PPC-easonal planning with Google Adwords

Get up to speed

It’s that time of year again where holiday shopping is at its highest and with recent updates, we have been benefitting from over the weeks, shopping campaigns are now looking better than ever.

So, what’s new in the industry? Until now, Google has disapproved product listing ads when sellers had variances between price or stock availability amongst their product feed and the microdata on their website.

In order to help keep sellers visible for Google shopping campaign results, they have launched automatic item updates.

When merchants enable automatic item updates, Google will then automatically update the price and inventory availability displayed in shopping campaign ads, rather than disapproving them when there is an inconsistency found.

Please keep in mind however that this is not a sure way that your ads will show 100% of the time, but a way in which can limit the disapprovals!

Holiday campaigns – how to tackle them

With the run up to Christmas, there are several holidays in which retailers go mad for. E-commerce websites are in their element with the Google shopping campaigns around this time of year, but what about ordinary search campaigns targeting the holidays coming up?

When it comes to pay per click advertising, there are many ways to tackle the holidays. Ensure to plan in advance is always a good starting point. Create new campaigns specifically for the themed products or services, or split them out by individual public holiday.

Both of these methods are a proven effective way of retaining control over budget, cost per click, ad positioning and overall PPC management.

What’s next on the calendar – Halloween

So now that we have understanding of the preparation needed for the seasonal campaigns under way, what’s next on the calendar?

With Halloween fast approaching, you don’t have to be a fancy dress retailer to reap the benefits. Come up with ideas for campaigns and target your keywords to utilise the occasion.

Find offers on your website, or if you are a PPC account manager looking after the account on behalf of your client, liaise with the client to discuss seasonal offers.

Halloween can prove to be an impulsive time for shoppers, as when they are browsing for costumes and sweets, they often come across items which they had not seen but would like to purchase for everyday use.

Tip: use site link extensions to enhance your ads by providing additional pages from the website. This can also set your advert apart from competitors by taking up additional ad space.

Black Friday – Black November

Coming up in all marketers’ calendars has to be what is known as ‘Black Friday.’  Black Friday is the Friday following Thanksgiving over in the states, and is regarded the starting line for Christmas shopping.

Google released in one of their recent blog posts last week that Black Friday is becoming a month-long event. With this in mind, the PPC management strategy should look at running month-long campaigns with offers to make the most out of their search campaigns, shopping campaigns, display, mobile and remarketing campaigns.