The
biddible.
Guide to AdWords
at Christmas
CONTENTS.
Page 2 Important Dates
Page 3 & 4 Search Campaigns
Page 5 Shopping Campaigns
Page 6 Display Campaigns
Page 7 & 8 Remarketing Campaigns
Page 9 About biddible.
The biddible Guide to AdWords at Christmas
Important Dates.
27th
30th
BLACK FRIDAY. 27TH NOVEMBER 2015
CYBER MONDAY. 30TH NOVEMBER 2015
This USA holiday has grown year on year in
the UK. But, unlike the USA, Black Friday has
become a digital led purchase in the UK with
many people filling their baskets ahead of the
27th so they can return on the day to buy their
items and take advantage of the savings.
Similar to Black Friday, Cyber Monday is
another day in which retailers discount many
of their products to encourage sales. But
unlike Black Friday, Cyber Monday is
exclusively online.
7th
14th
MANIC MONDAY. 7TH DECEMBER 2015
GREEN MONDAY. 14TH DECEMBER 2015
Manic Monday takes place on the first Monday
of every December and has always
represented a spike in traffic and sales. In
2014, Manic Monday outperformed Cyber
Monday with almost £500,000 spent online
every minute.
Green Monday falls on the second Monday of
December and was coined by eBay to
describe their best sales day in December.
21st
19th
SUPER SATURDAY. 19TH DECEMBER 2015
Super Saturday or Panic Saturday as it is
sometimes referred too is the last Saturday
before Christmas. It can also mark the end of
the shopping season for many. Super
Saturday is renowned for those last minute
shoppers making impulse purchases.
LAST POST DATES.
21ST December – Last 2nd Class Post
22nd December – Last 1st Class Post
23rd December – Last Next Day Delivery
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The biddible Guide to AdWords at Christmas
Search Campaigns.
Whilst search has been in recession since the emergence of Google Shopping, it’s still important
to revisit this time honoured tradition during the festive shopping period.
KEYWORDS.
AD COPY.
Selecting the right keywords at this time of
year is essential and it’s not just about bidding
on those keywords that you hope to convert
immediately. If you have the budget, it’s time
to look at the pre-purchase keywords too.
Keywords like Gift Ideas, Gifts for Her & Him
massively spike this time of year. Make sure
you have created landing pages catered to
these types of search terms, write blog posts
and go social!
It’s time to go relevant and seasonal! When it
comes to Christmas, people are looking for
value and speed. Ideally, you will be offering
free delivery, if so, make sure it is in your ad. If
not, you may not want to include your delivery
charge, as at least one of your competitors will
be offering it for free and promoting it.
Product review keywords also spike at this
time of year, people want to make sure they
get the best gift for their loved ones, not just
any gift. If you’ve been spending all year
building up your on-site product reviews and
off-site company reviews, then it’s time to let
that hard work pay off. If you have no reviews,
well you’ve got 13 months before next
Christmas to change that.
Make sure you’re doing your keyword
research now, if you haven’t already!
Stress your stock availability, if quantities are
low, use it in your Ad Copy to create some
urgency. If you’re price competitive, use ad
parameters to keep your prices up to date.
If you offer Free Returns at this time of year,
make sure you push this too. Yes, it might
encourage a few more returns than you
wanted, but that will be far outweighed by the
amount of extra sales you receive from those
impulse buyers who keep your products.
Do you offer next day delivery? People hate to
wait for their products to come and next day
delivery quite often means people are happy
to pay slightly more to quickly get their hands
on what they want. As December moves on
this will become more and more important.
Use a countdown in your Ads, countdown the
days to Christmas, or how many shopping
days are left before the last post. If your Ads
are pointing out that there is only 5 shopping
days left and if you offer next day delivery, you
have a far greater chance of winning the
business.
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The biddible Guide to AdWords at Christmas
Search Campaigns.
AD EXTENSIONS.
ADDRESS.
If you don’t use Ad Extensions, then now is
the time to do it and if you have been using
them, it’s time update them and keep updating
them frequently! The 4 core Ad Extensions for
you to stay on top of are as follows:
Don’t be fooled into thinking that everyone is
looking to buy online. Many people are using
their devices to search whilst on the high
street to look for stores that sell the product
they are looking for or price compare whilst instore. If you have a store then let people know
they can come to you.
SITE LINKS.
Don’t just use 4 generic site links for every
campaign, go granular for every Ad Group that
you have. If your Ad Groups are category level
keywords, then the Site Links should be the
four most popular products in the category. If
your Ad Groups are product level, then your
Site Links should be similar or complimentary
products. Or if the product searched for is
available as part of a bigger bundle that offers
an overall saving, then include that too.
CALL OUTS.
Quite simply, call outs are your chance to
shout about your USP’s. You can reinforce the
USP’s that you should have included in your
Ad Copy or you can shout about other USP’s.
BIDS.
Be prepared to manage bids daily and even
hourly as the Christmas shopping period really
does get aggressive.
Make sure you understand your product
margins and pay close attention to your
Impression Share and Average Position. If you
are making a positive Return on Ad Spend
and your Impression Share is low, keep
increasing those bids to win more auctions
and business.
Your competitors will also be increasing their
bids too, so be prepared for a daily battle!
Phone Number.
Disclaimer, adding your phone number could
increase customer service calls. If you’re not
equipped to deal with these calls, you may not
want to add your number. But, adding your
number breeds confidence that you’re more
than just a website. Some people still prefer to
speak to people, to find out if you have
something in stock or if they can pick it up
from one of your stores. If you’re a national
business with many stores, make sure you’re
serving the right store numbers to the right
people.
In 2014, mobile
commerce sales grew
29% year on year
during Cyber Monday
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The biddible Guide to AdWords at Christmas
Shopping Campaigns.
This is the key time of year for Google
Shopping. If you’re only running one All
Products Shopping campaign, then you will
most likely have fairly good but not
exceptional Christmas. Now is the time to
really segment your Shopping campaigns.
Spend some time in Google Analytics
analysing your Ecommerce tracking from the
past 12 months to understand which products,
brands and categories that have sold well. If
you sell other people’s products then split your
Shopping Campaigns by Brand > Category
and even as far as product if you have the
depth of range.
If you sell your own products than split your
campaigns out by Category > Product and
make sure you’re paying close attention to
your margin, Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and
Impression Share. If your ROAS is higher than
your margin and you have a low Impression
Share, then you have room to grow and sell
even more.
GOOGLE MERCHANT CENTRE.
Make sure you also spend some time in your
Google Merchant Centre reviewing your feed.
Pay attention to the warnings and errors and
any products that are not searchable. Make
sure you reduce or eradicate the warnings to
take full advantage this Christmas.
48% of shoppers
completed their
shopping on or
before Cyber
Monday
Whilst it’s key to segment your Shopping
campaigns, this doesn’t mean you should
abandon your All Products campaign! Your All
Products campaign should become your
Catch All and serve as a backup.
Lastly, don’t forget to create a Shopping
Remarketing campaign, whilst it is a fairly new
product in AdWords, early testing has shown
amazing returns!
Shopper
interest in deals
increases 20%
on November
1st
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The biddible Guide to AdWords at Christmas
Display Campaigns.
If you’ve not be running Display Ads this year
or if you’ve turned them off due to poor
performance. Now is the time to dust them
down, update your ads and get yourself back
out there.
Over the past few years, AdWords have
massively improved the features of the
Display Network and whilst we see
Remarketing as a separate entity, the Display
Network has more than enough features to
make it a success for you this Christmas.
Keywords
IN MARKET BUYERS.
A perfect tool for Christmas, In Market buyers
are a collection of people who Google have
deemed to be looking for something particular
to buy. By targeting people who are looking for
what you sell, you can increase your direct
conversions, your view through conversions
and your brand searches.
PLACEMENTS.
If you don’t have the budget to target ‘Gift
Ideas’ etc through search, then the Display
Network offers a vastly more cost effective
way to get your brand seen. Targeting these
types of keywords can get your ads and
messaging seen across many Gift Idea
websites that enjoy a sharp increase in traffic
at this time of year. Use the Placement
search or the Display Planner to find eligible
websites, review the websites and make sure
you create ads that stand out, not blend in!
Over £15 Billion is
expected to be spent
online in the retail
sector this Christmas
The UK’s Black Friday is
again expected to
improve year on year.
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The biddible Guide to AdWords at Christmas
Remarketing Campaigns.
Are you still running the usual suspects when
it comes to Remarketing, All Visitors & Basket
Abandons? Yes, well join the other 90% of
AdWords users who are only scratching the
surface of Remarketing.
You can make custom combinations from any
of these such as:
We’re not saying that those targeting methods
don’t work, we’re just saying you’re missing
out on a lot more!
These visitors have engaged well with your
website and whilst they have not bought yet, it
is worthwhile targeting them.
Firstly, let’s start by looking at the differences
between AdWords Audience Lists and
Analytics Audience Lists.
Demographics = Male, Aged 34 to 45 +
Transactions = More than 1
Session Duration = 3 mins or more + Sessions
= 1 or More + Transactions = 0
AdWords.
Target your core demographics who have
bought from you in the past as they are far
more likely to buy from you again!
This feature allows you to target and segment
visitors based on what URL they have visited.
You can use combinations of URL’s, target
people who visited specific products pages or
categories. It works and it’s nice.
Date of First Session = 1st November 2015 to
22nd December 2015 + Average Time on Site
= 3 mins or more + Transactions = 0
Analytics.
This feature allows you to target people based
on the following:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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•
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•
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•
•
URL Visited
Average Time on Site
Pages per Session
Demographics
Location
Device
Medium (Organic, PPC etc)
Source (Facebook, AdWords etc)
Date of First Session
Transactions
Bounce Rate
Language
In Market Segment
Affinity Category
Operating System
Browser
Any many more…
Start building an audience list based on
people who are visiting your website between
November and December who have engaged
well but are yet to purchase. These are your
typical window shoppers, they are doing their
research and there is a great chance that they
will be back.
Date of First Session = 1st November 2015 to
22nd December 2015 & + Transactions = 1 or
more
Set the membership duration to 540 days for
this list. You can’t utilise it this year, but come
next Christmas, you will still have an audience
list of people who bought from you this year
which makes them more likely to buy from you
again!
The biddible Guide to AdWords at Christmas
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Remarketing Campaigns.
Get creative when it comes to your ads and
your messaging, test different messages and
different offers. Try offering some of your
audience lists free delivery, a monetary or
percentage discount to entice them back to
your website.
Audience lists aren’t just for Remarketing, they
are also for excluding! So analyse what and
who doesn’t convert when they hit your
website and exclude them from your Search,
Display and Remarketing campaigns.
Bounce Rate = 60% or More
Why would you want to retarget the people
who hit your website and leave, you can’t
please everyone, so stop trying.
Average Time on Site = 30 seconds or less
If people are spending less than 30 seconds
on your website, there isn’t much chance that
they are really going to come back or buy from
you.
CUSTOMER MATCH.
Launched in early October 2015, Customer
Match is a new feature that allows us to add
our customer database of emails into
AdWords. In a similar way to Facebook and
Twitter, AdWords lets you target these people
based on the email address they use to sign
into Google. AdWords will also create a similar
audience list based on the demographics
profile of your existing database.
If you segment your databases in your own
CRM, then upload them to AdWords in a
similar way. This way, you can control how you
target and speak to each segment of your
customers.
Try promoting your email content through
AdWords by targeting your email database. If
you send out a specific message and have
created a specific landing page, then make
sure you push this out through customer
match too.
Pages per Session = 1
If people come to your site and visit one page
before leaving, well they don’t seem very likely
to engage with you again. Do you really want
to keep spending money targeting them?
Demographics = Male, Female, Unknown,
Aged 45 to 54
There might be a specific demographic group
that your products are not suited too. Sure we
have to accept that people will buy things for
other people, but how much money do you
want to spend targeting the wrong
demographic?
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The biddible Guide to AdWords at Christmas
About biddible.
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search and other forms of biddable media.
We love what we do and it shows in our results.
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costs.
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The biddible Guide to AdWords at Christmas
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