This week’s PPC Chat session was hosted by Duane Brown where he discussed about Black Friday, the biggest North American holiday of the year and it’s preparation work.
Q1. Summer is half over… how are your summer goals going? Anything coming up special in August?
Goals, not exactly. but I bought a house! a whole actual house. coming up special – packing and moving (and paperwork!) @JuliaVyse
Summer… half way over already? Feels like it has just started. Oh I never set any goals for a specific season. @StephanieErne
We haven’t set summer goals for client campaigns, but things are overall going well for our main PPC clients’ campaigns. @marccxmedia
Um, my kids helped me reach my family deductible on my health insurance, does that count? @JonKagan
Q2. Who has started to talk about Black Friday (BF)?… could be just with yourself, wider team or if you are agency side…with your client.
I’ll be mostly lurking today since my clients tend to go quiet during Black Friday (joys of a B2B/SaaS/Lead Gen specialization). But as a consumer, I have given zero thought to it. Still feels like the summer has barely started! @akaEmmaLouise
I haven’t it’s still early @markpgus
Not yet. I think the last 2 years or so Black Friday began being picked-up a bit more in Holland. But it is nowhere near the same level as in the USA. Good to have on in the scope though and discuss with clients if they are ‘participating’ this year. @StephanieErne
We’ve started talking about it to ensure we have the right inventory levels and promotions running. From an execution standpoint, we’ll start talking about it 30 days before. @jessesem
No chatter about Black Friday yet, more so because it might pertain to one (if not two) clients, given their business/industry. @marccxmedia
I finally got the team in a stable enough mental state from last Black Friday to start discussing it this week. @JonKagan
Black Friday is part of larger holiday efforts for our retail clients, so it’s in there, but it and Cyber Monday are just touchpoints in a larger discussion (that yes, is already happening). @CountXero
Black Friday is big for my industry (NonProfit Fundraising) as it coincides w #GivingTuesday. We get the bulk of our sales during Oct-Dec. We usu turn up our GAds and run promotionals. @KantJungRand
Q3. What’s your process starting when you do start to plan for BF 2019? Do you look at last year’s data at all?
For me this year it is letting the clients know it is coming up / introducing it and see if we can tag along. @StephanieErne
Yep, we look at last years and determine what products are apples to apples YOY so we can determine impact with the new ones. @JonKagan
If there’s any relevant historical data, we review what we have access to, discuss/plan with the client, and work on rolling the campaign out in a timely manner. @marccxmedia
We absolutely look at last years’ data to not only serve as a baseline, but also to find trends that we couldn’t tackle in the moment last year. The output can be new ads, new landers, new offers, changes in timing, etc. @CountXero
Q4. Any interesting successes you saw last year, that you want to try and build on this year? Sharing is caring in 2019?
This may seem CRAZY but we found BF/CM messaging did really well in December as a test. People seemed to love to click on it more and it drove sales too! @duanebrown
If you are like me and love your ecom and retail clients. EDITD should be a must read! Love their take on Black Friday: they did a nice Amazon Prime Day piece too. @duanebrown
YouTube masthead takeovers 14-30 days before BFCM perform well for audience building. @jessesem
Q5. What do you hope to see out of BF/CM this year? Could be a feature from tech/ad platforms or maybe you have a wish for your clients. We are less then 4 months away from BF!?
This would never happen ….I wish we could get real time data from all the ad platforms during the BF/CM long weekend…. that would be super amazing! @duanebrown
This will sound odd, but my hope is that the importance of BF/CM in the retail strategy continues to fade. It’s been happening for years, but it needs to continue. It’s an artificial starting point for some brands that needs to be broken. @CountXero
Well for this one, lets start with some participating clients and then of course an effect on their sales. @StephanieErne
PPCChat Participants:
- Duane Brown @duanebrown
- Stephanie Erne @StephanieErne
- Jon Kagan @JonKagan
- Jesse Semchuck @jessesem
- Emma Franks @akaEmmaLouise
- Jeff Ferguson @CountXero
- Mark Gustafson @markpgus
- Julia Vyse @JuliaVyse
- Marccx Media @marccxmedia
- Eric @KantJungRand
Related Links:
- Merkle | Q2 2019 Digital Marketing Report | Key Highlights
- 7 Ways To Optimize Your Amazon Ads Performance
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