Yes, pay per click marketers, it is that time, time to start thinking about your holiday marketing campaigns. This is how you get a jump on the competition, by thinking and planning ahead, then implementing!
To that end, following are some things you should be doing right now to ensure successful PPC campaigns for the upcoming (right around the corner!) holiday season.
Decide On Your Offers: While you probably have generic pay per click campaigns running year round to keep leads coming in, now is a great time to get specific. And, this is what we mean by decide on your offers.
Put your best products and services forward. Bundle them, discount them, or use them as enticement offers, however you use them, NOW is the time to get what your offers are going to be in order.
This is important because . . .
Choose Effective Keywords: As you already know, in order to promote specific products and services with pay per click marketing, you have to choose specific keywords. Now is no time to be general. Again, your year-round campaigns may be geared to keep traffic and leads flowing into your site.
But, as most retailers make the bulk of their sales during the holiday season, now you want sales, not leads that you can convert later (although that is nice too).
So you have to know what you are going to be offering in order to choose the most effective keywords for these offers.
Decide on a Budget: Ahhh, the B word, it is something every online marketer has to be cognizant of. In order to use your budget most effectively, no matter how large or small it may be, choose your product offerings, and hence, your keywords well.
Run Split Tests: Piggybacking on the last point, you may even want to start running some small, split-test campaigns now to see which PPC offers are paying off. That way, when consumers turn their attention to online shopping, you will be well prepared to run your most cost-effective, high ROI return campaigns.
Study Results: Pay per click marketing is most effective when you test, test, test and study, study, study the results of those tests.
In order to be even more prepared next year, decide now what info you want to glean from this years PPC campaigns.
Good luck with your pay per click marketing efforts, and, not to rush the season, but . . . happy holidays!