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This year, advertisers are not solely focused on the performance of businesses during the upcoming holiday season. Instead, they are attempting to understand the new Covid-19 environment, and how this will affect the festive period. For those advertising through Facebook, below are the recommended patterns we advise you to focus on.
MediaPost reports that 56% of shoppers will spend less money this season on gifts compared with previous years. Meaning less money going into the economy and businesses. On a positive note, 66% of people do plan to shop online! Whether these two reports will balance the economics of Christmas shopping is still unknown.
What remains clear, however, is that digital advertising continues to play a central role in this year’s festive shopping season. Digital channels could be the golden ticket to the largest returns.
Facebook apps act as a virtual home to more than 3.21 billion people worldwide! Housing greater numbers than the populations of both China and India put together! Facebook apps have become a huge part of our lives as we exchange countless numbers of messages daily on WhatsApp alone.
Over 200 million businesses use Facebook tools each month to communicate with their customers. Christmas is the main shopping event of the year, with the number of active advertisers growing rapidly.
Utilise our expert advice to ensure that your first Covid-19 Christmas campaign on Facebook is truly epic, driving leads and sales for your business! Which level are you striving for?
Basic Level: Better late than never!
If your Christmas campaign is ready, great! Go ahead and polish it for optimal performance. If you’re still finalising, don’t give up. Follow our simple advice to help you complete.
Reduce the friction. Ensure you are facilitating a smooth purchase experience and keeping customers engaged. No one wants to see their shoppers abandon baskets, due to small fonts or loading delays. Focus on mobile, and join 18% of businesses that offer a smooth shopping experience.
Make shopping simple. Experiment with new Facebook channels such as, Instagram Shopping, Marketplace, and Facebook Shops. Ensure that the Facebook pixel, SDK and server-side API are implemented, and you’ve integrated offline conversions. Allow shoppers to purchase what they want, where they want, when they want.
Ensure communication is quick and easy. Enable messaging for instant, convenient and in-the-moment conversations via Messenger or WhatsApp.
Pro Level: Grab the power tools and expand your audience!
Welcome to the new audience of self gifters! Are you one of the countless shoppers purchasing gifts for yourself during lock down? If yes, then welcome to the club. Now more than ever, shoppers are searching for simple ways to remain positive and reward oneself with ‘affordable luxuries’. The notion of self gifting and treating oneself is a new and important trend for digital marketing advertisements. For example, in China, the sales of eye cosmetics increased 150% per month from mid February 2020 onwards. Similarly, in France, sales went up 800% for luxury hand soap during the week of 16 March 2020. Furthermore, Zalando reported self-care purchases such as skin, nail and hair-care products have increased by 300% year on year. Make sure you do not miss out!
Combine your knowledge of self gifters with Facebook’s Power5 tactics, and you’ve reached the advanced level of Christmas Campaigns this year!
Use auto advanced matching to more accurately ascribe conversion origins and improve ad performance.
Simplify your account structure to help enable real time optimization. Using Facebook’s machine learning capabilities to auto test creative features and ad placements for best results.
Utilise the campaign budget optimization, allowing advertisers to improve ROI, automatically distributing spend to the top performing ads in real time. Simply set a central campaign budget to optimize across all ad sets, boosting both cost and time efficiency.
Leverage automatic placements, enabling you to reach your audience through all relevant placements using a single ad set. Facebook will additionally optimize campaigns to deliver a cheaper cost per outcome across placements.
Opt for dynamic ads to automatically deliver product ads to your relevant audiences. These are distributed based on the interests expressed through your website, apps or elsewhere on the internet.
Epic Level: Make the most of Q5
Yes, the mere thought of a fifth quarter is an oxymoron. However, Q5 is in fact a period running from 22 December, into early 2021. This is a time when the advertising rush has begun to decrease, meaning lower average cost per mille (CPM) and cost per action (CPA). An important and highly valuable quarter for those who leverage this opportunity, improving strategies and extending their share of voice. During this period, people have more free time to spend online. And of course let’s not forget Santa Clause, delivering many new devices to explore.
To become an epic marketer during this Christmas period, fine tune your campaigns to include planning for Q5. Encourage your audiences to ‘treat themselves’ and as always utilise the motto ‘New year, new you’!
As we hear Santa’s sleigh bells approach in the distance, ask yourself, ‘what levels of greatness is my first Covid-19 Facebook Christmas campaign going to hold?’
Further reading:
Httpool, is an Aleph Holding company, and Facebook Authorized Sales Partner across 11 markets, covering Central Europe and Asia-Pacific. Get in touch to receive detailed insights from our experts.
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