At the start of the New Year, almost half of all Americans are determined to make some changes to their lifestyles. (1)
Success, of course, is a different story. While 75% of those who make a New Year’s resolution stick to it through the first week, this number drops to 64% after one month. Less than half actually stick to their goals for more than half the year. In the end, only 8% are successful in achieving their resolutions. (1)
The top goals for 2013 have not changed compared to last year. (2):
- Become more physically fit
- Improve financial conditions
- Improve health
- Lose weight
Three out of four top resolutions relate to a healthier life style. This presents a unique opportunity for advertisers to promote health- and fitness-related products or services. To get the most out of your Bing Ads campaign, we recommend optimizing your search campaign before the new year arrives.
On the Yahoo! Bing Network, healthy New Year’s resolutions show up as increased click activity as people search for lifestyle-related products and services during the first days of the year. Halfway through January, click volumes returned almost back to normal in 2012. After Valentine’s Day, volume briefly picked up again. A likely explanation may be that people revisit their goals a few weeks into the new year and make a second effort to get back on track with their resolutions. (3)
But the center of activity is certainly the first week of the new year; the heaviest search volume for weight loss terms was recorded on January 3. (3)
Weight loss terms were used as an example here, but whether you sell diet pills, fitness equipment, or tools and services to manage one’s finances or career goals, the optimization techniques below apply to all industries.
Optimization Guidelines:
Timelines and Budget
- Be prepared to launch your campaigns by the end of December.
- Plan for growth and ensure your budget is sufficient for the first month of the year.
- Expect the highest demand in the very first week of the year.
Keywords
- Create your keyword list in December. Review our list of suggested terms.
- If you sell pharmaceutical products, upload your terms even earlier to clear any editorial obstacles that may occur.
- Use all match types and avoid bidding on broad match only. We recommend setting the highest bids on exact match, as it typically generates the highest click-through-rate (CTR) at the lowest cost.
- For broad match keywords, add the broad match modifier to reduce the risk of unwanted traffic.
Bidding
Again using the most popular weight loss terms as an example we are seeing more than 40% of all clicks coming from ads in position 1. (4)
But placing a competitive bid doesn’t necessarily mean paying more. The chart below shows the gap between the actual bids for weight loss terms against the actual costs per click. What’s striking here is that clicks for keywords in position 1 cost less than positions 2 through 4, where we actually see a CPC increase. A larger click volume combined with a better click-through rate provide good reasons to bid aggressively in the first days of the new year.
Ad Copy
- Create ads that include references to a New Year’s resolution, for example “2013 weight loss programs.”
- Use incentives, such as free shipping or discounts.
- Have a clear call to action, for example “Try it now for 30 days” or “Order online today.”
- Highlight the unique advantages of your product, for example “Average weight loss of 25 lbs in 6 months” or “Safely lose up to 5 lbs per week.”
Targeting
Small businesses can use incremental bidding to boost bids for specific age groups and gender.
Women conduct 60% of queries for weight loss related keywords; the age groups 35-49 and 50-64 combined for 65% of searches. (5)
And if your business has a physical location – such as fitness studios, vitamin shops – use radius targeting to focus in on searchers who are near your address. Also add your business address and phone number to your ad with Location Extensions. Not only will potential customers find your store quickly, a recent Microsoft Advertising study of 850 advertisers in the United States found that campaigns using Location Extensions had click-through rates 8 to 16 percent higher than campaigns without Location Extensions. (5)
Other industries likely to benefit from New Year’s resolutions campaigns include:
Heath & Wellness:
- Fitness equipment sellers
- Fitness studios or exercise programs such as yoga or Pilates
- Programs to help people quit smoking
- Vitamin and nutrition stores
- Websites offering healthy recipes
Financial Services
- Financial planning tools
- Debt consolidation programs
- Programs that help to improve credit scores
Education & Career:
- Career coaching and management sites
- Websites offering educational training classes
- Job websites
If your business falls into any of the categories above, you may want to spend some time in December to optimize for the expected traffic peak ahead. We are happy to help with that: Feel free to contact our search experts at searchaz@microsoft.com.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) StatisticBrain.com; New Year’s Resolution Statistics.
(2) FC Organizational Products LLC: 2013 New Year’s Resolutions Survey; October 22, 2012.
(3) Bing Ads internal data, November 2011 – February 2012
(4) Bing Ads internal data, October 2012
(5) Bing Ads Intelligence, October 2012