The Ultimate Guide to Black Friday 2019

The Ultimate Guide to Black Friday 2019

by | Jul, 2019 | Native Advertising

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO

BLACK
FRIDAY 2019

Planning campaigns for the busiest shopping day of the year need not be overwhelming (we promise!) We put together everything you need to know as you prepare for Black Friday 2K19.

STATS

Here are the stats that matter from Black Friday Shopping Season 2018:

Black Friday 2018

Black Friday 2018 (Thanksgiving Day plus Black Friday) raked in $9.9 billion in online sales – a 19.7% increase over 2017
(Adobe Analytics)

Black Friday 2018

$6.2 billion spent on Black Friday and $3.7 billion spent on Thanksgiving (a growth of 28% year over year)
(Adobe Analytics)

Black Friday 2018

14.8 million online transactions were processed on Black Friday 2018 and 13.7 million were processed on Thanksgiving
(Hitwise).

Thanksgiving 2018

Average per-person spending was $313.29 during Thanksgiving weekend 2018 ($217 spent on gifts)
(NRF)

Buy Online - Pickup In-Store

The Buy Online, Pickup In-Store (BOPIS) model saw a 50% increase year-over-year during Thanksgiving weekend 2018
(Adobe Analytics)

Online Conversions

Retailers with physical stores drove 28% higher conversions online
(Adobe Analytics)

MOBILE MATTERS

Site Visits

Mobile represented 51.4% of site visits (43.6% smartphones, 7.8% tablets) making it the first Cyber Monday where more than half of visits came from mobile.
(Adobe Analytics)

Mobile Revenue

Mobile accounted for 34% of revenue (26.3% smartphones, 7.7% tablets)
(Adobe Analytics)

Best Practices

What does it mean for your Black Friday and Cyber Monday Holiday Shopping Strategy? We’re so glad you asked!

Scale: Don’t Restrict Inventory and Set Aside Your Biggest Budget

The most reach is critical. 

Black Friday weekend raked in $9.9 billion in online sales and counted 28.5 million online transactions. That means a massive amount of shoppers are already ready and willing to shop online. Now is the time to go big or go home. Set aside a large budget.

Run nationally-targeted campaigns utilizing all 3 ad formats (in-feed, recommendation widget, and in-ad) across all 3 devices (desktop, tablet, and mobile) to ensure we are able to find relevant users at any time on any device.

Get access to as many placements as possible. Bidtellect is partnered with more than 30 supply partners for the most expansive network in the ecosystem, which means access to 58 million distinctly targetable placements and 10 billion Native auctions daily.

Performance: Optimize and Measure Post-Click for Qualified Site Traffic

It’s not enough to reach far and wide – aim for more qualified site traffic with placement level optimization, dynamic creative optimization (DCO) and qualified engagement measurement.  Dive deeper into the success of your Native Advertising campaign by using Bidtellect’s Engagement Score, unique proprietary technology for a deeper understanding of consumer engagement, so you can measure and optimize towards post-click engagement metrics such as page views, bounce rate and time spent on site.

Creative Insights: Copy + Image Matters For Maximum Engagement

[b]+studio is Bidtellect’s award-winning in-house creative team and they are experts in creating copy and images that draw in consumers and lead them to your content. Based on Black Friday (and all year long) performance, here’s what you should know: 

  • Include a promotional code
  • Be sure there’s a holiday reference in the images or copy
  • Children, pets, and people in images perform best
  • If using images with products, one solo “feature” product performs better than a group of products
  • Photographs perform better than animated images
  • Content/Thought Leadership: offer tips for the best gifts or creative ideas.

.

This was a best-performing Black Friday 2018 image with an eCPA of $2.16.

This was a best-performing Black Friday 2018 image with an eCPA of $2.31.

Consider the Customer Journey: Target and Retarget 

Since a consideration cycle is generally required to make a purchase – especially with so many choices and sales during Black Friday weekend – supplement a prospecting strategy with retargeting to drive prospects back to the site to purchase. Make it even easier to buy online and pick up in store, too. The (BOPIS) model saw a 50% increase.

Account for Mobile

It should be obvious, but maybe it isn’t. Before setting up campaigns, check that the landing pages you will be directing traffic to are as mobile-friendly as possible, from easy scrolling to readability to ease of purchasing products. Mobile represented 51.4% of site visits and accounted for 34% of revenue. 

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How to Win at Father’s Day: Tips for Your Campaigns

How to Win at Father’s Day: Tips for Your Campaigns

by | May, 2019 | Content, Native Advertising

The first Father’s Day was celebrated in Spokane in 1910, but it wasn’t until President Calvin Coolidge officially established Father’s Day as a national event in 1924 that it became a dedicated holiday to “establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children and to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations” (U.S. Census). Now a day of celebration and – yes – gift giving, here are some tips to get your campaigns ready for the upcoming shopping rush to honor dear ol’ dads!

1. Know Your Numbers

We’ll help you out with this one. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, roughly 6 in 10 men in the U.S. are fathers – that’s 75 million! Of those, 54% have adult children who are at least 18 years old and 1 in 4 men are grandfathers.

2. Who’s Shopping?

An estimated 77% of Americans will celebrate Father’s Day (t: 1. Drive Sales, 2. Drive Traffic to Blog Content, and 3. Offer-Driven Creative. Get your ad campaigns ready: make sure your creative is relevant and up-to-date, reflecting the holiday and any sales or special offers (some tips in here: What NOT To Do: 6 Creative Practices to AVOID When Writing Your Next Native Headlines!). If you’re working with a platform like Bidtellect, we can optimize towards these goals for you, ensuring that your Father’s Day campaigns are bringing consumers to high-quality content and – most importantly – helping your bottom line.

4. What Kind of Gifts Are They Buying?

According to NRF spending data, here’s a ranking of Father’s Day Gifts based on highest spend:

  1. “Special Outing” gift (concert, sporting event or dinner) ($3.2 billion)
  2. Clothing ($2.2 billion)
  3. Gift cards ($2.1 billion)
  4. Consumer electronic ($1.8 billion)
  5. Home improvement supplies ($878 million)

Offer some gift ideas within each of these categories in a blog post or article and distribute it as Native Ads! For example, in the category of home improvement, you might go for some of the best acrylic prints to advertise as decorations within the home. Dads love this! They love little DIY projects and making their home their own. In other words, anything they can get their hands on, such as fixing something, making something from scratch, or even placing wallpaper in the interiors, they might be interested. Therefore, anything in this department would go down a treat no doubt. You could even go ahead and help him out by procuring some landscaping supplies like from suppliers who could provide you materials similar to gravel richmond va to beautify your driveway or garden! There is no greater pleasure than helping your dad out in the things he loves the most. Be it Father’s Day, or any normal day – this should never go out of practice. After all, it is the simple things that we do that matters the most to them. That said, we’re very lucky to have a host of options online these days, to give us some simple ideas that our dads would love, no matter which category we choose. This does two things: establishes you as a thought leader during the holiday and increases the likelihood of engagement and sales! (Just see those stats below).
⇒ Wondering what kind of article? Try a Listicle!

5. Content Matters

As we always say… Content matters. Consumers are much more likely to buy from a brand they trust, are an expert, or they have built a relationship with – especially when it comes to gifts for someone they care about! Content makes consumers 131% more likely to buy (Twitter via Nudge); content can help double website conversion rates from 6% to 12% (Shopify) and marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to generate a positive ROI (Shopify).
Happy Father’s Day!

Valentine’s Day is Coming. Why Content First Should Be Your Strategy for Retail

Valentine’s Day is Coming. Why Content First Should Be Your Strategy for Retail

by | Feb, 2019 | Content, Culture, Native Advertising

Did you know early Valentine’s Day gifts were given to children to ward off sickness? How far we’ve come! Once a day dedicated to love and family in honor of St. Valentine, the popular holiday has evolved into a display of love and romance with flowers, gifts, romantic dinners, and even an “anti-Valentine” movement of self-celebration.

Which makes it tough to ignore: Valentine’s Day is a top retail holiday. It contributed about $19.6 billion to the economy in 2018, with more than half (55%) of the population getting involved, with each person spending about $143.56 (National Retail Federation). Hello shoppers! These lovers are not only looking for gifts, they are looking for inspiration: whether it be through a trusted brand or media source for direction.

Which brings us to the value of high-quality content. Shoppers are savvy and eager for information before making a purchase. As a retail store owner, you might feel that your concerns should lie more towards ensuring smooth sales, perhaps because you’re anticipating a lot of sales during any holiday season. Maybe you’ve just bought up a new store location after checking over a retail store lease overview with your attorney so you can be ready for on-the-ground shoppers. The good news is that innovative ways of operating have already begun to be prototyped on a smaller scale. Given that contactless shopping will soon become the norm, retailers might want to look to other industries that already provide similar services. Technology can also foster connections by giving every customer the impression that they have a personal shopper who has favorite items (in their size) waiting for them in a dressing room when they arrive or who can recommend similar pieces based on previous purchases. If you want to learn more about the future of the market, you can read the article about opportunities in retail and plan your business’s future accordingly. Since online shopping is likely to remain a driving factor, businesses of all sizes may be forced to reconsider how they set up their physical locations.

If you already have an efficient POS system (see https://revelsystems.com/features/reporting/ or similar pages for details) that can deal with things like check out, analysis and reports, inventory management and other such operational tasks, making the shopping experience seamless. However, since Valentines’ days is such a big holiday, your buyers would typically be looking for inspiration on what to buy, which is something they can get from your content. Even if you advertise human pheromones or something related romance to the couples who are celebrating, you can see how the demand for that particular product just rises up. Just as shoppers in the pre-internet era might turn to a trusted stylist in a department store or a discerning friend with inside scoop, shoppers now turn to blog posts, niche media outlets, and brand lookbooks for advice and guidance.

Not sure that’s true? Consider these:

  • Two Thirds (⅔) of shoppers say online video has given them ideas and inspiration for their purchases (Google/Ipsos)
  • When consumers read an educational article, they are 131% more inclined to buy from that company (Conductor via Forbes).
  • 36.9% of those shopping for Valentine’s Day on smartphones use it for research (National Retail Federation)

And if you still are skeptical about the bottom line:

  • Marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to generate a positive ROI (Hubspot via Shopify)

Even as shopping becomes increasingly isolated to screens, consumers still crave a human-to-human like personalization or recommendation. Creating high-quality content, like blog posts, videos, articles, and other visual showcases offer a personal touch and a perception of expertise; a thought leader will always cut through the noise.

Bidtellect’s Top 3 KPIs for Retail Advertisers:

  1. Drive Traffic to Blog Content
  2. Offer-Driven Creative
  3. Drive Sales

Make your Native ads a preview of what’s to come – what are you offering? Top 5 Gift Ideas for Your Picky Boyfriend? The Comfiest Pajamas for Staying In? Deliver insight and knowledge and stay true to your brand.

And don’t forget to appeal to last minute shoppers this Valentine’s Day! Last year, 1800Flowers.com saw a 30% jump in desktop conversions on February 13th compared to just a week before (Digital Commerce 360).

With high quality content, expert creative copy, and targeted placements, Valentine’s Day might be your new love affair.

Check out our Valentine’s Day Infographic for even more stats to put you ahead.

DOWNLOAD INFOGRAPHIC

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Sources:

National Retail Federation, “Holiday and Seasonal Trends: Valentine’s Day,”

Google/Ipsos, “The Role of Digital Video in People’s Lives,” July 2018

Conductor via Forbes, “Use This Strategy To Increase Willingness To Purchase By 131 Percent,” September 2, 2017

Hubspot via Shopify, “State of Inbound 2018,” 24 April 2018

Digital Commerce 360, “Valentine’s Day 2018 online sales recap,” 12 March 2018

Is Your Digital Strategy Ready for Black Friday Weekend?

Is Your Digital Strategy Ready for Black Friday Weekend?

by | Nov, 2018 | Content, Native Advertising

DOWNLOAD INFOGRAPHIC
Sources:
1Shopify, “Black Friday Cyber Monday 2017: An Analysis of Over $1 Billion in Sales,” 28 November 2017
2Adobe Insights via CNBC, “Cyber Monday becomes largest online shopping day in US history,” 28 November 2017
3Bidtellect, Bidtellect Native Report 1H 2018,
4AdAge, “Google Says Programmatic Direct is Due for a Rise in 2017,” 16 December 2016
5Hubspot via Shopify, “State of Inbound 2018,” 24 April 2018
6Business Insider UK, “Sponsored content drives one-third of millennials to purchase,” 22 May 2017
7Google/Ipsos, “The Role of Digital Video in People’s Lives,” July 2018
8Twitter via Nudge, “The State of Content,” 2 November 2018