Keep the Lights On

Christmas is right around the corner, but the holiday shopping season doesn't end on Dec. 25th. Many retail advertisers mistakenly scale back their search campaigns after Christmas, but lots of search traffic and sales occur after Dec. 25th! You might be surprised to learn that 9% of consumers don’t even begin their holiday shopping until post Christmas.

While a large percentage of shopping happens before the holidays, 64% of consumers plan on shopping post holiday season. Because of this, it is important to make sure you keep you “keep the lights on” (search campaigns on and bids optimized).

Some consumers are looking for sales and promotions post-holiday, others are buying that holiday gift they didn’t receive for themselves, and others are taking advantage of sales to buy gifts for next year. The following shows query trends on the keyword “iPod”, one of the hottest holiday gifts in 2009.
















While the height of the query volume took place between December 20-26, the query volume from December 27-January 2 was higher than the volume from December 13-19.

Recommendations for a post-holiday checklist:

• If you're closing out inventory or having a year-end sale, use search to promote these products
• Keep your daily budgets open to receive as much traffic as possible
• Maintain strong bids and average positions
• Customize text ads to promote post-holiday sales & specials

Sources: Google/Ipsos OTX Consumer Holiday Shopping Intentions Study, September 2010. N=2,000.
Q: Do you plan on taking advantage of post-holiday sales and promotions? (Top 2 Box).
Q: When do you plan to start your holiday shopping/researching and purchasing this year?
Google Internal Data


Posted by Courtney MacConnell, Google Retail Team