Yes it’s that time of year again, and if you haven’t thought about your Christmas Strategy yet then you are running out of time and you need to act quickly! The pressure is on for ecommerce businesses. COVID-19 has pushed Australians to shop online more than ever, Australia Post and freight companies are under the pump and delivery deadlines have been brought forward to ensure everyone gets their goods before Christmas. Now is the time to get started thinking about your Christmas strategy - because it should be in effect already!

We’ve put together some of our best tips and strategies for ecommerce store owners to get the most out of this busy shopping period. We’ll keep it simple so you can take these notes and execute, or if you need any help with the execution don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team 

Facebook Ads

Facebook ads are not a one-hit-wonder. You need to have a consistent strategy over a period of time to really garner results. Time and time again we see clients come to us after many failed attempts at running Facebook ads successfully by themselves. Most of the time they have run a campaign here and there, without really looking at a comprehensive strategy, without building audiences and without retargeting them over a period of time with a variety of ad creatives.

These are your goals with Facebook ads:

Brand awareness and Relationship Building

Let people know you exist and pique curiosity about your store and products. Generally, these campaigns are ‘mass targeted’ (to large targeted audiences, not just anyone and everyone), get a lot of reach (i.e. many people see these ads), and can also generate cheap traffic to your site. Video ad formats typically help all results here - it’s cheaper to reach more people.

Measure reach and frequency and update your ad creative regularly to test different styles, ad text and images. You can also measure any purchase actions (more information on that below) to see if these ads are actually helping drive sales.

Create custom audiences  from anyone that has engaged with your content so you can remarket to them and drive them further down your marketing funnel. 

Drive shopping intent and sales

Using a range of campaign styles your aim here is to get people to show shopping intent (i.e. viewing products, adding to cart, initiating checkout) and of course making a purchase. You can use carousel style ads, collection/canvas ads and catalog sales ads (which pull products directly from your website).

You can also test a variety of campaign objectives, however, if you’re ads are converting, you’ll most likely want to use the “Conversions” objective.

Remarketing

Anyone that engages with your Facebook or Instagram page (including your ads), or visits your website can be remarketed to. It’s important to have a structured remarketing strategy in place so that anyone that engages with your brand is taken on a journey. Read more about remarketing journeys here.

Google Ads

Google Ads are extremely effective at driving ecommerce conversions. Google Ads offer a range of campaign types and each has its pros and cons.

Google Shopping Ads

Before we delve into Google Shopping ads, earlier this year Google released free Google Shopping Listings. The power behind these free listings is massive! If you’re an ecommerce store, you need to get this set up for your business. You’ll need a merchant centre and data feed to participate in this programme. More info can be found here, or get in touch with our team for more details.

Google Shopping ads are a great way to target people who are ready to purchase. The benefit of Shopping Ads is they provide an image and price of the product. This prequalifies clicks, as you immediately deter people who don’t like the look or price of a product.

If you are an ecommerce store, Shopping ads are essential. A key thing to note though is that there is a bit of set up involved and you might need to invest more time to ensure things are optimised as best as possible on the site so that you get the best results. It is well worth it, each year we see our clients’ Google Shopping results improve on the year prior.

It’s likely you won’t appear for all the available searches for your products with Shopping ads and this is where Google Search campaigns come in.

Google Search Campaigns

Google Search campaigns are the bread and butter of Google Ads. These are the campaigns that get triggered when someone does a Google search. These ads are incredibly powerful for ecommerce stores. First, they can be as broad or specific as you like. You can show for keywords as generic as ‘gifts for boys’ all the way down to “red boys shoes size 5”.

Not all strategies suit every business, and a lot of the time your budget will play a big part in what campaign is the best move for you. 

YouTube Ads

YouTube Ads are a great way to enhance your brand awareness and to help build brand trust with people who have already engaged with your content. There are many features with YouTube ads like video ads sequencing, in-stream ads, discovery ads, masthead ads and more that can help get your message to the right audience.

Also, thinking beyond the pre-Christmas period, advertising on YouTube over the Christmas and New Year break is a great way to keep your brand front of mind after the key shopping period is over. This is a time of year when most people have a lot more spare time and therefore are consuming more video content.

Google Analytics

Regular analysis of your Google Analytics account is recommended to ensure you’re aware of user behaviour on your site. Key metrics to look at include shopping behaviour, acquisition sources and audience behaviour. Make sure you have ecommerce tracking set up. Read our comprehensive article on the key metrics you need to know to increase sales.

Tracking

Make sure you have the Facebook pixel set up, including Facebook event actions (some ecommerce stores do this automatically through their pixel integration). Ensure you set up your Catalog in Facebook Business Manager so you can use your products in ads. 

In your Google Analytics make sure ecommerce tracking is set up and enabled on your website (again some ecommerce stores do this automatically through integrations).

Email Marketing

Email marketing is crucial for ensuring you build and maintain a relationship and help focus on driving repeat business in 2020. Use nurture campaigns to encourage people who are not prior customers to make a purchase and nurture your past customers by keeping them up to date with new products, offers and any other value add content which will help strengthen the brand relationship and loyalty.

Website

Don't’ forget to clearly articulate delivery time frames and cut off dates on your website to avoid unnecessary enquiry levels or worse, complete site abandonment. A confused mind does not make decisions. Make sure your landing pages  are optimised for achieving your conversion goal - i.e. purchases.

Conclusion

Christmas time is a crazy period. Make sure your marketing plan doesn’t suffer. Take advantage of the tips in this blog to help you prepare and execute a strategy that suits your business. Whether you choose to do Facebook Ads, Google Ads or both, ensure you get the basics like email and web experience right too. If you want help with anything we’ve discussed, please reach out to us here.