When talking about peak retail season, it’s impossible to avoid the topic of Black Friday. Black Friday has become a divisive event. Some retailers are all in, promoting sales to satisfy consumer demand, while others are more reluctant, not wanting to reduce profit margins at such a critical juncture. But like it or loathe it, Black Friday is here to stay. It is now firmly established as the biggest day of online shopping activity across Europe and, as an advertiser, understanding the consumer trends around this peak activity could prove vital to your success.
Navigating Black Friday in 2019
The big change this year is that Black Friday will fall on the 29th of November–six days later than it did last year. That’s significant, because the later in November that Black Friday falls, the more condensed the shopping period will be. In previous years, Black Friday had stretched shopping activity from its traditional peak in early December to mid-November. This has now been expanded further as retailers extend their sales from a single day to a whole week. With consumers searching earlier for deals, retailers have responded by offering discounted items to secure early sales.
At the same time, there is significant growth in Black Friday searches during the weekend after the event. With many consumers at work and unable to dedicate the time to shop on a weekday, the weekend is the perfect opportunity to catch up. This stretching of Black Friday from a day to an entire week of activity means that a lot of shopping is being dragged forward from December to November. However, with Black Friday being so late this year, that activity will be loaded to the last week of November.
Last year, shopping peaks were much more spread out – this year the big peaks will be tightly clustered together. There will be a huge surge of early search activity between the 23rd and 28th of November, building up to Black Friday which takes place on the 29th. Immediately after that, there is a weekend of catch up shopping on the 30th November and 1st of December, then Cyber Monday hits on the 2nd of December, kicking off the start of the December shopping season.
How will it affect consumers and advertisers?
Due to a more concentrated shopping peak, we are expecting significantly higher demand during the peak season. Consumers who would traditionally shop later in the season will now have a motive to shop during the peak. Overall, we are expecting a 25% increase in demand across Europe and there is more opportunity to influence throughout November, too. Light touches with your advertising in the build-up to the peak of activity means you can focus your efforts without staggering advertising spend across November. And if you are a retailer who doesn’t offer Black Friday sales or deals, this concentrated peak is good news for you as well. The hype of Black Friday will last for a smaller window of time, giving you more time across the rest of the winter season to get your message across to customers.
We’ve mostly focused on the timings of peak season across Europe, but it is important to remember that each market has its own trends and nuances. Our insights indicate that French and German shoppers, for example, favour online shopping on Sundays, while British, Spanish and Dutch shoppers generally prefer to shop on Mondays. Meanwhile, Italians are the most relaxed in their shopping habits, with spikes in activity showing much later in the season than in the case of their European counterparts.
Although these are aggregate views that will differ by brand and product, understanding the difference in consumer shopping patterns by region is important when maximising the effectiveness of your campaigns. Considering the intensity of shopping demand that we expect this year, having the right ads in place will be more important than ever before. And Microsoft Advertising is here to help you do just that.
Top 3 ways to stay ahead of the competition this Christmas
The advent of a late Black Friday in 2019 means that there is going to be a more intense window of shopping activity at the end of November. With such a competitive peak, it’s important to take every advantage to maximise your reach.
1. Microsoft Shopping campaigns
At the top of our list is Microsoft Shopping campaigns. We know that a picture is worth a thousand words–but actually, it’s more like 60,000 words. Our brains process images 60,000 times quicker than text, therefore, having a picture of your product on the SERP creates a more visually engaging ad that is going to grab attention and more clicks. If you’ve never used Microsoft Shopping campaigns, there has never been a better time to start. With Google Import, you can import campaigns and changes directly from your Google feed, reducing the time spent optimising for Google and Bing.
Even if you’re a veteran of shopping campaigns, there are still lots of reasons to be excited this year. We have expanded our market offerings by launching shopping campaigns in the Netherlands.
In addition to this, we are also looking to expand to other countries including Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and Belgium–just in time for the peak season. Expanding your existing campaigns into new markets is one of the quickest ways you can expand your reach this season.
Also new in 2019 is our launch of the shopping tab in both France and Germany. These give dedicated pages on the SERP just for shopping ads. We’ve also increased the prominence of ad placements, putting 3-4 product ads in the mainline position. You can now also get up to 18 product ads on a mainline carousel to give you more impressions and clicks.
2. Microsoft Advertising Dynamic Search Ads
Our second pick is Dynamic Search Ads. With such a frenzy of activity in the build-up to Black Friday, even the most observant search marketer is going to miss something. DSA is a great way to catch the keywords that fall through the cracks of your campaigns. Over the last year we’ve been improving DSA to deliver more value for advertisers. On average DSA conversions have increased by 90% in Europe and CPCs are 30% cheaper than non-exact keywords. With DSA page feeds you now have the option to prioritise high-performing URLs and associate them with your campaign. This has increased average conversions by 13%. We have also added auto-bidding functionality to DSA to allow our algorithms to optimise your campaigns in real time. So whether you want to maximise clicks or conversions, or set your campaign to achieve a target CPA, you can now optimise your DSA campaigns to the metrics that matter to your business.
3. Microsoft Advertising Partner Network
Partnership is a part of Microsoft’s DNA and we would not be the business we are today without the help of our partners. In the European retail vertical, 20% of our total clicks and 60% of our mobile clicks come from search partners. We’ve also launched shopping campaigns on Yahoo! Mobile, as well as new placements on Gumtree and Ecosia to add to your reach. Opting into the Partner Network is the best way to achieve more clicks and conversions at a reasonable cost. Thanks to new smart pricing algorithms, partner CPCs are 35% cheaper than standard search traffic. In this way, you gain additional reach with the control you need to maximise your ROI.
By utilising these three core ad formats–Microsoft Shopping campaigns, DSA and the Partner Network–you will give yourself the best chance to expand your reach during the peak retail period, while hopefully experiencing a very successful end to 2019.
Watch the full video of the Microsoft Advertising Masters: Retail webinar and view the Microsoft Holiday Checklist deck.