The holiday season might famously be “the most wonderful time of the year.” It’s also often the busiest for many retailers. In order to help companies and advertisers make the most of the season, Google has compiled a Holiday Best Practices Guide so that your holiday marketing will shine as bright as a beautifully lit evergreen tree.
Though 2022 has been a challenging year for both retailers and shoppers with supply chain interruptions and global uncertainty regarding inflation and the state of the economy, shopping is still expected to surge during the holiday season and might be just what your business needs to meet your annual sales goals.
The Time to Get Prepared is Now
According to research from Google, 26% of US shoppers reported they had already started their 2022 holiday shopping by June (!) Thus, it is not too early to start getting prepared now and making sure your advertising gets in front of these eager early buyers.
Right now, you can start reviewing your bidding strategy and budget for Google Ads. Take stock of your performance from last year’s holiday season and consider what changes you might want to make to capture the rise in demand that will come during the final six weeks of the year. You can utilize Google’s Performance Planner to see how changes to your advertising spend might impact your campaign performance during the holiday season.
You might also want to make use of the Insights page to get a sense of upcoming trends that could affect your business. For example, popular New Year’s resolutions might lead to a surge of interest starting the week of January 1st, and you might want to adjust your automated bidding accordingly.
Also, if your business is planning special holiday promotions or sales, you might want to apply seasonality adjustments that will inform Google’s Smart Bidding for Search, Shopping, and Display campaigns. Although Smart Bidding already takes into account major seasonal events (such as “the holiday season”), seasonality adjustments can be beneficial if you’re planning short promotions or events that will only apply for 1-7 days (such as a first week of December celebratory sale, etc.)
Leverage Multi-Channel Ads 
When you think of Google, you probably first think of Search – however, if you want to maximize your advertising performance this holiday season, you want to be sure to take advantage of the full Google ecosystem. In fact, Google’s own research suggests that last holiday season, shoppers who used at minimum 5 channels to inform their buying decisions ended up spending twice as much.
In order to tailor your reach, you want to utilize responsive search ads so that your messaging will be relevant to your ideal shoppers’ search terms. You can also take advantage of broad match to help engage new customers. However, if you really want to take your holiday marketing to the next level, you might want to consider Performance Max campaigns to help you connect with customers across Search, Discover, Display, Gmail, Maps, and even YouTube.
Don’t Forget About Local In-Person Shopping 
Google’s advertising power doesn’t apply only to online sales. Especially this year when customers are eager to return to in-person experiences post-pandemic, you want to be sure to create a seamless experience between online and brick-and-mortar store shopping.
Now is a good time to make sure your Google Business Profile is complete and accurate with your updated store hours and relevant images. You can also utilize local inventory ads to let last minute local shoppers know what they can come pick up in-store.
You can even use integrated Performance Max campaigns to optimize for increased in-store foot traffic so that you reach your brick-and-mortar sales goals!
Do you wish you could ask Santa for help with your digital marketing this holiday season? Though we won’t come down your chimney, our team of experts here at JXT Group can help make the season feel magical for your Q4 sales performance.
If you want to find out more, you can give us a call at 718-690-7302 or submit our online form to start a conversation with our team.
