start in september, sell through december: prepare your ppc campaigns for holiday success

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Start in September, Sell Through December: Prepare Your PPC Campaigns for Holiday Success


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Your Hosts

Mia PruettSearch Marketing Manager

Jacob EhrnsteinSearch Marketing Specialist

Continue the conversation @Volusion with #Sell4xMore



Topics we’ll cover today

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Tips and tricks to get the most out of your PPC campaign

Holiday timeline

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Q&A

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What is PPC?



What is PPC?

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• Pay Per Click (PPC) is advertising on search engines or websites• Google• Bing

• Bid on targeted keywords to capture the right audience

• Strategically place ads to offer products, promotions & services



What is PPC?

5Continue the conversation @Volusion with #Sell4xMore


What is PPC?



Why are we talking about the holidays now?

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• Start your holiday promotion strategy

• Take advantage of early shopping

• Can start creating your holiday campaigns now

• Tip – Create separate holiday campaigns




Tips and tricks for getting the most out of your PPC campaign




Holiday messaging



Holiday promotions

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Decide what holiday promotions to run

• What worked for you last year?

• Put together a Promotional Calendar



Holiday promotions

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Examples of promotions:

• Free Shipping

• Buy X, Get Y

• Bundle promotion

• % off

• Free Gift

• 12 Days of Christmas



Holiday keywords

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• Create “gift” and “present” keywords

• For Black Friday, can include “black Friday” as part of keyword phrase

• Track performance throughout the holidays

• Tip: Don’t go overboard with generic terms!



Holiday ad copy

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Create holiday-specific ad copy

• Use seasonal holiday text

• Mention the promotions that you’re running

• Test, test, test!



Holiday ad copy

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• Carry through promotions to your landing pages

• If you mention a promotion in your ad, make sure you’re also showcasing it out on the site




Work smarter, not harder



Tools To Make Your Life Easier

• AdWords Editor is Google’s offline tool to maximize efficiency

• Bing Ads Editor

• Found.co (http://www.found.co.uk/) is a great tool to create broad match modified or any other type of keyword type to add to your keyword lists.

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Don’t Do The Same Task Twice


http://www.found.co.uk/




Tools To Make Your Life Easier

• Dynamic Keyword Insertion to create more engaging ads. {KeyWord:Holiday Gift Baskets}

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Dynamic Keyword Insertion



Create holiday-specific campaigns

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Holiday-specific campaigns give better targeting

• Allows for better ad messaging

• Allocated budget

• Customized schedules

• Unique keyword lists

• Easily pause non-holiday campaigns during the season.

Image Here



Use your data

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Sell more using data to make insightful decisions

• Informed decision-making

• Utilize your KPI’s • Top Sellers • Best Performing Time To Sell • Best Performing Keywords

• YOY data is your friend • Look at What Was Successful Last

Year



Use your Data

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Last year’s trends for this year’s success

• Look at what was successful last year

• Find areas you can improve • budget• mobile• phone orders

• How can your data assist in other areas of your marketing efforts?



Let dynamic ads do the work

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Too busy to build an AdWords campaign?

• What are dynamic ads?

• Allows for a broad focus

• Can generate a high volume of traffic

• Tip: Be careful about what keywords are triggering your ads



AdWords Scripts

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Automate your ads with the sale countdown script

• AdWords scripts use JavaScript to access, report, or execute tasks in your AdWords account.

• AdWords Sale Count Down – creates dynamically-generated ads



AdWords Scripts

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• The ad on the bottom will be updated until the sale ends.

• The Sale Countdown Script allows your ads to be updated hourly – automatically

• Just a few lines of code can create an ad that becomes more and more engaging every hour




Increase your conversions



Remarketing

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• Remarketing lets you show ads to customers who have already visited your website

• Start creating your audience lists now

• Create holiday-specific image ads

• Keep the image ads consistent with your branding



Engage in Shopping Feeds

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• 40% of holiday orders in 2013 were from search queries *

• Product information, not keyword-based

• Shows product image and price, perfect for shopping

• Tip: Make sure you are uploading a fresh feed on a regular basis

* Based on e-commerce data from The Custora Pulse



Think Outside Google

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Diversify and Test With Different Channels

• Bing PPC

• Pricegrabber, Amazon Product Ads, Bing Shopping, Shopping.com

• Facebook Ads, YouTube Ads

• Tip: Track all your channels separately and establish benchmarks



Summary – Tips & Tricks

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• Work on Holiday Messaging

• Work Smarter, Not Harder

• Increase Your Conversions




Holiday timeline



What should you do now?

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The early marketer gets the sales…

• Plan out promotions for an easy-to-follow schedule

• Create your remarketing lists

• Start competitive research



October

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Proactive October for a stress-free November

• Early-bird promotions/shoppers - Not everyone waits until the last minute to shop so treat those most prepared with a special sale

• Start looking at your YOY data and how you can use it to shape your holiday campaign

• Dig into your analytics data for potential areas of focus



November

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Ramp up in November• If you haven’t yet – launch remarketing

ads, Shopping Feeds, and campaigns on other channels at the start of the month

• Review ad and keyword performance. Consider increasing bids for higher positioning

• Ramp up daily budgets due to higher amount of shoppers and searches

• On Black Friday/Cyber Monday, keep an eye on your ad spend throughout the day/weekend



December

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Monitor campaigns closely

• Check for ad position changes

• Modify your site and ads properly for last shipping date

• Check in on campaigns frequently

• Don’t miss out on holidays other than Christmas



January

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Refresh and restrategize

• Pause any holiday campaigns

• Monitor campaign metrics such as ad position, spend, and click through rate

• Start thinking about future holidays (Presidents Day, Valentines Day)




Q&A



Free Setup on PPC in September

• Free Setup on a 3-month purchase of either a Starter or Advanced PPC Plan

• Call 1-877-591-7006 to learn more

• Good through September 30th


start in september, sell through december: prepare your ppc campaigns for holiday success

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