The holiday season remains one of the biggest and best opportunities for eCommerce. Kickstart your Meta ad campaign with early planning and data analysis and wrap it all up with promos and testing.

Ecommerce Holiday Planning: 5 Expert Insights

It’s no secret that social media marketing for the holidays is its own beast. Thankfully, it can be tamed. As the most competitive time of the year, marketers need to be prepared with a smart ad campaign strategy to keep up with the giving season. Ecommerce brands are uniquely positioned to see boosted sales through January since conversion rates are high at this time if they have a solid marketing plan. 

A successful holiday shopping season takes early planning, building a clear strategy, and crafting stand-out shopper experiences. So without further ado, let’s get into our top eCommerce holiday planning tips to become your audience’s go-to for all their gifts.

1. Analyze Your Holiday Data 

One of the best ways to optimize your holiday ads is by taking a hard look at the data from your previous holiday campaigns. Consider aspects like the type of products you featured, when audiences engaged the most, and compare your conversion rates against ad spend. We also suggest brands make good use of Meta’s Conversions APIs, which can be set up with various integrations in just a few clicks. 

The Conversions API connects marketing data from your website, CRM, or server to Meta and helps to enhance ad personalization and measurement. Here are some of our favorite benefits of using Meta’s Conversion API:

• Reduces your cost per action as a result of improved connectivity.
• Improves ads for actions that occur later in your customer’s journey.
• Gives you more control over what you share and when you share it.
• Optimizes measurements to help you better understand how digital ads impact offline and online results. 

2. Prepare a Marketing Calendar 

A marketing calendar is a living document that maps out all the marketing activities and big holidays, and every brand should have one. When it comes to eCommerce holiday planning, creating a calendar for your ads can be a game changer by ensuring you don’t miss an opportunity for big sales. 

It’s best to start prepping long before the holidays to account for the early bird shoppers on the hunt for deals. Plus, holiday sales represent about 20% of annual sales across most industries, thanks to the high demands starting after Black Friday. With all these components, a marketing calendar is integral to keeping brands on track for success.

3. Leverage Macro Trends

Staying on top of your industry’s macro trends can build credibility and result in higher engagement. 

For example, beauty brands jumped on the self-care trend by focusing on skin health and calming spa-like products. We’ve also seen the boom of WFH comforts in tech and fashion as remote jobs started to rise. 

When leveraging trends in your industry, be sure to make it unique for your specific brand by taking your distinct offering and relating it back to something bigger that matters to your target audience. 

4. Be Smart About Promos 

Brands should always have a clear strategy behind their promos, especially during the holidays. An attractive sale or discount can boost short-term sales and conversions across the board, but be sure that your sale makes financial sense for the length it’s running and your profit margins. 

Aside from your typical 25% off discount (which can work well), there are other options to consider during your eCommerce holiday planning: 

• Free Gift: Who doesn’t love free stuff? A complimentary gift can be a perfect way to drive more sales.
• Free Shipping: Try offering free shipping to generate more incentive for your audience to purchase.
• Free Gift Wrapping: Consumers will need to wrap their purchases anyway, so including free gift-wrapping with the press of a button can be a plus.
• Charity Donations: Consider pledging a percentage of sales to go towards a charity. You’ll be doing a good deed for those in need, while also allowing your consumers to be a part of it.

5. Test it All Out 

Businesses that aren’t testing their ads could be undermining the power of their content. If you want to discover the best type of ads for your consumers, we suggest brands test different versions. Try switching up the copy, testing video vs. images,  and even the schedule of your Meta ads to see which works best for your goals. 

Meta Ads Manager makes this process much more simple by letting you create multivariate A/B tests with detailed results. You can also try testing at the ad campaign level, ad set level, and ad level to cover all your bases. Once you’ve completed some basic testing, you can identify the best-performing ad creatives to boost CPAs and see the results you’re striving for.

Kickstart Your Ecommerce Holiday Planning 

The holidays can be a stressful time for brands, but they don’t have to be! The experts at Social Ktchn can help you make the right choices for your eCommerce holiday planning.

Our team at Social Ktchn will work closely with you to pinpoint your holiday goals and craft effective campaigns that stand out. As the mom-and-pop shop of paid social media ads, Social Ktchn gives you the tools and guidance to grow your brand.

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