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11 Ways to Sell More with PPC for Valentine's Day

By Tinuiti Team

The average consumer spends roughly $166 dollars every Valentine’s, which isn’t surprising since 53% of women polled noted they’d end a relationship if they don’t get something from their significant other during the romantic holiday.

Valentine’s Day may seem like a minor holiday juxtaposed with Christmas, but for retailers Valentine’s generates roughly $13 billion in annual spending. To get the most Valentines day sales possible, optimize your Paid Search campaigns for more clicks and sales online.

Below are 10 tips to maximize revenue for Valentines day with your AdWords PPC campaigns.


11 Ways to Get More out of AdWords PPC For Valentine’s Day

For online and offline retailers Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to boost store branding, increase conversions, expand customer base, get more visibility on search, and even a chance to get additional retargeting opportunities. Consider some easy ways to increase

Consider some easy ways to increase sales for your online store below.

1) Get Your AdWords Ads Started Early

As with all things retail (and arguably life), the sooner you get started the better off you’ll be. Many e-commerce retailers get started for Q4 in January. Valentine’s is a little less high volume, but advertisers should similarly get a head start on the season.

Consider the search below (done in January) for ‘Valentine’s gifts’:

PPC Valentines tips for AdWords advertisers

Getting ads up early will help you in terms of sales opportunities and visibility, but it’s also particularly helpful for comprehensive reporting, and allows you to retarget prior to and during the entire Valentine’s sale season.

If you end up getting started late on your Valentine’s Day ads, it’s likely still worth the time to squeeze some juice out of last minute shoppers- just consider those shopper habits when setting up your campaigns.

2) Review last Years PPC Metrics

PPC reporting capabilities within AdWords are impressive, to say the least. Set yourself up for 2014 Valentine’s Day success- review 2013 best sellers, overall performance, device usage, and correlating metrics before you set up your 2014 Valentine’s campaign ad groups.

Don’t forget to review your competitors performance from last year, in addition to your metrics and the Valentine’s market.

Below are some of the top items which sold last year for Valentine’s Day:

2013 Valentines Best Sellers

If you are a retailer which sells items that are popular during Valentines (consider the list below) it’s particularly important that you look back on previous performance to leverage items which sell well during the holiday.

Popular Valentines Gifts

If you don’t sell Valentine’s items, consider featuring a Valentine’s related sale, or encouraging Valentine’s gifts that are unique.

3) Optimize Valentine’s PPC Keywords

Shoppers use specific searches during different shopping seasons. Research Valentine’s queries, and develop a keyword strategy for your PPC ads targeted for Valentine’s Day.

Consider keywords for Valentines related products and services, but don’t forget to consider terms which are Valentine’s Day related such as ‘when is Valentine’s day?’

Below are the top 5 searches from 2013 Valentine’s season:

1) Valentines day meals
2) DIY Valentine’s gifts
3) Valentines day drinks
4) Valentines day baskets
5) Valentines day treats

It’s also key that you identify your specific persona for Valentine’s Day. Based on your store, your customers and your target market- who do you want to target for the holiday?

Don’t forget that many family members and friends gift Valentines items to one another. Set your keywords up to take advantage of all Valentine’s purchases, with separate ad groups and keyword campaigns:

AdWords PPC valentines

4) Enable Location and Call Extensions

Compared to traditional online shoppers, Valentine’s day shoppers are more likely to purchase items in-store. Cross device promotion, and information to boost in-store sales from your online ads is key.

Location extensions are heavily utilized by B&M retailers who want to push shoppers to stores, and Google notes that location extension generate a 10% clickthrough rate increase. For holiday’s with high shopping volume and the opportunity to reach new customers-

For holiday’s with high shopping volume and the opportunity to reach new customers, location extensions provide the location of your store, and your phone number right in your AdWords ads:

Adwords location extensions PPC

Modify your location extensions by campaign, and refine them with Geo-targeting to further parse data and increase click throughs.

PPC Call Extensions for Valentines

Almost half (43%)of shoppers have called an advertiser by clicking a phone extension. Call extensions put your business number right at the fingertips of prospective customers, with a click to call button:

PPC-adwords-call-extensions

For new shoppers, or those who are less accustomed to online shopping (and more familiar with mobile browsing), this is a great resource to push people to brick and mortar stores and to bolster phone sales.

Be sure you are recording phone sales and cross-device activity to accurately attribute Valentine’s Day sales, and improve PPC campaigns for the remainder of the year.

5) Be Mobile Ready

The majority of US shoppers own a smartphone, and 80% of global shoppers noted plans to make a mobile purchase this year.  Moreover Men purchase items on their phones more regularly- 56% of the time on average, and are more likely to spend more on mobile (39% said they spend $50 or more on average per month).

Ensure you are setup to optimize mobile target with Geotargeting, and that your ads are mobile optimized.

AdWords PPC mobile copy

Ensure you are setup to optimize mobile target with Geotargeting.

For more info on the different kinds of AdWords extensions, check out our Retailer’s Guide to AdWords Extensions.

6) Send Shoppers To Valentines Pages

Many online store’s feature specific landing pages for Valentines Day, and specific Valentines Day products. Valentine’s Day landing pages in PPC ads have the advantage of looking more relevant to online shoppers, and  have the all important feature of leading consumers to relevant pages.AdWords PPC landing pages

Recycle common Valentine’s landing page terms (e.g. Romantic, Gift, Love) to boost clickthrough rate.

7) Romanticize PPC Ad Copy

According to l study of Valentines day spending, men spend on average $123 more than women for Valentine’s gifts. If you’re selling to men- consider the queries they will search, and the ad copy which will appeal to that demographic. 

Here are some common terms for Valentines ad copy:

Remember that even if you don’t sell items which specifically fall within the valentines day purview, you can still leverage ad copy to boost clicks and sales during the holiday:

AdWords PPC Valentines ad copy

If you’re struggling with ad copy, do some searches for competitor items, and Valentines gifts to get some inspiration.

8) Target Demographics

Demographic targeting with AdWords allows advertisers to target key types of shoppers based on attributes. Once you’ve identified your Valentine’s Day market, segment them based on gender, age, and parental status. In July, Google also enabled household income targeting, which is also a useful demographic target to consider.

For those male shoppers who purchase more, and have a higher AOV- you may want to set up a gender target with higher bids and budget. Or if you’re targeting parents purchasing Valentine’s items for children, consider an age target with increased ad bids and budget.

9) Edit Your PPC Valentines Budget

As with any holiday, PPC bids and competition will increase. AdWords advertisers will be increasing budgets for the Valentine’s day season, both with an overall PPC budget, and for specific campaign and ad group budget and bidding levels.

Depending on your store and budget,  increase bids and budget for key campaigns.Consider aggressive bidding higher for last minute Valentine’s Day keywords and shoppers if you  have a vertical that fits within that demographic.

10) Run Valentines Day Promotions

People love sales, and any excuse to get a sale is a good one. Even if you don’t sell Valentine’s Day specific products, you can still run a Valentine’s Day sale, and highlight that promotion in your PPC ads.

Adwords-ppc-sales

 

11)  Remarket

Holiday’s bring in an influx of new shoppers, and people willing to try a new online store to fill a specific need. Remarketing (retargeting) allows advertisers to harness those visitors (whether they’ve purchased something or not) with specific, relevant ads.

Set up Valentine’s Day specific Dynamic remarketing campaigns with Google ads for shoppers who have interacted with your store to boost sales following the season and to boost customer longevity.

For Google AdWords best practices, check out Google’s AdWords optimization suggesions.

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