If there’s one thing a woman appreciates the most in a Mother’s Day gift, it’s thoughtfulness. She’s going to know that you love and appreciate her no matter what you choose, but if you really want to wow her, spend some time thinking about the things she’s passionate about and how you can turn them into great gifts. Considering how varied hobbies and interests can be among mothers, grandmothers, wives and sisters, there are literally thousands of options for possible Mother’s Day gifts… and every one of them is a great reason to make sure your search campaign is ready to capture the traffic that Mother’s Day-related keywords can bring to your site.
According to a recent National Retail Federation survey, total consumer spending for Mother’s Day is projected to reach around $15.8 billion this year. The study also found that consumers intended to allocate their gift funds in a variety of different categories:
· $3.0 billion on special dinners or brunch
· $2.0 billion on flowers
· $1.6 billion on gift cards/gift certificates
· $1.4 on clothing and accessories
· $1.2 billion on electronics like digital cameras, digital photo frames and video cameras
· $1.1 billion on personal service gifts like a trip to a favorite spa or salon
· $696 million on house wares and gardening tools
· $672 million on greeting cards
Because adCenter results in an average conversion rate 70% - 80% higher than other engines, it’s well worth the effort to make sure your search campaigns are ready to capitalize on the seasonal spike in online shopping that celebrations like Mother’s Day offer.
Your first step is not to alter your existing campaigns to add in Mother’s day ad copy and keywords, but to simply create a brand new campaign designed specifically for the special occasion. Not only will you be able to evaluate its performance independently of your regular campaigns, but you’ll be able to re-use it repeatedly in years to come, always adding optimization updates based on lessons learned from previous years. This best practice applies not only to Mother's Day, but to any gift-giving occasion where searchers may be looking for the products and/or services you provide. It may seem like a daunting task to build out a new campaign for every holiday that would warrant a search campaign, but you only have to do it once and then it's just a matter of adding to and maintaining it from then on.
Once you have your campaign set up and populated with a variety of general and specific terms related to Mother's Day gift giving, you'll have to decide on what kind of bidding strategy will be right for you. If you specialize in a niche market, you may find that conservative bids work great, but in general, it's best to start off with a fairly aggressive bidding strategy as terms relating to special occasions like Mother's Day are going to be in high demand, and therefore, competitively priced. To give your campaign an edge, you may want to consider using adCenter’s incremental bidding feature. As it pertains to Mother's Day in particular, I would suggest targeting young adults aged 18-24 -- according to the afore-mentioned NRF survey, this group will spend the most on Mother’s Day, on average around $170, followed by the 25-34 year old range who typically spend on average about $153.
If you’re unfamiliar with incremental bidding, it’s a feature where you’re able to increase your bid by a percentage of your choice for people who match a demographic that you’d like to target. For example, if you’re bidding $1 for the key phrase “online gift card” and you have incremental bidding set up to boost your bid by 50% for someone in the 18-24 age range, then if someone fitting that demographic clicks on your ad, that particular click will cost $1.50. Demographic information is based on the profiles of Hotmail or Windows Live users. Searchers who do not have their profiles filled out, or who are not logged in to their accounts will not be included in incremental bidding. Depending on competitor bids, incremental bidding could help boost your position when your ads appear to those users who match the demographic targeting parameters you’ve entered.
To set incremental bidding, sign into adCenter and click through to your newly created Mother’s Day campaign, then click on the ad group you’d like to set incremental bidding for. Once you’re on the keywords tab, scroll to the bottom of your keyword list and you’ll see a section entitled “Set incremental bids for targeting”. Click the radio button that reads “Bid for location, day, time, age or gender”:
From there, simply use the drop down boxes to set the percentages you’d like for each value and click “Save” for the changes to take effect.
Good luck!
Tina Kelleher - Media Specialist
US Ad Services