5 Tips for Boosting Your Christmas Sales with Google AdWords

Christmas is fast approaching! To increase traffic to your e-commerce site during this pivotal period, why not optimise your AdWords campaigns?

With more than 3 billion searches per day, Google has become an unavoidable search engine in the buying process. Google AdWords allows advertisers to be visible in Google search results and get people to browse your site. This cost-per-click (CPC) advertising format allows potential buyers to be reached at the right time and in the right geographical area. Especially during Christmas time when nearly 60% of Internet users go online to search for gift ideas.

So, here are 5 tips to boost your sales for the holiday season with Google AdWords:

1.) Contextualise your ads

During the Christmas period, it is important to contextualise your ads to encourage shoppers to search for gift ideas. For example, you can direct users to a special “Best Christmas 2016 gifts” page in your online store by adding sitelinks to your ads.

When creating your campaigns, it’s better to create a special “Christmas” category, where you can show your festive campaigns throughout the period. To keep up to date with the progress of your campaigns, set up email alerts so you can respond as quickly as possible.

2.) Guarantee the best offer

Offering maximum flexibility to shoppers at the start of their search can make all the difference. If you are offering additional services, you can let people know via the extensions underneath your ad. These allow you to add callout extensions, that give additional information about your products or services. For example, “delivery before December 24th”, or “ships internationally”.

3.) Anticipate specific searches

Getting your ad in search results can be tricky, especially during the Christmas period. To boost your chances, set the keywords for your ad with Google Keywords Planner based on the potential requests that users could make around Christmas. For example, “digital cameras for Christmas” or “best Christmas gifts for my boss”.

4.) Dress up your landing pages

If you’re running AdWords campaigns for the holiday season, do not forget to dress up your landing pages with Christmas colours and highlight your CTAs to drive sales. Make sure you match the product categories of your e-commerce site with the right keywords for better relevance in results. Also, avoid 404 errors that could cause you to miss out on sales and check your stock daily to avoid showing products that are unavailable. If your landing page encounters a strong click rate but a low conversion rate and a high bounce rate, then you need to rework your pages.

Note: Your landing page must be accessible on mobile to meet new mobile shopping behaviours.

5.) Use retargeting before and after Christmas

From October, Internet users are starting to search for ideas online, which often leads them to leave your e-commerce site without ordering. To avoid missing out on these potential buyers, consider setting up retargeting campaigns based on your Google Analytics data. Do not forget to carry out post-Christmas retargeting campaigns for those who have received money as a gift or for potential returns.

Note: Make sure you exclude people who have already bought the product

The success of your holiday campaigns will depend on your ability to maintain a balance between your CPC and lower margins from promotional sales that entice your customers to buy. However, once this balance is found, do not hesitate to keep going with your campaigns. Set a daily budget and track the performance of your ads continuously.

If you are Lengow customer and want to implement Google AdWords campaigns for the holiday season, we can make it easier for you to create your ads with the data from your product catalogue.