With the housing market stabilizing and consumer confidence growing, the holiday season forecast for retail remains positive. So far, online retail revenue is up 18% YoY, reaching $1.5 billion on Cyber Monday. If Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday sales are any indication of what’s to come, retailers will enjoy a very profitable year.

It’s Holiday GO TIME

With over ten years of experience managing paid search programs for leading retail brands, we understand how important this season is. The preparation and execution that goes into every holiday season is critical to our success.

This year, we kicked off the 2012 season with an office decorating party to get the team in the holiday spirit. We also shared internal best practice reports so that each client could benefit from the expertise of our internal team of specialists using our Deep Search technology.

Big Wins For Our Clients

2012 holiday shopping and revenue growth has been great for retail and most paid search providers, but results have been extra sweet for our clients:

• Adlucent clients experienced between 85% to over 500% YoY revenue growth through paid search over the holiday weekend
• Black Friday: averaged 72% increase YoY in revenue with only an 18% increase in spend
• Cyber Monday: averaged 41% increase YoY in revenue with only an 19% increase in spend

Capitalizing on momentum
The holiday season is far from over for retailers and for the Adlucent team. Stakes are high and our team is focused – every day, every hour.

We predict that the 2012 holiday season will remain strong and paid search will continue to be the primary driver of online advertising sales.

What results have you seen from your paid search program? Do they align with these numbers?

 

I’ll admit it. I used to be an in-store Black Friday shopper. I wasn’t the frenzied person fighting over a discounted cell phone at Walmart, but I enjoyed finding a deal whenever possible. Once upon a time, stores were closed on Thanksgiving. After spending a day cooped up in a house with my family and ingesting enough calories to get me through the winter, I needed to get out of the house for a little retail therapy. This year, more stores opened their doors on Thanksgiving Day, capitalizing on earlier sales. As I passed by Best Buy on my way home from Thanksgiving dinner, I witnessed over 100 people standing in line for the 9pm opening. I couldn’t imagine why so many people would stand in line these days when they could simply go online.

Over the years, ecommerce has grown and the online shopping experience has improved. We have the opportunity to research products, compare prices, read reviews, and have a product delivered to our doorstep with just the click of a button. The days of shopping at a brick and mortar store on Black Friday have been traded for a more convenient shopping experience. I now find it much more desirable to browse the aisles of a store virtually, while on my couch. And I’m not the only one. According to Chase Pamentech, in-store sales on Thanksgiving and Black Friday this year actually decreased .18% as compared to 2011. While in-store sales remained flat, online sales for the same two days actually increased 29.3% (ComScore). At Adlucent, we saw paid search grow exponentially this holiday season as revenue spiked for our retail clients.

Today is Cyber Monday. Online shopping will account for 20% of all holiday sales (NRF) so today is critical for many retailers, particularly those who are seeing flat in-store sales growth. It’s a busy day at Adlucent and for online retailers. We’ll see how the day plays out, but I have a feeling we’ll see even larger growth.

So did you shop on Thanksgiving or Black Friday this year? Are you planning to shop online today?

As the holiday season fast approaches, retailers are gearing up for what is poised to be another record breaking season of online gift purchasing. For many online advertisers, these few weeks are the most important time of the year, representing a significant portion of their yearly revenue. Even if you are not counting on a substantial increase in sales this holiday season, smart advertisers understand the opportunities that this surge in web traffic offers them and ensure that their campaigns are prepared for optimal performance.

Source: ComScore’s Q3 2012 SOR Report

When the holiday traffic begins to accelerate, the smartest advertisers will be spending the majority of their time closely monitoring account performance, actively bid managing keywords to maintain optimal positions, and understanding and reacting to new holiday trends. This means that in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving week (and as the shopping season expands, even earlier) advertisers should thoroughly review their accounts and ensure the foundations of success have been laid.

• Understand Daily and Hourly Holiday Trends
  The majority of successful paid search campaigns implement some degree of a day parting (or ad scheduling) scheme. Day parting is a pattern of raising and lowering keyword bids, set by advertisers, based on the value of each click during a particular time. The days of the week and the times of the day that consumers are most likely to buy from a particular retailer varies by the time of the year and the device the consumer is using, but never more starkly than during the holiday season. Advertisers would be wise to use all available data—whether that is a previous year’s PPC campaign or an analytics platform—to understand the trends that their campaign is subject to. They will use this knowledge to create a day parting plan that will change daily through the holiday season. More than any other time of the year, advertisers are encouraged to be aggressive during peak times and ensure their best advertisements receive maximum exposure during times when the data suggests consumers are most likely to purchase.
  • Promote Optimal Ad Copy
    While the increase in traffic would suggest a prime opportunity to test new ad text, the most important focus should be generating converting traffic. This means that smart advertisers have largely completed their ad text tests and have decided on the optimal variation to bear the brunt of the holiday traffic.This does not mean that new ad text or holiday promotions should not be introduced, but they should not be introduced to the exclusion of your pre-determined optimal ad text. Instead, rotate your promotions in slowly and ensure they are providing added value before running them exclusively. Additionally, ensure that your ad text is eligible to run in all your ad groups. If you plan on running any promotions during this period, upload them sufficiently in advance and give them time to receive approval. Disapproved ads mean lost traffic.
    • Ensure Coverage of Top Seasonal Products
      Every year, a handful of new must-have items enter the gift buying arena. Whether it is an ever-sharp chef’s knife, an ingenious new phone case, or the latest “Tickle Me Elmo,” many retailers find themselves carrying a variety of products that have caught the public’s holiday eye. Identifying these products and ensuring adequate keyword coverage is critical for proper holiday preparations. A simple Google search will provide you with a multitude of top 10 gift lists, but there are arguably better ways to understand the pulse of the holiday consumer. Amazon provides a list of products added to the most wish lists and registries. These products often end up on the best seller list, are conveniently divided into categories, and are an easy place to begin your research.
      • Maximize CTR with Ad Extensions
        Compelling sitelinks and product extensions are a quick and easy way to see measurable increases in your campaign’s click through rate. Advertisers should ensure that all of their campaigns have the most relevant sitelinks and product extensions enabled—including those directed towards mobile and tablet. Carefully consider the text you use on your sitelinks. Does this campaign have a best-selling product? Consider drawing attention to your ad by mentioning it in a sitelink. Remember that gift certificates are big this time of year, and a sitelink directing otherwise undecided gift-givers towards your gift certificate page may be all it takes to drive additional conversions.
        • Identify Ideal Landing Pages
          With this increase in website traffic, ensuring that new customers are presented with a landing page that maximizes their chances of converting—and converting with the most value in their shopping cart—is of paramount importance. Prior to the holidays, advertisers should test the landing pages of their most valuable keywords and should feel comfortable running the variation that will create the most value. Consumer behavior can be surprising when it comes to landing page design, so it is important to test often and well in advance of the holiday season. Finally, make sure your landing pages are active and working properly, both in preparation of the holidays and continuously during them. A broken landing page or an inactive website means lost revenue and wasted investment, so constantly monitoring your keywords and fixing problems should be a top priority.
          The holiday season represents an enormous opportunity for online retailers to generate efficient revenue and new customers. The best advertisers will make sure that they are positioned to succeed well in advance. While it is important to be capable of quick and nimble actions during the holiday rush, there is no substitution for adequate preparation. With the hours counting down until Thanksgiving and Black Friday, understanding what actions you can take now that will have the most impact is critical. So take these tips and make sure you are ready to sell as many Furbies/Tamagochis/Uggs/Teddy Ruxpins as you can this holiday season!

A/B landing page testing is one of the best tools in a retailer’s arsenal. Even a small change in conversion rate can lead to big impacts on the bottom line.

However, it can be a challenge to develop new landing pages for testing. An arbitrary change in color or font might yield better results, but it can just as easily lead to poor performance. If you want to make new landing pages that have the best potential for success, it pays to think like your customers.

The Power of Psychology

A great place to start is with the field that studies how we think—psychology! With a bit of adaptation, the insights from many psychological studies can be used to help you craft your landing pages.

For instance, psychologists from Columbia and Stanford published a paper where they discovered that when it came to choice, “More is less.” Their study discovered that if grocery shoppers are presented with twenty-four flavors of jam, they are ten times less likely to make a purchase than if they make their selection from only six choices.

In other words, when presented with a dizzying array of options, many people will walk away rather than sorting through all their choices.

The flipside: present people with fewer options and you increase the chances that they make a choice.

Retail Results

The discovery that “More is less” has clear implications for online retail. Adlucent manages the Adwords PPC account for a major pet supplies retailer. One of their top products is K9 Advantix, a flea and tick medication.

We decided to apply the implications of “more is less” by running a test comparing their default K9 Advantix landing page (which showed all the different variations of K9 Advantix) with a test page (which only showed the top selling variation.)

The results were striking.

Conversion rate increased 233%, average order value increased 40%, and the average revenue per click increased 366%. When presented with fewer options, shoppers not only converted more often, but they spent more money.

Clearly, the psychologists are on to something.

Psychology in Practice

It’s easy to put the “More is less” principle in practice for your own site.

Develop a streamlined version of your top landing pages that offers your best choices instead of all choices, and run an A/B test to see how they perform. It’s an easy win, and might lead to some significant performance gains.

But don’t stop there. At Adlucent, we have a philosophy of “Better every day”, which means that we commit to never stop learning and growing. Nothing thrives in a vacuum, so we surround ourselves with influences that make it easy to learn and grow.

That means that if you want to be “Better every day” at applying psychology to your landing page tests, plug in to the world of new ideas. Subscribe to a psychology magazine, or spend an afternoon in the bookstore looking through the psychology books. Feed your growth with a steady stream of new ideas.

Commit to “Better every day” and you will soon discover new ideas that will drive new success. It only takes a little spark to make a big fire, and it only takes a small idea for you to make a big impact.

Of course, ideas make a bigger impact when they’re shared. So take a moment to write your thoughts in the comments below. What are your thoughts on applying psychology to landing page tests? And what is your response to the idea of “Better every day?”

Thanks to mobile devices, offline and online shopping experiences are converging, a process Google describes as “nonline shopping.” Although consumers are planning on spending 5% more this year, they will invest more time into finding the best products. In fact, 80% of shoppers will conduct online research before making a purchase this season. As consumers spend more time researching specific products, there is no doubt that Product Listing Ads (PLAs) will play a significant role in customer acquisition and sales this holiday season.

Source: Google

As the transition of Google Product Search from a free service to a paid offering was completed on October 17th, many retailers have been left wondering how they can get the most return from their investment, especially in time for the busy holiday shopping season.

It’s no secret that Product Listing Ads (PLAs) are a great way to acquire new customers at a lower cost per click, but how do you stay ahead as competition grows?

While there are many ways to optimize your PLA program, there are five key areas where retailers should focus to drive efficiency and revenue. They include:

1. Create a framework for PLA management at the product, category, and subcategory levels
2. Utilize micro-segmentation and big data assets to proactively manage product-level bids
3. Match terms to customer intent and negate ineffectual terms
4. Optimize ad text at the SKU level and utilize ad performance data for PLAs
5. Monitor attribution to see the effect of upstream clicks on PLAs

On November 8^th, we’ll deep dive on the points listed above in our complimentary webinar, Five Keys to Profitable Growth with Google Shopping. You’ll hear from Adlucent client BabyEarth, who will share how they increased revenue from PLAs by 129% YoY. Don’t miss out, the holidays are right around the corner.

Five Keys to Profitable Growth with Google Shopping
Registration URL
November 8, 2012
1-2PM CST
Speakers:
Steve Steinberg, CMO, BabyEarth
Jon Armstrong, CEO, Adlucent
Auburn Rutledge, Client Manager, Adlucent