How Retailers Can Smash Black Friday with PPC

In 2018 shoppers spent just over £7 billion in the UK over the Cyber Weekend, and most of that money was spent on mobile devices. According to Forbes, mobile devices accounted for 67% of all mobile traffic during Cyber Week and took 49% of the order share.

Now we have hit you with some stats, what does this actually mean for you, the retailer? How can you be prepared for an awesome Black Friday, and make the most of your online presence?

Here are our top 6 tips for a seamless Cyber Weekend:

1. It’s a given that every year there will be some retailers whose websites will go down.

Websites go down during this time because they don’t have the bandwidth to cope with the surge in traffic. We cannot stress this enough – shoppers want to give you their money. They are trawling the internet to find deals and have been probably holding off spending on the run up to this weekend so they can really go all out.

It’s of paramount importance for you to make sure you have the right bandwidth to ensure you have minimal downtime and maximise revenue during the inevitable surge.

2. Nothing makes a shopper angrier than a slow website.

Do your preparation now in advance to make sure you have the best user experience. If it is too slow, users will go elsewhere to spend their hard-earned cash. Google report that most consumers expect a website to load within a single second. 40% of shoppers will abandon your site if it takes longer than three seconds to load. How much lost revenue does that mean?

3. Plan your deals well in advance.

If you prepare as much as you can, it is possible to have a seamless Black Friday. Your agency will be having these conversations with you well in advance (if not, consider a new award-winning agency ????) and they will need to know:

• Exact timings for your offers to run
• Any assets for banners etc.
• Landing pages
• Discount codes
• Have full access to any accounts, Facebook, Google Ads, Merchant Centre etc.

Things will more than likely change during that period, or the run up to, but for an agency, establishing the foundations is invaluable.

4. Communication, communication, communication

Involve your team in all Cyber conversations and any changes that will impact your digital strategy, because they need to know. Your team will be available during the run up and on the day, so keep all communications open so they can take action to make sure you get the best out of your marketing.

5. Never ran Black Friday campaigns before?

Well, there’s no time like the present. Black Friday used to be seen as just an event for ecommerce websites, but as Black Friday grows year on year, consumers want anything with a discount. This goes for service-based businesses as well; perhaps a discounted offer on a club joining fee? A percentage off a package? Discounted trial?

Perhaps you only run Paid Social? This would be the perfect time to run some PPC campaigns and for them to show their worth.

PPC can give you instant exposure and is built to drive relevant traffic to the correct landing page and drive the sale at that crucial moment. A fully tailored PPC strategy will make huge impacts on your revenue; a combination of Search, Shopping (if applicable) and Display delivering the right message at the right time will really pack a punch to your bottom line.

6. Keep an eye out to what your competitors are doing.

Be prepared to change your offers to be more competitive if your biggest rival suddenly drops prices or if they activate their offers earlier than expected. Your agency will be used to being reactive and flexible during this time, so they will be on standby (check back to number 3).

It is in a PPC’er’s DNA to keep an eye on the bigger picture; if we see something that you should be doing like your industry peers are, or even something your competitor isn’t doing that could work to your advantage, we will be on it.

It is very hard to know what budget your competitors have assigned for the peak season, but with our monitoring of the search landscape and Auction Insight Reports we will be the strongest tool in your Black Friday box – giving you the advice and guidance you need to smash Q4.

Our PPC team have the knowledge and experience to know what works, what to look out for and what to avoid. 

Platform81 are full service digital agency. Contact us today to start your next digital project.