15 Top PPC Tips for Black Friday Success
Over the past decade or so, Black Friday has become a mainstay in the retail world, offering many opportunities for ecommerce companies to boost their PPC campaigns.
PPC (otherwise known as pay-per-click) is a form of digital marketing that is integral to modern ecommerce businesses, with Black Friday being one of the most important dates of the year.
So, how can you capitalise on your PPC success and push your brand to new heights on Black Friday? We spoke to our expert team to get the lowdown – read on to learn all about our top 15 PPC tips for Black Friday success!
In the meantime, if you’d like to discuss your PPC options with our team, we’ll be happy to help – get in touch today!
Preparation, Preparation, Preparation!
As any good digital marketer knows, you can’t just jump headlong into a PPC campaign without putting some thought into your strategy. Let’s take a look at some of the main ways you can prepare your team for the main event…
Start Early & Set Goals
You should start planning for your Black Friday campaign long before the day itself, giving you plenty of time to create a strategic plan to ensure success.
When devising a new strategy, you should consider things such as inventory management, staffing and other aspects of your marketing campaigns. You also need to work out your budget and set clear objectives and KPIs for your new Black Friday strategy. Trends and insights from previous years can be analysed, allowing you to plan strategically for the future.
Put simply: the more you plan, the less likely it is that an issue should crop up on Black Friday itself.
Without a skilled team behind you, your PPC campaign may not be as effective as you’d like. All PPC employees must be fully trained and familiar with your business and your campaign objectives. Due to the influx of visitors to most ecommerce sites that participate in Black Friday, your team needs to be able to deal with the increased number of visitors and sales, as well as prepare for any issues that could potentially crop up.
By setting clear goals and expectations, as well as providing training and information about your promotions and the products you’re pushing, you can lower the risk of an issue arising that your team can’t handle.
Staying ahead of the game is key to any ecommerce business. By keeping an eye on the activity of your competitors, you can make a judgement on how effective your Black Friday campaign will be. Of course, predicting the future isn’t an exact science, and your rivals are unlikely to want to share their business secrets with you.
However, you can still conduct in-depth competitor analysis, keeping yourself informed of your rivals’ marketing materials, pricing strategies and promotional tactics – as well as current market trends. Once this data has been gathered, you can put it to use within your own PPC campaign.
Optimise Your Website
You can expect increased traffic and conversions when Black Friday appears, which could lead to problems if your website is not optimised properly. Factors such as page load times and the checkout process need to be streamlined – and don’t forget about your mobile customers either!
More and more people are shopping using their mobile devices these days – statistics show that in 2023, 69% of shoppers used their phones to purchase items online. so your PPC campaigns must be optimised for mobile users.
Plan Auto-Bidding Strategies and Test your tech
Auto-bidding is a key component of modern PPC campaigns, and it can be incredibly useful when planning out your Black Friday strategy. Essentially, automatic bidding is a feature offered by Google Ads and Facebook Ads, enabling you to set and adjust your bids automatically.
Auto-bidding is particularly useful, as it lets the platform’s algorithms determine the ideal bid for your Black Friday campaign goals. As such, making a proper plan of action before the day itself is essential for any modern PPC campaign.
When running a new Black Friday campaign, there’s nothing worse than getting to the day itself and finding that your technology isn’t up to scratch.
It’s a gamble you don’t want to risk, so it’s crucial that you test all your tools before the day itself. Your payment processing systems, ecommerce website and technology should all be trialed in advance of Black Friday, allowing you to make changes as and when they’re needed.
If you’re going to implement auto-bidding strategies and affiliate marketing techniques into your Black Friday strategy, you need to ensure your tech is working as expected. Not only does this create a seamless shopping experience for your customers, but it also prevents dreaded downtime.
Create and Upload Your Black Friday Ads Before the Event
This tip ties into the previous point somewhat – If your ads are created and uploaded too close to Black Friday itself, you could end up with some nasty surprises.
For example, if your most eye-catching ads are only created the day before Black Friday and they’re disapproved by Google Ads, the chances are you won’t have the capacity or time to make new ads in time. Even if you do, you may miss out on much-needed traffic and conversions, reducing the impact of your PPC campaign.
Creating your ads early will also allow you time to really prepare for Black Friday, enabling you to test your tools well in advance.
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Make the Most of Your Ads
When working on a PPC campaign, your ads are one of the most important factors to take into account. Your ads can make or break a campaign, so it’s important that you get them right.
As well as traditional Google Ads, you may also want to consider incorporating Google Display Ads into your Black Friday strategy. Google Display Ads are a cost-effective way to mix virtual assets together, including text, videos and images.
Not only do Google Display Ads draw the attention of shoppers to your products, but they also create a visual association to your brand, increasing awareness and engagement across the board!
Set Up an Activation Rule for Approving Ads
If, for whatever reason, your ads are disapproved (or they are approved late in the day), there’s a good chance your Black Friday PPC campaign will be a failure. Because of this, it’s incredibly important that you set up automatic rules to activate and pause your ads when required.
As well as making your PPC campaign more effective at reaching your Black Friday audience, activation rules also ensure you meet quality standards and adhere to legal regulations, maximising your return on investment. By doing this, you should be able to increase brand engagement and awareness, putting you in the frame for success in no time!
Creating Urgency for Bargains
Countdown timers are often used for ecommerce sites, particularly when a sale or promotion is active. Google Ads gives you the option to implement countdown timers into your PPC ads, providing a sense of urgency that may encourage browsers to become shoppers.
Urgency is something that has a psychological effect on shoppers, creating a FOMO (fear of missing out) effect that can push shoppers into making a purchase. Introducing a countdown timer into your PPC Black Friday campaign will push customers that are on the fence into purchasing a product if they believe they only have a limited time in which to do so.
This is another factor that ties directly into the previous tip. As we’ve already seen, creating a sense of urgency and inducing a FOMO effect are key strategies for boosting the success of your Black Friday campaigns.
As well as countdown timers, another thing to consider is an inventory reference, showing potential shoppers just how many items are left in each category. This is something that Amazon does a lot, and it clearly pays off!
If you have a sought-after item that only has five items left, it may encourage people browsing through your site to make a purchase, before it sells out.
Everyone loves a bargain, particularly if the item on sale is something you wanted to buy already. However, promotions and offers can also encourage consumers to make purchases from you for items they might not have wanted otherwise.
This means that adding shopping promotions and offers to your ad feed is an imperative part of your Black Friday ads campaign. For example, Amazon incorporates a wide range of other promotions into their Black Friday strategy, offering price reductions and promotions for a ten day period each year.
Not only can you attract more customers in this way, but you can also drive sales and increase your visibility rates.
Review Data from Previous Years
Naturally, you’ll want to improve your PPC sales each year, so you must assess data from previous Black Friday campaigns to ensure you’re as prepared as possible.
The coronavirus pandemic had a major impact on online shopping, with the Black Friday season in November 2020 classed as a record-breaking month for UK online sales (with a rise of 61%). True, high-street shopping was not a possibility for most of the pandemic, but online shopping has rapidly been increasing regardless.
Nevertheless, analysing data gained from previous Black Fridays can provide tangible insights for your business, enabling you to put into practice what works and stop what doesn’t work.
What did you learn from last year’s performance? What worked and what didn’t? These are important questions that can help you boost your Black Friday success in no time.
Understanding your audience around the holidays
Knowing who your target audience is is key to any successful ecommerce business, enabling you to aim your PPC campaigns at the people most likely to engage with your ads and purchase your products.
Google Ads provides a variety of different ways to target your desired audience, providing a host of metrics and data points that can really bolster your PPC campaign. After all, there’s no point advertising your products to people who are unlikely to use them!
Every year, Black Friday falls on a Friday in November, when many ecommerce stores are already ramping up for the holiday period. Many consumers will be searching for bargain items for Christmas presents, so angling your ads towards the season may be a good idea.
An understanding of seasonality is crucial for any modern PPC campaign, and it can really be used to your advantage during the Black Friday weekend.
However, it’s important to remember that trends change every year, so you should also put some of your efforts into predicting the future, instead of just relying on past wins.
Use Google Ads to Source Keywords
Keywords are a mainstay of the digital marketing world, useful for SEO and content marketing, as well as PPC.
Taking the time to build up a portfolio of accurate keywords to target will ensure your Black Friday campaign is aimed at the right people, which should naturally improve your ROAS (return on ad spend). Long-tail keywords are the name of the game here, enabling you to cultivate evergreen content and boost your strategy in no time!
Want to Boost Your Black Friday Game? Then Look No Further…
As you can see, there are many things to consider when designing your PPC campaign for Black Friday success. With these tips in hand, we hope that you’ll find yourself on the road to victory in no time!
However, if you’d like to make use of an award-winning PPC agency instead, we’re here to help!
Get in touch today and we’ll see what we can do!
