Optimize your campaigns for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Unwrapping Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Autumn opens the biggest shopping season of the year, with Black Friday (26th of November) and Cyber Monday (the 29th of November) smoothly passing the baton to the Christmas and New Year’s sales. These months are a hot time not only for busy shoppers but also for marketers who undertake the task of promoting the big bargains.

Traditionally, Black Friday used to be about physical goods, i.e. e-commerce, while Cyber Monday meant online shopping and digital products. In the reality ver. 2021 almost anything can be sold and bought on the Internet, and shoppers are very content with the idea of getting the bargain without leaving their homes. Last year, Cyber Monday brought retailers roughly $10.8 billion in overall revenue, while Black Friday accounted for $9.0 billion. Let’s break down some verticals that would be a great fit for the shopping spree.

E-commerce

• It’s autumn, the Christmas shopping is drawing near — accentuate warm and cozy things, hygge-style softer clothes, heating appliances. The Christmas season also means that people are likely to start looking for presents. Lean towards the friends & family approach.
• Perfume is a classic gift, so creatives with a branded flask + a discount will win the hearts of your audience. Any kind of cosmetic product, especially by luxury brands, will be a good shot for a sale e-commerce campaign.
• Kid toys are a great choice as well, what wouldn’t we do to make our offspring happy? Even buy an expensive robot dog, especially seeing that it’s on a discount.
• Smart gadgets, all kinds of wow-products and must-haves.
• Various knick-knacks (aliexpress-style) — it’s so easy to buy a ton of those without even noticing that you’ve spent a thousand dollars.

Nutra

The cold season is high time for nutritious and oil-rich cosmetics to protect the hair and skin from frostbite and dehydration. Besides, such products are relevant regardless of age and even gender because it’s an issue of health. And in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, any health-concerning product is on the rise.

Sweepstakes

The sale season is a big celebration in itself, but you can make it even better by introducing additional gifts. Best-selling product giveaways are one idea you can go for. Introduce the audience to the most trending products from your list and make an offer they can’t refuse: get one for free before the sales start. Isn’t it a bargain? The general idea of a giveaway or a draw brings even more excitement to the already thrilling thought of gaining through saving money. It also helps you attract more people for the actual sales days. Another smart idea is to promote the best-of-their-kind products and cutting-edge gadgets: the latest iPhone, the top-class gaming console, etc. Autumn is usually rich with long-awaited releases, just keep your ear to the ground.

Casinos

iGaming is a great match for traditional Cyber Monday. What may be on promotion? Bonus codes, free spins, free chips, matching bonus, etc. Literally, anything out there that looks attractive in the eyes of gamers.

Shopping season marketing tips

• Ask your audience about their preferences: polls, surveys, and product battles are the reconnaissance you really need before you launch campaigns. You will be even better off with your campaigns if the source of intelligence is the audience itself.
  
• Optimize headlines
  A headline is visible, it attracts attention, it is an easy thing to fix, and it is always accessible. For your shopping spree campaigns, add numbers to the headlines — people like the exact offers. 50% discount and 2 free samples to 10 first purchases — this kind of jam. Also opt for shorter headlines (5 to 8 words), as people will likely be rush-buying all on sight and will have no time to read through lengthy lines. Keep it simple and to the point — if your audience has to make an effort to understand the offer in a rush hour, your CTR will go down the drain.
• You can use human weaknesses for your creative ideas. The common 7 sins alone give you many different angles. Check out these lines for the same headphones:

Lust: The new headphones will make you the center of attention!

Gluttony: Only the best for your ears, don’t settle for less!

Greed: 70% discount, only three packages left!

Sloth: Tired of untangling your headphones? The new wireless model is what you need!

Wrath: Tired of fixing your old headphones? We have a solution for you!

Envy: You’re the only one in your gang with an outdated model? Visit our shop!

• Check out the approaches your competition is going for and find inspiration for your campaigns (a multitude of spy tools, Facebook ad library, etc.).
• Launch pre-sale campaigns
  • Find out what your audience is interested in (product battles, polls, and surveys).
  • Test many offers and approaches to choose the best for the boom period. Grow your audience and warm it up in the run-up to the sales to get the biggest traffic flow during the actual sale days.

• Warm-up the audience with email marketing. It is a good practice to compile an email database of your own for the verticals you work with. It can become an invaluable asset during hot times like the sales period, as you will have relevant mailing lists that you can trust (unlike the ones you can buy online).
  
  • Use simple and easy sale announcements — users will be getting a ton of sale notifications, try not to add to the overload.
  • Stand out with animated emails.
  • Offer a gift in the mail.
  • Conduct a mail-out giveaway.
• Mind the price of traffic
  • You may see CPC and CPM higher than usual as so many advertisers and marketers are fighting over the customers.
  • Select several time periods for your ads and don’t try to buy out the whole day of impressions.
• Check that your lander is ready for the overload because you don’t want to lose conversions to technical issues.
  • Google PageSpeed Insights is a helpful tool for analyzing the quality of your landers.
  • Google Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool will show the loading speed of your pages for mobile devices. This is very important since audiences are overwhelmingly abandoning desktops and opt for light and more portable devices to do their shopping.
• Use countdowns, timers, and various reminders on your landers: push the visitors into a rush order.
• Document the results of your campaigns afterward — the data will prove most useful during Christmas shopping and will save you time the next year.

The big shopping time is drawing nearer with every week. Make sure that your strategy covers all the points we have mentioned above, your campaigns are ready to run for the pre-sell warm-up, and don’t hesitate to contact Yep Ads for the advice!