Bidtellect’s Top 10 Holiday Campaign Tips for for Brands & Advertisers

Bidtellect’s Top 10 Holiday Campaign Tips for for Brands & Advertisers

This is our no frills, top 10 list for holiday advertising success.

$1.3 trillion

eMarketer predicts 2022 holiday retail sales to increase 3.3% to $1.262 trillion (eMarketer). 

 

4%

Only 4% of U.S. holiday shoppers did not use digital channels for their shopping in 2021 (Think With Google)

61%

61% of consumers joined a loyalty program to receive discounts during the 2021 holiday season (Deloitte)

1. Holiday spend is going to be big. Now is the time to scale.

Bidtellect’s platform is integrated with 25+ of the industry’s leading SSPs and exchanges, giving buyers access to 98%+ of the internet-connected US, and 100s of thousands of publishers and global supply.

2. Don’t skimp on brand safety. 

Filter towards quality to ensure viewability, brand safety, supply path optimization, and to combat fraud.

3. Make use of all Bidtellect’s ad formats & devices

We’re talkin’ Responsive Native, High Impact, Banner Display, Video and Desktop, Tablet, and Mobile – all to drive brand and promotional awareness. Bonus: we now offer CTV/OTT. Talk to your contact to see if you can incorporate it now.

4. Reach consumers already engaging with holiday content,

holiday shopping content, or any topic of your choosing with context-driven targeting and optimization.

5. Utilize Bidtellect’s proprietary audiences,

which use natural language processing technology and the context of the page to build custom audiences that show an explicit interest in the category of your choosing.

6. Save where it counts.

Our optimization technology – especially our automatic bid factoring tool, AARDvark – will ensure you’re paying for the true value of an ad placement, maximizing ROI.

7. Loyalty programs matter to holiday shoppers

for early deals and access – the data shows it. Show off loyalty programs and exciting savings promotions in your holiday creative assets. Ads with promotions are consistently top performing, according to [b]+studio.

8. Rely on real-time optimization

 to identify the creatives and content that deliver the best results across devices and sites.

9. Analyze campaign performance

with Bidtellect’s robust analytics, customized reporting, third-party measurement solutions and proprietary insights for the most in-depth assessment of your holiday campaigns.

10. Teamwork makes the holiday dream come true

Our creative experts [b]+studio will create custom, eye-catching, and high performing holiday creative assets for your brand. Our performance analysts make recommendations based on performance and goals.

 

Brands and advertisers, we hope these top 10 tips for holiday campaigns are helpful. Reach out to your Bidtellect rep to learn more.

For more holiday advertising tips, check out These Are The Top 3 Trends Predicted for the 2022 Holiday Shopping Season

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Holiday Creative Assets: 6 Mandatory Tips for Engagement from [b]+studio

Holiday Creative Assets: 6 Mandatory Tips for Engagement from [b]+studio

Hello, holiday advertisers! We asked Santa aka Bidtellect’s in-house creative agency their mandatory tips for engaging holiday creative assets. Don’t you want your brand on on the high-engagement “nice list?”

Remember, no matter how great your platform’s placement and optimization capabilities, bad creative assets (we’re talking images, videos, and copy) will kill engagement faster than you can say, “Is this coal?!”

So here’s what you need to know.

1. It’s the Happiest Time of Year – Keep Your Holiday Creative Assets & Messaging Positive!

 

Simple as that! Use positive adjectives in headlines coupled with happy images to increase CTR. Cold, monotone creatives do not bring joy. Bonus: add puns or rhymes to make it even more…puntastic.

2. Keep the Holidays Front of Mind in All Creative Assets

 

‘Tis the season: remember to include at least one holiday reference in the image or copy in all holiday creative assets, or you’ll risk seeming out of the loop (as well as suffering poor engagement).

Use the concept of “gift guides.” Offer helpful, valuable tips and create content that’s great to drive to. Think: find the perfect gift for “X” which doubles as calling out the targeted demographic, but in a fun, holiday way. Be a holiday thought leader – and help your shoppers out!

3. Refresh Your Holiday Creatives For Engagement & Re-Engagement

 

Switch up your holiday creative assets! Better yet: rotate based on the event, as you count down to Black Friday, that big holiday sale, or new holiday release. Bidtellect’s advanced platform optimizes to best-performing creatives (read more on Dynamic Creative Optimization) and our team will manually rotate creatives to find your best performance.

Plus, you’ll want to re-engage with users thanks to our sequential messaging tech and other re-engagement tactics – so you’ll need fresh content!

4. High Impact Units Are Your Best Gift

 

Take your holiday creative assets up a notch with high impact creative units: cinemagraphs, scroller units, and carousel units are major engagement givers. These are highly effective at telling a short story and conveying a specific setting or emotion. They also drive maximum in-unit engagement. One advertising agency found that cinemagraph content tends to have more virality, with 71% higher organic reach than still photographs. Don’t believe us? Check out this case study or this one.

5. Incorporate Video into Your Holiday Creative Assets

 

9/10 people report wanting to see more videos from brands, according to Hubspot. So go ahead, give consumers the gift of video ads in your holiday creative assets this season – and you’ll give your brand the gift of higher engagement. Keep them short, sweet, and positive – and be sure your message can be conveyed with and without sound.

Bidtellect’s context-driven solutions ensure your video ads will be relevant to the content surrounding it – a good thing since 74% of consumers are likely to remember an ad if its message relates to the content around it.

6. Make Sure You Offer Deals and Promotions in Your Headlines

Santa with Sale Sign

 

Everybody loves a sale – especially during the holidays! So include deals, discounts, incentives, and reward programs in the copy of your holiday creative assets. Bidtellect’s [b]+studio consistently sees highest performance for headlines including a discount.

Examples: promo codes, flash sales, bundle deals, free shipping, etc. Combine promotions (discounts or a special offer) with the shipping deadlines to incentivize your customers to start shopping. Most predict consumers will start shopping even earlier this year.

Brands and advertisers, we hope these tips for engaging holiday creative assets are helpful!  The holiday 2022 shopping season is going to be a great year!

For more holiday advertising tips, check out These Are The Top 3 Trends Predicted for the 2022 Holiday Shopping Season

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6 Tips and Trends for Your Holiday Campaigns That You Do Not Want To Forget

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It’s the final countdown! While preparing your holiday advertising campaigns, we rounded up our top tips and trends you do NOT want to forget.

1. It’s the Happiest Time of Year – Keep it Positive!

Keep it positive! Consider making small tweaks to your website (if you don’t already have one, contact the likes of Cefar to get one designed) and use positive adjectives in headlines coupled with happy images to increase CTR. Cold, monotone creatives do not bring joy. Bonus: add puns or rhymes to make it even more…puntastic.

2. Which Images and Creative Units Perform Best?

Photographs perform better than animated images. Always. On that note, children, pets, and people in images perform best. Smile! Go solo: if using images with products, one solo “feature” product performs better than a group.

Take your static images up a notch with cinemegraphs, scroller units, and carousel units. These are highly effective at telling a short story and conveying a specific setting or emotion. They also drive maximum in-unit engagement. One advertising agency found that cinemagraph content tends to have more virality, with 71% higher organic reach than still photographs. Don’t believe us? Check out this case study or this one.

3. Make It Personable! Build Trust.

Holidays can be the most amazing, yet most stressful time of the year for families – especially given the last two years. As a brand, bringing a “human” and empathetic touch to your messaging can make your holiday campaigns more attractive and build trust with your consumers. When asked by eMarketer which emotions were most effective at making consumers feel connected to brands, admiration and trust were the overwhelming choice. Gain trust by being personable and building a connection with your consumers. This can be through family-forward images, warm and inviting copy, and inspirational content and stories. Don’t forget the importance of brand safety tech controls – i.e. where your ad is placed on the page – consumers can quickly lose trust in your brand if it’s placed next to unsavory and/or user-generated content.

4. Count on Heavy Ecommerce Holiday Shopping

Last year proved that consumers were just as – if not more – willing to spend money online while shopping for the holidays. Even with the ability to shop in-store this year, ecommerce will continue to grow, and forecasts predict record-breaking ecommerce sales this holiday season. So it is essential for small and local businesses that are online to see how Local Search Engine Optimization can work at this time, as well as take on other digital marketing steps. It would be important for them to start this off just before the season begins so it can have enough time to reach their intended audience and drum up business. They may also want to change their payment processing system if their current one has had faults, they do not want to have a jam or issue as the season begins because it could lose them money. Checking out websites like https://www.easypaydirect.com/merchant-accounts/high-risk-merchant-accounts/ as well as similar others, can show them what is available for the type of business they have.

Retail ecommerce sales are projected to make up 18.9% of total holiday retail sales, up from 17.5% last year according to eMarketer. Thanksgiving Day ecommerce sales are expected to hit a whopping $6.21 billion, per eMarketer forecasts. (For reference, Thanksgiving Day ecommerce sales reached $4.13 billion just two years ago in 2019.) And as we mentioned, Cyber Monday was the heaviest online spending day in history, rising 15.6% to $10.78 billion. This continued through the end of the year, especially online, driving a dramatic 47% increase in ecommerce sales during the traditional holiday season, according to Facebook.

5. Help Holiday Shoppers With Context Discovery

Half of all shoppers polled by Facebook experienced some difficulty knowing what to buy for others, while 63% of global shoppers surveyed enjoyed discovering items they weren’t actively looking for. Call it Discovery Commerce, online discovery, point of intent, content marketing – the point is the same: consumers want a bit of help when it comes to shopping, and there’s no shame in that. So, when you are planning your advertisements this season with your chosen resource, whether that be though a company like Creatopy or an in-house team, you will want to discuss the range that you can do for your customers so they can be helped along.

Creating digital ads – discovery aides – that help shoppers determine what to buy based on what they are likely to love (thanks to context clues and audience groups, for example) is crucial to success. Maximizing contextual targeting and context-driven optimization will ensure your ads and content find your target shoppers. Make your consumers’ holiday shopping job easier. Don’t just meet them at their needs; anticipate them.

6. Black Friday is Starting Early This Year​ – So Get Ahead

Companies are coming out with Black Friday deals earlier and earlier every year! Do not miss the chance to jump ahead on early deals in order to gain the attention of your target market – because they’ll be more likely to shop with you. New data from Criteo found that 30% of consumers will try a new online store because of early holiday deals, and one-quarter of consumers research purchases one month before their Black Friday buys. Amazon has already started rolling out their Black Friday Deals, and “when the biggest power in ecommerce sets an early start to a shopping season, others quickly follow to avoid missing out.”

Brands and advertisers, we hope tips for engaging holiday creative assets make your performance soar! The holiday 2021 shopping season is going to be a great year!

For more tips, check out our creative best practices: the naughty and nice list.

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We asked Bidtellect’s in-house creative services team for their mandatory tips for maximum holiday creative engagement. Remember, no matter how great your platform’s placement and optimization capabilities, bad creative will kill engagement faster than you can say “naughty list.”

It’s also a process – a circle of refreshing copy and images. Make creative recommendations throughout campaigns to optimize performance. “Going live” is just the beginning.

BTW, scroll down to download our onesheet!

1. It’s the Happiest Time of Year – Keep it Positive!

Keep it positive! Use positive adjectives in headlines coupled with happy images to increase CTR. Cold, monotone creatives do not bring joy. Bonus: add puns or rhymes to make it even more…puntastic.

2. Refresh Your Holiday Creatives Constantly

Switch up your holiday creative assets! Better yet: rotate based on the event, as you count down to Black Friday, that big holiday sale, or new holiday release. Bidtellect’s advanced platform optimizes to best-performing creatives (read more on Dynamic Creative Optimization) and our team will manually rotate creatives to find your best performance.

3. Keep the Holidays Front of Mind

‘Tis the season: remember to include at least one holiday reference in the image or copy, or you’ll risk seeming out of the loop (as well as suffering poor engagement).

Use the concept of “gift guides.” Offer helpful, valuable tips and create content that’s great to drive to. Think: find the perfect gift for “X” which doubles as calling out the targeted demographic, but in a fun, holiday way. Be a holiday thought leader – and help your shoppers out!

4. Make Sure You Offer Deals and Promotions in Your Headline

Santa with Sale Sign

Everybody loves a sale – especially during the holidays! So include deals, discounts, incentives, and reward programs in your holiday creative copy. Bidtellect’s [b]+studio consistently sees highest performance for headlines including a discount. Examples: promo codes, flash sales, bundle deals, free shipping, etc. Combine promotions (discounts or a special offer) with the shipping deadlines to incentivize your customers to start shopping. If you have the budget for it, you could go a step ahead and expand the geographic zones you ship to. Whether it’s Truck transport to Slovenia, or cargo plane shipping to Thailand, you will have it covered. International shipping can be a big plus for your brand, and the reason why some people would choose you over a competitor. As long as you make sure your packaging materials, e.g. plastic boxes are sturdy and can withstand constant moving and handling, then you should have happy returning customers. This can potentially increase your customer base to include most of the world! Offering affordable shopping and shipping options to your customers could also encourage them to shop for more. Further, most predict consumers will start shopping even earlier this year.

5. Which Images and Creative Units Perform Best?

Photographs perform better than animated images. Always! On that note, children, pets, and people in images perform best. Or images of people celebrating holidays with dogs could also work.

However, going solo could also prove to be beneficial. If using images with products, know that one solo “feature” product can perform better than a group. That said, get hold of a professional photographer, perhaps someone from the likes of Evelyn Images (click here to learn more about them), who can give it their best shot for you. Remember that the key to grabbing the attention of customers is to use lively, colourful, and meaningful images. For instance, if you are selling Christmas decorations, then the best way to go about it would be to feature a little kid who is busy decorating their Christmas tree.

Besides this, take your static images up a notch with cinemegraphs, scroller units, and carousel units. These are highly effective at telling a short story and conveying a specific setting or emotion. They also drive maximum in-unit engagement. One advertising agency found that cinemagraph content tends to have more virality, with 71% higher organic reach than still photographs. Don’t believe us? Check out this case study or this one.

6. And Finally…

CHECK YOUR SPELLING AND GRAMMAR. Misspelled words and grammar errors (unless it’s a common colloquial phrase) are a bad look.

P.S. “Your” is possessive, while “you’re” is a contraction for “you are.” Apostrophe before an “s” indicates a possessive noun; drop the apostrophe for plural, i.e. Happy Holidays!”

Brands and advertisers, we hope tips for engaging holiday creative assets make your performance soar! The holiday 2021 shopping season is going to be a great year!

For more tips, check out our creative best practices: the naughty and nice list.

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