Capitalising on the holiday season with Google Ads
In this article, we provide some tips to get the most out of Google Ads around the most relevant holidays. The holidays are a busy and competitive period, but there are certainly also many great opportunities that we would like to explain in this Insight!
Expertise SEA
By Bart Hilferink
We have been in 2024 for a while now, and many holidays are around the corner again. Most (online) holidays like Valentine’s Day, King’s Day, Halloween, Singles Day, Black Friday and Christmas are periods when online consumers look for gifts and sharp deals. We also see a strong increase in search volumes year-on-year around these days. It is therefore very important to respond to this in time. Especially for the end-of-year holidays, it is important to devise and implement a strong strategy in good time.
Using search volume
Around the main holidays, we increasingly see an increase in search volumes. It should be mentioned, however, that last year was fairly unique in this. In fact, in almost all industries we see a decrease in total search volume compared to the two years before. This is mainly due to COVID-19, lockdowns and closed shops in 2020 and 2021. Our expectation is that search volumes will increase again in the coming years.
How can you best and timely respond to the increase in search volume? Take Valentine’s Day, for example. This day falls on 14 February, and if we look at Google Trends, we see that the amount of searches with the term Valentine’s Day is already increasing significantly from the first week of February. Since searches for the term Valentine’s Day are still mainly broad-based, we can assume that the buying intention is not very high yet.
If we look at the search term ‘Valentine gift’, we see that it increases in the week of Valentine’s Day. So from this we can conclude that consumers are searching for Valentine’s Day a bit more generically at the beginning of February, but as Valentine’s Day actually approaches, the search query changes, the buying intention increases and more specific searches for gifts are made.
Our experiences
The experiences we have had with our various clients show that different strategies work well to ensure that ads remain highly visible during these busy periods.
Most advertisers want to be highly visible around the increases in search volume due to the holiday season. It is therefore wise to slightly lower (bidding) strategies, such as Target ROAS or Target CPA, in order to still remain highly visible that way. In our experience, the increase in costs pays off in extra sales and turnover during this period.
Another strategy that often works out well is to use a remarketing campaign that catches the generic terms during these periods. For example, you can create a campaign for Valentine’s Day using only remarketing target groups, such as consumers who have previously bought a product or visited your website in the past 30 days. These are consumers who are already familiar with your product and/or brand and then it often pays to be visible precisely during a more generic search such as ‘Valentine’s Day.’
Consumers who are not yet familiar with your product and/or brand will be less likely to make a purchase through one of your ads if they search more broadly. Also, generic terms are generally a lot more expensive, as multiple advertisers often bid on them as well. It would be a shame to pay a lot for an irrelevant click.
Our tips
This article contains a number of strategies and important things to consider around the holidays, but in addition to these strategies and insights, there are a number of points that we think are also important to consider when implementing Google Ads strategy around the various holidays.
1) Promotion calendar
At the beginning of the year, create a clear and well-organised promotional calendar that lists all actions and promotions. This will also allow you to prepare your Google Ads campaigns well in time and ensure that you are visible during these important purchase moments in good and timely fashion.
2) Is the ad text festive enough?
Always make sure that the ad texts match the promotional texts on the website. Do these texts fit well with the holiday? Are they creative and challenging enough? Is the discount mentioned? These are all tricks to convince consumers to make a purchase from you.
3) Extensions
Always make sure the promotional extensions and sitelinks are up-to-date with the right texts and the promotions are mentioned clearly and properly. It is quite easy to attach a promotional extension to each ad and create a sitelink that mentions the discount or promotion.
4) Look at the past year – analyse what went well and what went less well
Our final tip: look closely at the past year around the same time. What worked well and can we build on, and what didn’t go so well and should we stop doing or adjusting? The wheel doesn’t have to be reinvented every time. Sometimes only a small adjustment is needed.
Key takeaways
For all advertisers who want to get more out of their campaigns around the holidays, here are the most important take-aways:
- Be prepared (in good time) using a promotional calendar;
- Make sure your product prices are up-to-date and adjust your ad texts to make/keep them as relevant and stimulating as possible;
- Make use of your target groups and marketing lists;
- Respond to the increase in search volume: lower bidding strategy targets temporarily, as the extra revenue this generates offsets the extra costs.
Want to get more out of your campaigns around the holidays? Contact one of our SEA specialists. Together, we will be happy to look at the right strategy to avoid being snowed under during these important days!
