Running your PPC campaigns over Christmas doesn’t have to be stressful or time-consuming; after all, you deserve a break too! We’ve collated the top tips from our specialist team at Vine Street Digital for your festive season, to ensure you have a great break and a positive kickstart to your new year.
Promo Extension To Help Advertise Your Christmas Sales
The promo extension is a great way to showcase your Christmas specials in Google search results. You can set either a specific dollar amount or percentage off your product, and the promotion will show up in the ad copy, making your ad looks much more appealing. It even lets you set what times and days the promo extension can show for. It’s like automated Christmas management!
Automated Rules
No one wants to be logging into their Ads account on Christmas Day. So why not set up some automated rules to run over the Christmas period to take care of the minor things in your account? Automated rules can help you schedule ads, change bids, and also send you notifications if something comes up (like an exhausted budget).
Plan Your Budget
Depending on your industry, competition around Christmas can be fierce, especially in retail. It’s important to keep in mind that during this Christmas period, prices are likely to increase alongside the competition, so make sure you budget and allow for this increase. Otherwise, you might end up running out early.
Christmas It UP!
From keywords to ad copy, there’s a bunch of Christmas related things you can add into your account to stay relevant throughout the holiday season. Add in some Christmas related keywords like “Christmas Gift Ideas” or adjust your ad copy with phrases such as “Christmas Offer!”
Max Returns For Campaigns Just Starting Out
If you’re just kicking off your campaign and have seen minimal results; turn on max clicks and have no max limit. To allocate a budget, find out the value of your average CPC before the season starts.
Keep Your Campaigns Alive
Be sure not to turn off your campaigns over this period! Many companies think pausing their campaigns will save them money. But, if you keep it running, you will be one of very few who kept running advertisements over the Christmas period. We all know everyone is at home, sitting around on their phones, not doing much.
Know Your Audience & Industry
Understand how your customers behave over Christmas within your industry and prepare accordingly. While some industries flourish over the Christmas period and are worth investing more money into, some industries become a little quiet.
There tends to be an abundance of interest in tourism, travel, and entertainment industries. It’s the time of year when individuals, couples, and families start looking for holiday destinations and accommodation.
Another area that should be invested more heavily in is e-commerce stores selling products that can be considered gifts. Businesses will increase their advertising spend with these industries, so it’s important to consider investing more to remain competitive and present.
Emergencies always happen, which is why trade services like plumbers and electricians will always pick up work over the holidays. Plus, with many sole traders closing down to spend time with their family, it’s a good opportunity to grab more leads.
Lawyers specialising in traffic law can benefit from staying present as the rate of DUI’s increase over Christmas.
On the other side of things, some industries will quieten down and see fewer results from advertising over the Christmas period. As many businesses close for the holidays, we tend to find B2B services are less needed. Business services such as accounting, printer and copier rentals, financial planning, and commercial cleaning tend to go quiet, as well as e-commerce stores selling commercial products.
Don’t Underestimate Brand Awareness
Over this period, some businesses may find spending a lower budget and focusing on brand awareness could be more beneficial. If your business is new, or you have never run PPC advertising over the Christmas period, it’s worth giving it a go, at least once as a learning curve. You might be pleasantly surprised with the results.
Get Creative With Countdowns
Why not get creative with your ad copy? Use tools such as the Google Ads countdown function to highlight special sales! You can set your ads with messages such as “Hurry, sale ends in 4 hours!” to encourage action from your audience. You can even set it to a global countdown, or to be specific to the audience’s timezone.
Catch Your Audiences In Lists For Next Year
Google allows you to save audiences for up to 540 days, so it’s a great idea to plan ahead for next year. Keep remarketing lists of people who interact with you over the Christmas period. You can then re-engage them next year! You could also use them to create “similar to” or “lookalike” audiences, or you might choose to exclude them from future advertising.
Don’t Make Too Many Assumptions
If you’ve been running for a few years, then you have the lucky advantage of understanding this time of year. You know what’s happened before, what the activity was like, and how it affected your business. However, things are constantly evolving. So, even though you should rely on your past data, make sure you’re not staying too safe. Put aside a small budget to test something a little different this time around.
