During Black Friday, your brand or business is probably keen to push seasonal products in advance of Christmas, or deals to hitch a ride on that Black Friday and Cyber Monday buzz. So what can you do to supercharge your Google Ads strategy and catch the Black Friday wave?
#1 KEYWORD RESEARCH
Let’s start with the basics; your first step should always be to check if there’s any search volume for high-intent keywords surrounding your product or service during Black Friday. It’s no use putting tons of effort into targeting low-intent keywords which are unlikely to bring you much ROI. Google’s keyword planner is your friend here, however, the in-browser tool isn’t going to give you the full picture. It’s important to download the data and check the volumes for the month of November - Black Friday and Cyber Monday month. For example, if you’re a retailer of electronics and want to target users searching for laptops, keyword planner will only give you the average monthly searches which is unhelpful when you want to view volumes for a specific month.
To get a better idea of keywords with strong potential, you’ll need to download the historical data as a .csv or Google Sheet and view the data split by month.
#2 SITELINK EXTENSIONS WITH A TAILORED LANDING PAGE
If, despite your best efforts, you find that your keyword research labours yield no hidden gems, do not despair! There are plenty of other ways to promote your Black Friday offers. We often find this is the case for certain industries, particularly if your marketing objective is lead-based instead of sales-focused.
For example, if you run a subscription-based business, it’s quite likely that you’ll find very few people will specifically search for Black Friday discounts or r deals. Additionally, in already popular industries, Black Friday search volume peaks can be difficult to spot because they’re high to begin with. So let’s explore some more creative ways to put your offers in front of your targets.
Creating a bespoke landing page that highlights the key benefits of your offer can be a great way to showcase your deal. Then, to get users onto the page, simply introduce a sitelink extension to direct traffic towards your deal. You can also replace your existing ad landing pages with this offer-focused page for the duration of the campaign. This can be a fantastic way to increase your conversion rate across your account because the page is dedicated to your campaign.
#3 OFFER EXTENSIONS
Similar to sitelink extensions, you can also create simple offer extensions to promote your ongoing deal. Sticking by our previous example, here is what Gary’s Pool Chalk will look like with a 20% off deal:
#4 AUDIENCE TARGETING
Instead of targeting Black Friday-specific keywords, you can layer your existing keywords with in-market audience targets. These can either be set up as separate campaigns with audiences set as ‘targeting’ or within your existing campaigns as ‘observational’ audiences with bid modifiers.
There is a range of different audiences you can utilise (see examples below). We’d recommend starting with the ‘Seasonal Shopping’ dropdown within the ‘in-market audiences’ tab which already has a Black Friday-specific option, then you can break down your targets more specifically from there.
When implementing this, you will have the option to set these audiences up as ‘targeting’ or as ‘observational’. ‘Targeting’ audiences narrow down your campaign targeting so that your ads only appear for the people within the in-market audiences searching for your target keywords. This allows you to write specific ad copy about your relevant offer as all of your target users are in the market for your offer. If you do this, we’d recommend setting up another identical campaign without the audience targeting enabled so that you don’t narrow down your targeting.
Observational audiences are more straightforward to implement and simply involve you adding a bid modifier to your existing targeting, making your ads more likely to appear at a higher position for these users. We would recommend a 15% bid increase to begin with, you can then adjust this based on performance.
5. UTILISING DISPLAY AD FORMATS
Another great way to target users within your target audiences highlighted above is to run display-focused campaigns. This involves targeting users within your audience selections on YouTube and the Google Display Network with video, discovery and display ads and can be a great way to show off your Black Friday promotions to your key target audiences. Using various display ad formats is a great way to reinforce campaign messages in multiple areas and create brand recognition among audiences, making customers more likely to think of you when Black Friday comes around.
One thing to bear in mind with display campaigns is they are a form of ‘passive’ advertising, as opposed to the active advertising you see with search ads. This means you’re likely to have a lower CTR compared to your search campaigns, and also a lower average conversion rate. However, the lower CPC of display campaigns makes up for this, allowing you to still drive a positive ROI. Additionally, it’s worth bearing in mind that the goals of passive advertising methods (like display ads) are different to the goals of active advertising methods. Goals of passive advertising tend to focus more on brand recognition and achieving top-of-mind-association (TOMA) when customers are ready to buy. Whereas active advertising focuses on lead generation and boosting conversions. Considering this when you’re getting your Black Friday campaign ready will help you to make your strategy more targeted and fine-tuned.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
In summary, Google supplies a huge array of tools to allow you to communicate and promote your offers to the most valuable users across the internet. Google is most definitely your friend! Exploring Google’s features and getting hands-on with your account is the best way to learn these methods. Getting creative with your targeting allows you to test new things you never thought possible, allowing you to drive a strong ROI and hit users you never could before!
Well, there’s no time like the present. Why not have a go at getting creative with everything that Google has to offer. Whether it’s display ads, keyword research, tailored audience targeting, or offer extensions, there’s something that will work for your upcoming Black Friday campaign.
Looking for any help or support with your Black Friday campaign for this year? Our team would love to help you out in bringing your dream campaign to life. Get in touch to find out how we can help you.
