed explanation? We have a brilliant course curated for you! Experts from Meta and Keywordio will ease things for you.

For more such valuable courses, go check out our website right now!