With the challenging retail environment continuing unabated through 2023 and sale promotions becoming almost BAU for many companies, the average CEO is asking their CMO to plan a themed sale week like Cyber Week in 2024. You may ask if you still need it.
Based on the latest 2023 Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotion data, the answer is a resounding yes. Online sales during Cyber Week, which includes the five days following Thanksgiving, increased 7.8% from last year, with Cyber Monday alone generating $12.4 billion in e-commerce sales, according to Abode Analytics.
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For many brands, paid digital marketing has been a big part of driving traffic, but this is inevitably coupled with the ongoing challenge of converting buyers into sales once they arrive on the platform. . However, this market moves quickly and staying on top of the latest ROI opportunities is always a challenge.
The largest channels used include Google's P-MAX (Pmax), Google Search, Meta, Bing, and newcomer TikTok.
Neil Andrew, CEO and Founder of Lunio, said: This holiday season saw the first significant change in clicks across campaigns, with more marketers relying on automation platforms to quickly scale campaigns and improve bid management efficiency. Andrew said: “More retailers are moving a large portion of their advertising budgets to Google's P-MAX (Pmax) and are seeing improved campaign performance when compared to Google Search. I understand.'' The data we're seeing shows that the movement toward PPC automation will only gain momentum as we gear up for more holiday sales in 2025. ”
So what can CMOs learn from this for the rest of the critical Christmas season?
Monitoring invalid traffic
Average invalid traffic rate continues to be a big consideration for advertisers as well. Andrew says this needs to be considered by many digital marketers ahead of the rest of the holiday season. Advertisers investing heavily in non-Google channels like Bing and TikTok should be aware of significant spikes in invalid activity during peak seasonal periods. Advertisers who invest heavily in meta without an IVT prevention system in place can be exposed to a significant degree of ad spend inefficiency, or worse, wasted ad spend, resulting in poor ROI and This can negatively impact the overall effectiveness of your campaign. ”
When monitoring for signs of invalid activity during peak seasonal periods, there are a few things to keep in mind:
Average session time is less than 5 seconds
Low dwell time may indicate that your landing page isn't responding to the user's search intent. Or it could indicate an influx of bots.
Traffic peaks and low conversion rates
If you're seeing significant peaks in traffic, but not a corresponding spike in conversions, it's time to investigate.
Malicious bots are now an important consideration. Advances in automation and AI have made invalid traffic increasingly sophisticated over the past three years. His sophisticated IVTs are better at mimicking real human behavior, making them much more difficult to detect and thus increasing the average rates observed on advertising platforms.
According to Andrew Turner, managing director at Incubeta, optimizing paid media performance during seasonal demand spikes is considered mission-critical for many CMOs. “A relatively small drop in conversion rate during the busiest period of the year is meeting revenue goals. Bots automatically detect and block traffic so that ad spend has true purchase intent.” You become more focused on your audience.”
There is little economic incentive for ad networks to aggressively police more sophisticated IVT. Also, the advent of tools like ChatGPT has made it much easier for potential malicious actors to create bots with very limited coding/technical abilities, leading to an increase in the level of ambient It's possible. Invalid online activity.
According to Paul Oates, Head of Performance Media at Forge Holiday Group, before implementing the invalid traffic solution, metrics such as conversion rates were inconsistent from month to month. “Many factors go into determining these performance metrics, and the noise created by bots arriving on your site can make it difficult to optimize your landing pages to improve the customer experience,” Oates said. By proactively blocking bot clicks, Sykes Holiday Cottages achieves more stable and predictable growth across its most important paid media channels, and ensures that the metrics it reports You can now have 100% confidence that only actions are considered. ”
On-page targeting and UX improvements
You should also focus on optimizing your landing pages. It doesn't matter how persuasive your ad copy is or how well-optimized your campaign is. If your landing page isn't built from scratch, it's just going to sit idle (and waste a lot of money in the process). Google is believed to judge the quality of a landing page based on parameters such as relevance, originality of content, transparency, and ease of navigation.
Automated campaign types rely heavily on on-page keyword placement on landing pages to reach the right audience. This potentially means CMOs need to start focusing more on:
Deal with landing pages that have a bounce rate of 90% or higher
PPC landing pages usually have very high bounce rates, but anything above 90% may warrant further investigation.
Improved on-page targeting
A solid landing page will make it clear what your product is and who it's aimed at. Don't try to target multiple audiences on one page.
Adjusting campaign goals
Make sure your PPC campaign goals match your landing page conversion goals. Are your customers getting the results you expected?
UX optimization
A lightning-fast landing page with an intuitive and engaging user experience increases the chances of your ad being shown. To maximize spend efficiency, you should aim to devote 25-30% of your overall PPC budget to landing page and conversion rate optimization. ”
It's clear to most CMOs that they need to continually improve their paid digital marketing to drive a consistent amount of high-quality traffic that converts. It is clear that things are always changing and new technologies and approaches are being developed. So staying up to date on the latest opportunities to hone your approach and improve your ROI is key to making the most of your learnings over the Christmas period and beyond.
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