Q4—you know what that means… HOLIDAY. As hard as it is to believe, we’re at the start of another highly-anticipated holiday season. It’s a beautiful mix of love, gratitude, total chaos and a dash of panic. You’ve got a lot on your plate, but rest assured. I’m here with holiday marketing tips to help make sure you end the year strong. All you need is an advertising budget!
Your end-of-the-year marketing strategy should include Facebook and Instagram ads. These two platforms are still the most used and engaged with social media platforms: Facebook has 2.7 billion monthly active users and Instagram has 1 billion. Your customers are not only using these apps, but they’re shopping there too (90% of Instagram users follow a business account)!
With all of the clutter that’s on these apps nowadays, organic posts just aren’t cutting it. FB and IG ads will push through the clutter, putting your business right in front of your potential customers to make sure your products are seen. That’s a holiday marketing tip you can’t ignore, and an opportunity you don’t want to miss.
That being said, don’t just blindly throw out an ad and hope for the best. You should follow best practices to stand out from your competitors and make the most of your ads budget. Today I’m sharing 15 best practices for Facebook & Instagram advertising during Q4 to make sure your holiday season is the most wonderful time of the year.
1. Define your SMART goals.
What do you want to accomplish this holiday season? Have a game plan, but be realistic. These goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely… (SMART).
2. Optimize for Apple’s recent iOS update.
Hopefully you have by now, but if not, make sure your domain is verified and your Pixel Events are prioritized. This is going to help ensure that Facebook can best optimize the results of your ads.
3. Increase your budget.
Everyone is advertising during the holiday season, so ad competition is more stiff than usual. This means that a minimum ad budget might not get you worthwhile results. Increase your budget, and expect costs per result to be higher than norm. It’s the name of the game—you’ve got to pay to play.
4. Use holiday-themed copy.
Who doesn’t love a good pun?
“Yule sleigh 🛷 all day in this adorable sweater!”
“Guacin’ 🥑 around the Christmas tree!”
“Don’t miss these tree-mendous savings! 🎄”
5. Use holiday-themed images/videos.
Of course your image should feature the product you’re promoting, but adding a festive background or accessories will help your viewer get into the holiday spirit and ensure the ad is relevant to your holiday promotions.
6. Use holiday-themed emojis.
This might be the only time of year you get to utilize these cuties: 🎄🎅🏻🎁🎃❄️⛄️🧤✡️🕎. Keep it relevant!
7. Stick with your top-performing audiences.
With a lot of ad competition and increased costs per result, it’s best to use audiences you know have worked for you in the past. Don’t waste advertising dollars on things you’re not sure will work. Save the experimenting for Q1!
8. Include a clear Call-To-Action.
Make sure your audience knows where to purchase your product. Say, “Call us or visit us in-store to get yours!” or “Click ‘Shop Now’ to shop these products on our website.”
9. Promote available products.
This might seem obvious, but make sure you’re stocked up on the products you’re promoting. It’s a bad user-experience when someone clicks on an ad to buy a product only to find that the product is sold out. If you’re promoting a product with limited quantities, make sure you turn off or edit the ad once the product has sold out.
10. Promote gift ideas or bundles.
If there’s one thing many people need during the holiday season, it’s gift ideas. Consider using a Carousel ad to promote different gift ideas or bundles! How can you package your products together to create an easy, yet thoughtful, gift for your customers to purchase?
11. Keep an eye on cost per result.
As I’ve mentioned, you can expect cost per result to increase. But make sure you’re comparing your holiday ad costs to your regular costs per result. If costs are astronomically higher, it might mean you should make edits to the audience or creatives. We want to make sure you’re getting the most out of your holiday ads budget.
12. Create relevant landing pages/collections.
Sharing amazing gift ideas or participating in 12 Days of Christmas? Create a corresponding landing page on your website to link in the ads, where all of those related products can live. This makes it super easy for your customer to shop those products all in one place.
13. Align ads with your email marketing.
Reinforcement is key. Create ads promoting products you feature in your email campaign, and use your email list as an audience. You can also create a Lookalike audience from your email list. Pro tip: Create a Lead Generation campaign to grow your email list (and strengthen your email list ads audiences).
14. Promote your holiday posts in a Most Recent (Engagement) campaign.
You’ve got a great social media holiday posting strategy in place. Make sure those posts are getting optimal exposure by promoting them via the Most Recent campaign! You can run these ads to your Fans and Fans Lookalike audiences, and add a “Shop Now” button to the post to link it to your website where applicable.
15. Use videos to talk about products. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—utilize video!
Videos are more personal and get more engagement (which means a boost in the algorithm). They will allow you to explain the features and benefits of your products, so your customer can feel more confident in their purchase. Pro tip: Get more views on your videos by promoting them via a Video View campaign. Then, create audiences out of people who’ve watched your videos, and retarget product ads to those viewers.
This may seem like a lot to digest, but don’t let the craziness of Q4 overwhelm you or weigh you down. Utilizing Facebook and Instagram ads is one of the best holiday marketing tips I can gift you this season. They’re a surefire way to increase awareness and sales of your products and end the year on a high note. Follow these Q4 advertising best practices and your business will have a green Christmas!
What I Want You To Take Away From This Blog:
- Do your pre-work: Define your SMART goals and help Facebook best optimize your ad results by completing iOS tasks, increasing your budget, and using top-performing audiences.
- Use holiday creatives to stay relevant.
- Use videos to effectively highlight your products.
- Provide value by sharing gift ideas.
- Create a smooth shopping experience for your customer with clear CTAs and relevant landing pages.
Okay, over to you…
Ready to try it out? Share in the comments which Q4 advertising practices have been successful for your business! I’d love to know.
Don’t have the time to run ads this year? Fret not! We can do it for you! Click here to learn more about Crystal Media’s Ads Management services. 👍
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