What every marketer should know before Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Brace yourselves! Black Friday is coming. This most important holiday of the e-commerce industry will take place on November 24th. Coupled with it, Cyber Monday will arrive three days later on November 27th. According to Adobe Digital Insights, Black Friday in 2016 surpassed $ 3 billion in online sales, moreover it was first such day ever to drive $ 1 billion in mobile revenue. Cyber Monday set a new all-time record for online sales: $ 3.45 billion! This year we will probably witness another records.
This progress is also shown by RTB House aggregate data from campaigns over 40 countries around the world. Last year the conversion rate (the ratio of the actions taken to the number of clicks on the ad) of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns were nearly 70 % and almost 30 % better than average CTR for November 2015. In turn, the total traffic on the observed websites was higher by more than 30% in Black Friday and 20 % on Cyber Monday.
We all have been there – huge queues in the stores and hundreds of thousands of customers fighting (often literally) for the most favorably discounted products. Therefore more and more people are buying online – comfort and peace of mind are a real value. Together with my team in RTB House, a global technology company specializing in advertising based on advanced retargeting scenarios, we have analyzed hundreds of campaigns in over 40 markets to identify 3 ways to increase efficiency during upcoming sales.
#1 Aim users individually
During sales, the actions aimed at individual users are particularly effective. Displayed banners with previously viewed products remind them of the need to purchase, which in this special period is exceptionally important.
Remember that properly scheduled special advertising campaigns must include not only new users, but also those who have been browsing the store for some time. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are a short and targeted opportunities to present your offer. That’s why it is so much better to look at hard data and prepare marketing communications using appropriate retargeting tools. Retargeting campaigns allow you not only to design a single purchase but to create a whole chain of customer engagement activities. Intelligent creation and retargeting tools, backed by deep learning algorithms (now the most promising field in artificial intelligence research), can leverage information about the available assortment and then quickly adapt the promotional products to customer preferences. Moreover it allows you to optimize your actions and set higher bids for those who have more buying potential.
#2 Set up reminders
Frankly speaking, for many people Black Friday is like a holiday. Therefore, the search for desired products is usually made on a larger scale. You as a e-shopper can take advantage of this by preparing special offers, promotions or free shipping.
In the weeks before the sales it is important to place advertisements on the upcoming day. It is also worth to prepare a special thematic layout of the creation or show how much time remains until the sale. Remember to add as much information as possible to remind people of that special day.
#3 Support offline
Black Friday is still the most popular within stationary stores, but a well-prepared advertising campaign can further boost offline sales. The banner with “Black Friday is on – do not forget to visits us for best offers” is probably not enough to catch the attention, but already giving the address of the store nearest the current location of the user or display the promotion that is waiting there, may be both effective for the store as the user.
Sources:
The data used in the above study were obtained using personalized retargeting tools developed by RTB House. Selected campaigns were analyzed by the company in November 2015.