Cyber Monday originated in America as a clever marketing ploy originally devised when online shopping was on the rise. Falling on the Monday after Thanksgiving it encouraged continued online spend by customers already caught up in the retail madness of Black Friday.
In the UK however, Cyber Monday now more commonly refers to the first Monday in December, when a combination of November’s payday, the desire to order Christmas presents early and having the weekend to browse and window shop before committing to a purchase lead to a massive spike in online sales. Coincidentally, Monday 2nd December this year also happens to be the Monday after Thanksgiving, leading to simultaneous Cyber Mondays on both sides of the pond!
Why 2013’s Cyber Monday Will Be The Biggest Yet
Cyber Monday has quickly become the biggest pre-Christmas shopping day of the year in the UK. According to Experion, UK customers made 112 million visits to retail websites and spent over 15 million hours shopping online on Cyber Monday 2012. These figures are only expected to grow this year with the increase in mobile shopping and click and collect offers making online shopping all the more attractive.
Visa Europe are predicting that £450 million will be spent online by the end of 2013’s Cyber Monday, translating to an astounding £312,500 of spend every minute or £5,208 per second online!
Using PPC to Capitalise on This Spend
So the question now will be “How can I most profit from Cyber Monday using my PPC campaigns?”
- Track Conversions closely. Although you should be tracking your conversions closely anyway, it would be a great idea to scrutinise activity on Monday closely. Doing this means you can see just how much lift there is and if you hang on to this data you can better prepare for the same event next year.
- Change your ad copy or introduce a new ad. It may be worth changing your ad copy or introducing a new ad for the weekend, specifically for Cyber Monday. Unfortunately there isn’t anywhere near as much traffic for the term ‘Cyber Monday’ over here as it’s more of an industry term but this is still a great time to be shouting about your special offers. After all, you’re primarily looking to attract recently paid people buying their Christmas presents early, not just those looking for a Cyber Monday deal!
- Make sure your CTA is a strong one. Again this should be standard practice anyway but now more than ever is the time to use your ads as aggressively as possible. Once again, the window for capitalising on November’s pay day and organised Christmas shoppers is small and you’ll want your ads to be the ones that jump out from the screen first.
- Make best use of ad extensions. In my recent blog about October’s Google ad rank update I emphasised the importance of including ad extensions wherever possible. As I discussed, ad extensions are an important factor in determining Ad Rank and also provide additional, useful information to attract a customer’s eye. At such a competitive time of year you’ll want every advantage you can get!
- Consider changing your landing pages. Whilst relevant landing pages are a staple of any good ad it might be worth changing your landing pages over the weekend to draw attention to any special offers you might be running. This might necessitate changing or pausing some ads but with the majority of traffic looking for a bargain or perfect gift, now is the time to direct them to your best deals. My colleague Mike has written an excellent piece about how to prepare a Christmas landing page.
- Finally, remember the Christmas focus! Ultimately it’s the festive season that’s driving all this traffic and that’s the key point to remember and capitalise on. Delivery options for example are one of the biggest draws for online shoppers at Christmas. Any offer including click and collect, free or even next day delivery is guaranteed to get shopper’s attention and it’s the small details like this that can really make the difference.
one of the top ads for the search ‘Christmas Shopping’ uses shipping and returns as a major selling point
Cyber Monday is certainly fast approaching and if you keep the above points in mind and optimise your PPC campaigns effectively then hopefully it’ll be your ads catching the attention of all those hungry bargain hunters and Christmas shoppers!
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