{"id":16200,"date":"2021-12-03T22:54:45","date_gmt":"2021-12-03T21:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.makingscience.com\/?p=16200"},"modified":"2021-12-03T22:54:45","modified_gmt":"2021-12-03T21:54:45","slug":"how-prepare-your-programmatic-strategy-for-the-december-holiday-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.makingscience.com\/us\/blog\/how-prepare-your-programmatic-strategy-for-the-december-holiday-season\/","title":{"rendered":"How to prepare your programmatic strategy for the December holiday season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Black Friday and Cyber Monday (and the related discounts and promotional campaigns) are over.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s time to <\/span><b>start preparing our programmatic actions for the most important giving season of the year: Christmas.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<h2>Why start so early?<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These days, Christmas shopping begins earlier and earlier, especially in the USA. Based on studies by Statista, this shopping season can start as early as September-some shoppers even start earlier! In the USA in 2020, roughly 40% of Christmas buyers <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">completed<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> their shopping before the end of October, while only 15% of regular consumers start in December.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Our gift to you<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">? In the spirit of the season, we\u2019re going to gift you <\/span><b>the main insights and customer behavior that you will indeed to adapt your digital strategy<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, beginning with the following practical recommendations:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Prioritize the established budget and efforts<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for the two weeks prior to the beginning of Christmas. This period is fundamental due to the fact that 21% of Christmas shopping happens here.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Focus on the message and the look &amp; feel of our activities<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. A message with a clear call to action, with references to this period, helps us to improve interest and user experience.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Competition increases dramatically during the whole month of December<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. CPM prices increase due to high demand, so we must prepare our budgets accordingly.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">McKinsey studies confirm that <\/span><b>many consumers are seeking holiday inspiration to their shopping decisions on social media. The most influential platforms are Facebook (67%), Youtube (57%) and Instagram (52%).<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Possible <\/span><b>shortage of supply + delivery delays are<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> forcing many consumers to be more proactive about their online shopping. We must be transparent and provide\u00a0 shoppers clear information about stock and the possibility of delays.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>How do you accomplish it?<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now that we\u2019ve considered the panorama and main insights, we\u2019re prepared to plan our digital marketing strategies. Some actions that we can apply to make sure our programmatic campaigns are remarkable include the following:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Make the most of our audience lists, especially those who have interacted with us most recently. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Be sure to include Black Friday and Cyber Monday converters, so as to study users\u2019 profiles and purchase behavior through the audience analysis module. Audiences originating from our Adserver, Data Management Platforms or Customer Relationship Management tools let us create custom, effective campaigns.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Coherently use third party data<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: it\u2019s very important to find qualified users, categorized on strict criteria and in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (especially if you have international customers).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Closing direct agreements with Top Publishers<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> helps us to gain users according to certain online behaviors, and in accordance with our historical users.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Recommend formats<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: We want to attract the customers that are able to understand our philosophy and promotions. The best way is by crafting a journey wherein the user has multiple creative touchpoints within the same advertising action.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here we have two options:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Storytelling for display formats\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Video sequences for Youtube\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here we highlight <\/span><b>Native<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> creatives due to their high conversion rates, as they are non-invasive to the user because they adapt to different formats and editorial styles. Moreover, it is and easy way to reach a much wider public, thus improving the brand reputation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These are only some basic tips. There are practically an infinite number of ways to achieve our<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">goals within the programmatic environment. Display &amp; Video 360, like other DSPs, manage a very large inventory. However, the results of our campaigns depends in great measure on our planning and ability to optimize our resources.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Black Friday and Cyber Monday (and the related discounts and promotional campaigns) are over.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to start preparing our programmatic actions for the most important giving season of the year: Christmas.\u00a0 Why start so early? These days, Christmas shopping begins earlier and earlier, especially in the USA. Based on studies by Statista, this shopping [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":15940,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[494,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insight-strategy","category-performance"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makingscience.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makingscience.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makingscience.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.makingscience.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.makingscience.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.makingscience.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.makingscience.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makingscience.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.makingscience.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.makingscience.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}