With the fourth quarter upon us, all the work that brands have done throughout the year is tested with the arrival of holiday shopping and the gifting season. November and December are the times for businesses to shine when shoppers flock to the internet. It’s time to test the branding and ad strategies that you have poured hours into researching and optimizing for this moment. So what do you need to check for, when should you launch holiday ads, and what should you monitor for success?
Ready Your Checklists & Follow These 6 Steps!
1. Identify your priority listings for this season.
Knowing the SKUs in your catalog that are in-season and will experience more demand is critical as well as identifying which SKUs your business needs to move during this peak shopping period is vital. This exercise will help you outline the overarching strategy and let you know where limited focus and resources will need to be deployed.
2. Verify and implement your inventory plan.
Nothing is worse to a shopper than seeing the words “Out of Stock,” as evidenced by the Tickle Me Elmo madness of 1996. Avoid missing out on sales and customer disappointment by auditing your inventory, allotting the needed amount for each of your sales channels, and ensuring that your fulfillment methods are set and up to the task of meeting increased orders.
3. Ensure that your product listings are retail-ready.
Having a well-designed product detail page can make or break any Amazon listing. You should regularly audit your product content throughout the year, but now is the critical time to ensure your listings are putting their best foot forward. Optimize your product imagery, have well-developed video content on your product page, and ensure your top-converting searches are featured in your product titles, bullet points, and descriptions. Don’t forget to give your brand storefront some love as well. Presenting a holistic image on Amazon has never been easier or more critical to success than before.
4. Have your promotional strategies ready to go.
Q4 is a prime time for deal shopping, and having sales, deals, coupons, or promotions on your listings outside of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) events helps boost visibility and lower the bar for shoppers to purchase. There is a lot of competition this time of year for shoppers’ dollars, so having a well-designed and executed promotional strategy around your key product offerings helps to draw more of those dollars your way.
5. Ramp up your Amazon Ads Strategy.
For many brands, ad strategies can adapt and roll into the holiday season, and we want to leverage your campaign’s historical data during this time. That being said, launching new initiatives customized to your goals for the holiday season is also just as important. The timing for these new initiatives is critical so that they are running and optimized in time.
6. Utilize other channels for traffic and engagement.
Amazon loves outside traffic. Many brands are moving to a holistic approach when selling on Amazon. Featuring the products that they sell on Amazon on their socials and websites with links to buy on Amazon helps with organic traffic to Amazon and is rewarded by the Amazon algorithm. It’s also the opportunity to utilize content that may not fit the Amazon ecosystem and allow for more community engagement.
when is the time to ramp up these holiday activities?
Well, the time is NOW. While it may seem premature to begin holiday shopping prep in September or October, the data shows that shoppers begin their holiday shopping in October, with the majority of purchases then taking place in November and December. Many have considered BFCM as the kick-off to holiday shopping, but the consideration period begins far sooner than that.
Those of us with kids know the drill. As soon as there is a chill in the air, the kids’ wishlists start, and the grandparents’ requests for ideas start. So September and October are the months for consideration and window shopping. People consider what they like and gain ideas. This is when we want your awareness campaigns up and running, catching those window shoppers. While we may not see the ad spend pay off in a sale until later, it’s an investment in the hope that your items get added to those gift idea lists.
If you feel behind the 8 ball, don’t worry; there are strategies you can use to create a last-minute marketing plan for Q4.
what determines the success of a Q4 Amazon strategy?
With the extended timeframe before you will see the result of a sale, Amazon marketing follows a more traditional schedule at this time of year. Most of the time, we can launch a campaign, and within a couple of weeks or so, make a prediction on its performance – with Q4 and holiday shopping-centric campaigns, that is not so. October is an interesting time when the traditional sales and conversion metrics don’t hold as much weight. What brands should be looking at are their impressions, clicks, click-through rate (CTR), and organic metrics like sessions, page views, and Best Seller Ratings (BSR).
The goal for October is to grow awareness. As I said before, we want to end up on shopper’s wishlists. While some people are early shoppers and get a jump on their gift purchases, more people are thinking about what they would like to receive and will be building their lists (or their children’s lists) to share with others. That’s the list we want to be on. So we want to attract the window shoppers. We want to see impressions grow, higher CTRs, and more sessions. This means that our product pages are earning more eyeballs, and Amazon rewards them with better rankings. While conversions do have a bigger impact on that ranking, sessions, and page views, earning more traffic for the Amazon site also pays off.
As we get closer to BFCM and the busiest time of year, monitor your product pages, keep your finger on the pulse of your key products and inventory, and monitor your ad campaigns closely. At the same time, know that shoppers are eager to browse at the beginning of Q4 with the intent to purchase in November and December. Happy selling this holiday season.
