Christmas means money to online advertisers, and in the lead-up to Christmas hundreds of thousands of small businesses do something they haven’t done all year – play in the Google PPC auction.
Attracted to a seasonal marketplace that promises year-high consumer spend, these smaller players come in their masses and combine to push up CPCs, meaning you now need to spend more for your ads to achieve to same position.
Take your eye off the ball and you might find that your ads have been swamped by these ‘Six-Weekers’ (so-called because they only advertise over the six weeks of Christmas and New Year) and you are now so far down the listings that you’re losing significant traffic and sales.
Another thing to keep your eye on this Christmas is budget…
With huge spikes in Google traffic over Christmas and New Year – and basket values at their highest – you really don’t want to be maxing out on your daily budget.
In the same way that it would be madness for a shop on Oxford Street to close its doors at 3pm with hordes of people wanting to get in and spend their money, it would be equally crazy for you to run out of budget (and therefore stop showing ads) at a time when masses of internet users are searching for the products and services that you sell.
So make an exception at Christmas and set your daily limit at a level that’s artificially high – that way you’ll never miss a single bumper sized sale.
Posted: December 8, 2009 @ 4:38 pm