IVAN: Hello, and welcome to our seasonal special for comparison
shopping services.
My name is Ivan.
SARAH: My name is Sarah.
IVAN: And we're shopping specialists here
at Google's headquarters in Dublin.
In today's webinar, we'll be focusing on seasonal guidance
for the retail season ahead.
SARAH: Let's have a look at what we'll cover today.
Firstly, we will double check on what
we need to be retail-ready on for any pre-Black Friday
campaign or feed updates.
Then, we will explore seasonal peaks and potential trends
across the festive period.
Lastly, we will cover some tips on setting seasonal bids
and budgets.
Let's start by double checking that we are retail-ready.
IVAN: As we come into the final days
before Black Friday and Cyber Monday,
let's make sure that we're prepared
for a successful seasonal period.
We can do this by making sure our product feeds
are up-to-date and live, by optimizing our campaigns
for retail peaks, and by leveraging seasonal campaigns.
SARAH: Firstly, double check your merchant's feeds.
Make sure your merchants submit older products
to merchant center with enough time
to resolve any issues and reviews.
Then double check for any disapproved items
by reviewing merchant center diagnostics
and resolving data issues or policy violations.
Lastly, highlight any seasonal sales
your merchants have with sale price annotations.
IVAN: Next up, let's make sure your merchant's campaigns are
ready.
Check the inventory filter setting
in your merchant's campaigns to ensure that no products are
being excluded.
Review negative keywords and negative
match types to ensure that they are not
blocking relevant traffic.
And lastly, where possible, make use
of remarketing lists and similar audiences across all shopping
ads campaigns.
SARAH: If your merchants have priority products
that they want to promote, you can create a priority campaign.
To do this, create a new campaign for their priority
products with a healthy budget, as these products
are very important.
In Settings, set the campaign priority to high,
then use high bids to boost ad position of these products.
You could then also create a catch-all campaign,
which includes all of your merchant's products.
The purpose of this campaign is to advertise
their entire inventory at a very low bid
for any additional queries.
To create a catch-all campaign, create a new campaign
for all products with a small budget.
Set the campaign priority to low, and use low bids.
IVAN: Now, let's take a look at seasonality and trends.
Here, we'll cover key dates across the seasonal period,
including the ramp up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Then we'll see what we can expect around
the seasonal peaks in the lead up to the holidays,
and lastly, we'll briefly touch on post-holiday sales.
SARAH: This is our seasonal calendar with key retail dates.
As you can see, there's a lot of opportunity
for retail success with multiple peaks throughout the remainder
of the quarter and into Q1.
IVAN: For now, let's focus on Black Friday.
Queries will already have started to ramp up
and will peak on the 23rd of November.
This is considered the biggest shopping day of the year
by some, depending on your market.
Queries will continue to increase throughout the weekend
and through to Cyber Monday, focusing
on terms around Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Cyber
Week, and the weekend, as well as deals, sales, and offers.
Interestingly, Black Friday has evolved over the years
as an opportunity for consumers to indulge in self-gifting,
with more holiday gift buying taking place later
in the quarter.
SARAH: When it comes to managing your merchant's campaigns,
prepare for a sudden spike in queries on Black Friday,
and make sure your merchant's campaigns have ample budgets
to cater for this demand.
Check campaigns regularly to ensure
they are not limited by budget, causing them
to accidentally turning off.
Expect continued demand over cyber weekend,
and keep campaigns on and budgets high.
Lastly, anticipate continued activity on Monday,
as shoppers search for extra deals.
IVAN: Post Black Friday, we move into
the seasonal retail peaks--
often associated with holiday gifting and specific category
research, rather than a demand for deals and sales.
Anticipate queries for specific goods and items
such as perfume, jewelry, toys, brand terms, and so on.
SARAH: After cyber weekend, we can anticipate
a small short-term dip in queries, but not
for too long, as queries around gift ideas
begin to rise steadily into the week commencing December 10th.
Here, we will see a heavy increase in retail activity,
as consumers' attention turn to gift buying.
Ensure your merchants are ready for this increase
by preparing budgets and campaigns.
This will continue into the week of December 17th,
with an anticipated week of traffic
driven by last minute shoppers searching for holiday gifts.
IVAN: Lastly, post holiday sales will begin sharply.
For many, this will begin from the 26th already.
Ensure a strategy is in place for your merchants
to allocate budget and switch campaigns
on for this final seasonal peak.
SARAH: Now, let's take a look at trends
across the retail seasons.
Firstly, we'll review Black Friday
versus wider seasonal demand.
Then we'll show you how Google Trends can help you
and your merchants identify consumer demand around location
and retail category.
We'll explore the impact that improvements in online delivery
is having on last minute gifting.
Let's start by looking at the difference between Black Friday
demand and overall seasonal interest.
IVAN: Black Friday is a one-off seasonal peak
of demand on and around Friday 23rd, November,
for deals and offers spanning multiple retail categories.
However, the term "seasonal interest"
refers to a wide breadth of seasonal demand spanning
the festive retail period and multiple retail categories.
SARAH: This data here based, on Q4 UK retail activity in 2017,
shows us the difference in consumer behavior
around Black Friday, versus the general seasonal period.
As we can see, many retail categories
do well across both Black Friday and the seasonal peaks.
However, a few select categories may fare better
around certain periods.
Televisions, home appliances, and personal health
and electronics, for example, see a real boost in demand
across Black Friday, as consumers look for bargains
around consumer electronics.
Comparatively, gifts, toys, and fragrance peak
with overall seasonal interest as we
move towards the holiday season.
Using this data, we can conclude that categories
perform differently throughout the retail season.
Merchants may benefit from considering
how seasonal peaks relate to their retail category
when setting their budgets for the coming weeks.
Next, we'll look at how to produce similar insights using
Google Trends.
IVAN: Here is Google Trends data for the UK
looking at queries for Black Friday, jewelry, and toys.
As we can see here, Black Friday queries
are in a slight decline year over year,
whilst toy and jewelry queries remain steady,
with demand extending past Black Friday.
Based on this information, if a merchant
was selling either toys or jewelry,
they may wish to invest in a Black Friday campaign,
but also ensure they have budgets and campaigns
ready for demand around the holiday peaks,
especially for the jewelry category.
SARAH: Now, let's take a look at France.
Black Friday queries were up significantly in 2017,
year over year.
Given its recent growth, it is a little tricky
to be certain of what impact Black Friday will have
on jewelry and toys, but both categories
have typically peaked later on towards the quarter.
Again, in this instance, a merchant
may want to ensure there is budget available for later
seasonal peaks, but also be prepared for the possibility
that Black Friday may have a greater impact this year.
IVAN: Comparatively, in Germany, we can see that jewelry
and toy categories have seen demand
that is mostly separate to Black Friday.
This data is easy to generate.
All you need to do is head to Google Trends,
select your country of interest, select a time frame,
and then you can compare up to five separate queries
at any given time.
SARAH: Lastly, let's take a brief look
at last minute shopping.
In this data, we can see that in 2013-2014, gift interest
began to drop on December 16th.
However, in the last two years, this decline
only began on the 21st.
This is likely due to the increased confidence
on online delivery, allowing consumers
to rely on online shopping for later in the seasonal peaks.
With this in mind, consider advising merchants
to stay online for longer and make the most
of last minute demands.
IVAN: Lastly, we'll discuss a little bit
around bids and budgets.
Here are our tips for setting bids and budgets
for seasonal success.
Firstly, make use of the absolute top impression share
metric to evaluate your merchant's ad position
and increase bids on key products accordingly.
Prevent your merchant's campaigns
from switching off unexpectedly by planning
to set higher daily budgets and capitalize on increased demand.
Monitor and evaluate your merchant's investment
regularly, and if needed, adjust bids to boost priority products
during key peak times.
And lastly, every market and retail category
performs differently.
Be strategic with budgets.
Research and plan for trends.
SARAH: Here, we will wrap up our seasonal special with mobile.
Mobile peaks earlier and attracts the highest demand
of online shoppers.
Utilize mobile bid adjustments at a campaign or at a group
level to boost visibility of mobile shopping ads,
to make sure you don't miss out on queries.
Thank you, for joining us for our seasonal special
for shopping ads.