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Seasonal campaigns go beyond the holidays - Cyber Monday, Mother’s Day, and Small Business Saturday are also a huge part of the retail year. They’re less about targeting seasons, and more about finding moments with a common appeal in your client’s industry.

Brands need to be present in these moments, ready to greet panic-driven deal hunters with the perfect solution. So we sat down with Shopify’s CMO Hana Abaza on the Google Partners Podcast to get her top tips for seasonal campaigns that drive sales.

Find your season

Every business has an element of seasonality; times when interest piques and traffic spikes. All you need to do is identify them! Robust Google Analytics reports are a great place to start. Export your data onto a spreadsheet, and with some clever formatting, trends will start to light up like fireworks on New Year's Eve. 

Analytics also helps you uncover biases that may be hiding behind “failed” campaigns. For example, if you pumped a lot of your budget into targeting Valentine’s Day last year without success, it would be easy to write the day off as a ‘bad fit’ for your brand. Take a fresh look at the data, carry out an honest review, and you may find that small tweaks are all that’s needed to turn things around next year. 

Spot your opportunity

You’ve identified the seasons that matter to your business, now make sure your marketing budget is ready to handle the increased workload. Use Google Trends to spot search trends across each region you’re targeting, then compare that to search volume data in Google Ads to find keywords that fit your offering. 

In the build-up of individual events, Consumer Barometer can help you better understand how to reach your audience at the right time, with the right message. Different events bring up different emotions, so keeping track of consumer trends is a great way to make sure your ads strike an emotional chord with your audience. 

Create separate campaigns

It’s important that you measure success without the noise of other, non-seasonal campaigns. This helps you identify nuances in each season, and optimize next year’s campaigns with those insights in mind. 

Don’t be afraid to experiment with copy. Products like Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) can help you test different messages with very little effort. All you need to do is enter multiple headlines and descriptions about your products, and Google Ads will test different combinations to identify the best fit for your audience. 

Don’t miss last-minute shoppers

There’s been a 120% increase in “same-day delivery” searches since 2015¹. For urgent searches, 74% of shoppers say that when they’re searching on mobile, they look for the most relevant information, regardless of the company or brand². As a result, the retailer that provides the most seamless experience wins. 

Season-specific promotion extensions help your ads stand out on Google’s results pages, and spotlight special promotions you may be running for the event. Highlighting services like same-day delivery, last-minute sales, or gift-wrapping may be all it takes to tip customers in your direction. 

Great seasonal campaigns are all about planning. Arm yourself with industry trends, plan your marketing budget with those trends in mind, and remember to tap into your consumer’s emotions with ads that resonate. With the right tools, a detailed content plan, and thorough research, you’ll be setting yourself up for seasonal success. 

Watch the video below and tune in to the Google Partners Podcast for more actionable tips and insights for seasonal success. 

¹ How to reach today’s impatient shoppers - whether they’re shopping online, by voice, or in store, Think With Google, May 2018 
² How to reach today’s impatient shoppers - whether they’re shopping online, by voice, or in store, Think With Google, May 2018

Hi Agency Blog readers! I am back for year 2 of my Black Friday tips. Enjoy!
~ Ben

It may be hard to believe (and a little scary), but Thanksgiving is next week and Black Friday is only 8 days away! (Momentary pause while the shock settles in) With this daunting thought in mind, there are two things to consider that should make the holiday shopping weekend go as smoothly (and hopefully as profitably for clients) as possible -- holiday promotion ads and a Black Friday placement pack.

1. When it comes to the holiday season, one of the clearest trends we have picked up on is that ads with promotions perform better than ads that don’t (seems that consumers like deals. Strange, I know). If clients have any upcoming promotions (free shipping, a percent off, sales, etc.), all ads should be promoting these. This is especially true if they have Black Friday specific sales. If this is the case, make a point of saying “Black Friday Sale” or indicate that this is a limited time only (“Fri – Sun”, “This Weekend Only”, etc.).
   
   If you plan on creating and implementing ads specifically for Black Friday and the shopping weekend after Thanksgiving, be sure to implement them in the account by the end of day Tuesday (11/23) to give them enough time to make it through the ad approval process.
   
   
2. Some of your clients may want to do a bit more than just create new ads for next week. If you have a client that would like to target users actively looking for Black Friday deals, then you may want to create a display campaign targeting sites that aggregate such deals. Using the Placement Tool in your AdWords account, search for words such as ‘black friday’ and ‘black friday sales’ to identify sites that would be good to target. With this list, there are two possible ways to use it:

• Create a campaign to target only managed placements and have a single ad group that contains all of these placements.
• Create a campaign with the same settings, but have multiple ad groups with keyword themes and set them to target these placements, creating an Enhanced Online Campaign. For example, if you have a cosmetics client, you might want to have a few ad groups with themes like “makeup”, “hair products”, “ cosmetics”, etc. Then, targeting these Black Friday placements, you will be in a better position to place ads in front of consumers looking for deals around products your client sells.

For either of these, set it to run starting this Friday (11/19) through EOD Sunday (11/28). If clients have deals carrying through cyber Monday, then extend it another day.

As always, with all of your clients, make sure that your budgets and bids are adjusted for this busy weekend. With the increase in traffic, budgets can get depleted more quickly (resulting in campaigns stopping ads from being shown) and competitors bid more aggressively. Make sure that budgets are set to keep campaigns running throughout the day and increase bids to maintain positions.

These can be stressful times in the online advertising world, but if you plan ahead by implementing things early and position your clients in front of customers looking for deals around their products, you can help to make this a great season!

Posted by Ben Sheldon, Agency Team

We would like to invite you to 3 upcoming webinars targeted towards retail clients and the agencies that support them -- YouTube Holiday Planning, Intro to Mobile Ads and Mobile Best Practice. These sessions are designed to help you incorporate video and mobile ad strategies into clients' holiday campaigns and beyond.

YouTube Holiday Webinar
Thursday, November 11, 2010, 10amPST / 12pmCST / 1pmEST
During this session you'll learn how to capitalize on holiday shoppers browsing video content, including customization tips for your YouTube Channel, innovative strategies for sales focused YouTube campaigns and more.
Register here

Introduction to Mobile Ads
Friday, November 12, 2010, 11amPST / 1pmCST / 2pmEST
Learn about the opportunity mobile presents to your business, the mobile advertising products offered by Google and how you can get started.
Register here

Mobile Best Practices
Thursday, November 18, 2010, 11amPST / 1pmCST / 2pmEST
Learn how to measure and optimize your mobile campaigns to increase your mobile ROI.
Register here

Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team

Are you getting ready for the holidays? With the holidays less than 2 months away, we wanted to share some seasonally-focused resources and tips with you from our friends at YouTube. They've prepared some marketing strategies to help you and your clients take advantage of this time of the year on the top online video destination.

Tip #1: Customize a YouTube Brand Channel
Just as a retail store would dress up its window during the holidays, take advantage of enhanced features to customize clients' channels. For example, you can showcase their products with the 300x250 display ad; integrate all of their social media efforts with the channel banner that appears at the top of your channel page; and help them stay connected with customers with a remarketing campain that targets users who have visited their YouTube channel.

Tip #2: Show off products through video this holiday season
YouTube is the second-largest search engine after Google. Your clients probably have a search engine strategy for the top search engines—is YouTube included in that plan? Videos are a compelling way to feature products, services, and brands. When clients' target audiences are searching on YouTube make sure their videos are surfaced with promoted videos.

Tip #3: Place holiday creatives against relative videos
Help clients reach their audience in a ‘lean forward’ media platform where people are seeking video engagement and information. Find videos or video categories that resonate with their brand or target audience and pair holiday display ads against them.

Tip #4: Bring holiday TV ads online
In 2009, people spent more time watching online video than checking their email! Use TV creatives or online videos to run as preroll before videos on YouTube and get in front of this tremendous audience. Engagement rates are also compelling with an average CTR of 1.9%. An ad format that answers your holiday wish.

Tip #5: YouTube Video Gift Guide
Now consumers have a place to watch and shop on YouTube! This holiday shopping video hub is open to all advertising partners with video assets. Our guide provides consumers with the opportunity to watch and shop and provide advertisers with one destination to showcase their holiday video ads. Contact a sales representative to get started.

We’ve made your list, now check it twice and have a great holiday season!

Posted by Jen Wasson, YouTube Team

We're pleased to kick off the 2010 holiday blog post series, "Getting Ready for the Holidays." As we did in 2009 with the Holiday Campaign Countdown series, we'll once again be regularly posting seasonally-focused resources and strategies through the next few months, starting off with best practices from the Google Product Search team.

As we draw closer to Q4, it's a good time to make sure you're getting your clients all the traffic you can from free sources. Most of your retail clients are probably already participating in Google Product Search, a free and powerful way for merchants to connect their products to millions of shoppers on the web. If they're not, send them over to google.com/products/submit to get them started. If they are, here are some tips to make sure they're getting the most out of this free product:

• Submitting all required and suggested attributes, including "unique product identifiers." These unique identifiers will soon be necessary to be included in Google Product Search listings.
• Sign up for product-based ad formats, like Google Product Extensions. These ad formats are powered by the merchant's product data feed, and they provide users with more information than standard text ads.
• Urge your clients to submit product reviews when they have them. Merchants who submit product reviews to Google will have their logos displayed on product pages when their reviews appear, adding another source of free traffic.
• Help your clients sign up for Google Places, which will help online shoppers find their store locations and hours and complete the cross-channel shopping experience.

For more information, visit google.com/products/submit.

Posted by Vivek Tata, Product Marketing Manager

Last week Susan Wojcicki, VP, Product Management, shared an update on some of the new search ad formats we've been testing. Knowing that you're knee deep in holiday campaigns and 2010 planning, we wanted to share an overview of these formats with you so that you may consider them for your strategies. As you'll see, each of the new formats aims to provide additional information, delivered in the most useful format (whether it be images, videos, or maps) to help users make better informed decisions.

Ad Sitelinks: In early November we launched Ad Sitelinks, a new AdWords feature that allows you to extend the value of your existing AdWords ads by providing additional links to content deep within your sites.

Product Extensions: Similar to Ad Sitelinks, product extensions enrich existing AdWords ads with additional relevant information - in this case, information on products included in an advertiser's Google Merchant Center account.

Location Extensions: For advertisers with a brick-and-mortar presence, Location Extensions enable them to dynamically attach business addresses to ads.

Comparison Ads: Comparison Ads, which are currently being tested by a limited number of advertisers in the mortgage/refinance space, will enable users to specify what they're looking for and compare prices in a single space.

For more information on the new search ad formats, visit the Official Google Blog or the Inside AdWords Blog.

Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team

It's the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and all you're probably thinking about right now is "I need to defrost the turkey, pick up another can of pumpkin filling, and vacuum before family arrives." That, and "are my clients' accounts ready for Black Friday, the busiest retail shopping day of the year?"

To ensure that you and your clients have a successful Black Friday, we wanted to use this Holiday Campaign Countdown post to share some quick last minute tips from our Optimization Specialists.

While Black Friday typically refers to in-store traffic, the retail industry has seen dramatic year over year increases in e-commerce sales and searches¹. Analysts have also pointed to significant spikes in online shopping on Cyber Monday. The Monday after Thanksgiving yields sales spikes for e-commerce retailers² and is fueled by promotions such as percent off sales, free gifts, and free shipping.

Our suggestions for any retail accounts (or others that might see this seasonal spike) before you leave the office for the Thanksgiving Holiday are:

1. Promotions - Be sure to highlight any promotions you have in your ad text whether they are Black Friday specific or not. If you have a discount on shipping or it is free, highlight this.
2. Budgets - Increase budgets across all campaigns to a comfortable level knowing that traffic spikes will be likely. Make sure ads keep showing when a user searches.
3. Bids – Modify bids on top performing and generic keywords knowing that competition on Black Friday/Cyber Monday will increase. Use the Bid Simulator to see what results you may get with different keyword maximum CPC bids, and consider using Conversion Optimizer to get as many profitable clicks as possible.

Happy Thanksgiving!

[1] MarketingVox
[2] National Retail Federation with BIGresearch, Black Friday Weekend, 12/2/08. *Excludes Cyber Monday.

Posted by Ben Sheldon, Agency Optimization Strategist

For most, the holiday season is about giving; for some, though, it's unfortunately about taking - through scams, identity theft and more. With the holidays approaching, many of you are beginning to update your ads and content for a busy marketing season. Are you also checking that your systems are updated with the latest security patches? Do you know who has access to your account(s)? Is your account information/passwords strong and secure?

As part of our holiday campaign countdown series, we're pleased to bring you a webinar on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 11amPST highlighting account security best practices and tips to keep your campaigns running smoothly during this busy time. In this training, we'll cover common security techniques, review ways to identify suspicious internet behavior and suggestions on the best ways to protect your computer and your personal information. Additionally, learn about an existing Google feature that allows you to better manage your account and thus improve your account security.

Date & Time: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 11amPST / 1pmCST / 2pmEST
Register here

Posted by Nina Hoang, Account Security Team

If you live in the New York area, you may have heard or seen the so-called "Google surge," or Google Content Network blast that NY Mayor Bloomberg used to impact voters' decisions in the final hours of the mayor's reelection race. An increasing number of advertisers across industries, including auto, retail, and entertainment, have also used Google Content Network blasts to drive awareness of a new vehicle launch, viewer tune-in for a show, or traffic to an online contest with great success.

The Google Content Network blast entails serving up an advertiser's ads on multiple Google Content Network sites over a specific period of time, blanketing a particular geographic region, audience segment, or high traffic sites, depending on the advertiser's goal. On average, blasts can deliver 100 million ad impressions in 24-48 hours. But you're probably wondering what is special about Google Content Network blasts versus your typical portal homepage buy?

Google Content Network blasts deliver your message on a larger universe of sites than a single portal homepage, thereby reaching more of your customers. In a recent Google and TNS Compete study for a large automaker¹, we found that Google Content Network blasts reach 58% of online auto buyers, which is 20% more than a top portal homepage², and 23% of buyers were reached exclusively on sites available only on the Google Content Network². In addition, 30% of auto buyers never went to one of the major portal homepages 6 to 9 months prior to purchasing their vehicle³. And the best part of all is Google Content Network blasts require no advance booking and deliver relevant ads at a much lower CPM than portal takeovers.

So, as we enter the peak holiday shopping season, consider how you're getting the word out on your merchandise and holiday offerings. Want to make a last minute big impression? Visit The Google Content Network site to learn more, and try out a Google Content Network blast for yourself.

1 Google, Inc. and TNS Compete study for large automaker, May 2009
2 Reach is based on a custom GCN site pack using a parameter of 2% buyer composition mix per site
3 Based on observed clickstream behavior of buyers

Posted by Keiko Tokuda, Google Content Network Marketing Team

For the sixth installment of the Holiday Campaign Countdown series, I am happy to share some tips on the Opportunities tab to ensure you're maximizing coverage for your clients this holiday season.

Opportunities tab serves as a central location for easy access to budget and keyword suggestions, as well as other AdWords tools you've used before.


The 'Budget Ideas' area will suggest you adjust your budget if your campaigns are missing out on valuable traffic due to budget constraints or increased click volume on keywords popular around the holidays. To help you decide, this section will demonstrate potential increased click and impression volume that would result from an increased investment.

The 'Keyword Ideas' area will provide automatically customized keyword suggestions based on your client's website, account information, and actual searches on Google.com. Like the budget suggestions, you will be able to see the traffic increase that would result from including additional keywords. Since some suggestions are based on actual searches performed on Google.com, you may find some cost-effective long tail keywords to add to your client's list. The tool will even suggest specific campaigns and ad groups in which to add these keywords. The best part is - you can add them right from the tab into the campaigns!

You'll also notice that other familiar AdWords tools are available on the Opportunities tab on the lower left hand side of the page.

You know your clients' businesses best - so please assess our suggestions with your clients' goals in mind.

Finally, visit this tab often - we'll be refreshing suggestions every few weeks and adding new features soon!

For additional information on the Opportunities tab, visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Erin McMahon, Agency Team

The snow showers which dusted the Northeast last week were a great (albeit chilly) reminder that the holidays will be here before we know it. To help keep your spirits warm, the fifth installment in our Holiday Campaign Countdown series brings you a gift that keeps on giving - daily holiday posts on the Google Retail blog, which will run through the end of 2009.

These posts will provide you with useful data to better understand consumer intentions and purchase trends so that you may refine your clients' marketing plans accordingly.

For a little taste of what's to come, check out the posts on holiday purchase trends to date and early bird vs. last minute shoppers data.

Interested in having these posts delivered right to your inbox? Subscribe to the Retail blog here.

Posted by Katie Wasilenko, Agency Marketing

For the fourth installment in our Holiday Campaign Countdown series, we reached out to our friends on the Google Product Search team for some quick, cost-effective tips for expanding clients' online presence during the holiday season. Here's what Vivek Tata, Product Marketing Manager, has to share:

Over the past few months, Google Product Search has released some great new features for both shoppers and merchants. Heading into the holiday season, we want to make sure our merchants have all the information needed to maximize the impact of data feeds. Here's a checklist to make sure you're set for the holidays.

• Submit all recommended and optional attributes, wherever they're relevant: Help shoppers make the best decisions by providing them with as much information as possible. For example, make sure you're submitting the UPC, Brand, and Product Type attributes.
• Use the Google Local Business Center to provide local store locations: Google Product Search is now showing local store locations in our search results, so make sure your clients are sending us this data. Also, if they do have local stores, make sure to include the "online only" attribute in the Product Search feed for any items they don't stock in stores.
• Send your clients' largest and highest-quality images: We're planning on experimenting with displays that use large images; products that have big, high-quality images will stand out. Please send us images that are at least 300x300 pixels, without resizing them.
• Track your traffic: Use Google Analytics or your favorite web analytics program to track your traffic.

For additional information, visit our site for merchants. You may also follow us on the Google Merchant Blog.

Thanks Vivek, and happy planning!

Posted by Katie Wasilenko, Agency Marketing

Helping your clients attract the right consumers this holiday season will be more important than ever, which is why for the third installment of the Holiday Campaign Countdown series, we'd like to invite you to the webinar "Think with Google: Consumer Intentions for Holiday 2009."

Join us as we share findings from new research on consumer plans for the 2009 holiday season and strategies agencies and marketers can take to better target and reach their customers.

During the webinar, we will discuss:

• How consumer behavior has changed and how shopping habits look headed into the holiday season
• What changing consumer behavior means for your search and online marketing strategies
• Recommendations for how to effectively target your audience

Details:
Tuesday, October 20th 2009
11amPST / 1pmCST / 2pmEST
Register here

Posted by Eric Lopez, Retail Marketing

Today, September 22nd, marks the start of fall, which means we're only 3 months away from the start of winter...and the winter holidays.

The Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team has another quick post to help you prepare your clients' accounts for the winter shopping season. This week we're featuring an oldie but goodie on driving in-store business with online marketing.

Earlier this year the Agency and Retail blog teams wrote about the success Pier 1 had using online marketing campaigns to increase in-store sales for select furniture lines. The client effectively used geographic targeting and the Google Content Network to improve sales and ROI for strategic DMAs, despite launching the campaign at the peak of the economic crisis.

How did the client achieve this success? The client recognized that the decision process is rarely made exclusively online or offline - users go back and forth between the Internet and stores to research, select, quality and purchase goods. Marketing efforts therefore needed to also be "non-line."[1] In addition, the client had a sound test design, including specific geographic targets and ROI goals, making it easy to measure impact and assess success.

To implement similar campaigns for your clients, check out resources for geographic targeting and the Google Content Network, or visit the Google Retail Advertising Blog.

[1] http://www.nonlinemarketing.com/

Posted by Katie Wasilenko, Agency Marketing

What's that? Is it the jingle of holiday bells and the smell of mincemeat pies? Probably not (more likely the ice cream truck and the next door neighbor's barbeque). However, before you know it, the holidays will be here and it is never too early to dig out the festive decorations and start planning seasonal campaigns with your clients.

To help you along, we will be regularly posting seasonally-focused resources and strategies through the next few months, starting with key dates:

1. Mark Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday on your calendars

Source: comScore Press Release, December 3, 2008

Instead of relaxing on the couch watching football games, customers are working off the Tryptophan by searching for early holiday deals. Their enthusiasm continues through the weekend to Cyber Monday, where they start the work week off with a round of e-retail therapy.

2. Don't Forget Green Monday


Source: comScore Press Release, December 21, 2008. Includes top 10 online spending days of 2008 holiday season through December 20th.

Also be sure to mark Green Monday on your calendar - typically seen as the last day for customers to order gifts online without having to pay for expedited shipping.

Want more retail tips? Visit the Google Retail Blog or follow the Retail Team on Twitter.

Posted by Katie Wasilenko, Agency Marketing