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Win big on your Bing Ads holiday PPC campaigns using these tips

Technology and online shopping continue to drive earlier and earlier gift purchasing habits every year, and retailers are rolling out their savings and deals equally early to win those holiday dollars.

Bing reached out to top industry experts in the jolly world of pay-per-click (PPC) to gift you their very best holiday wisdom to use for your campaigns. Get ready to stuff those stockings with high performance loot this season by unwrapping these tips for your holiday campaigns.

Here are the tips you should be acting on, now

“Start advertising EARLY as many folks complete holiday shopping just after Halloween. Also, run ads well AFTER Christmas to help people spend their Christmas cash!”
– Mona Elesseily, VP, Online Marketing Strategy, Page Zero Media

“Have an ever-changing mix of products in your shopping feed? Be sure to refresh your product groups in Bing Ads so everything you sell gets some love and attention and doesn’t waste away in the ’everything else’ bucket.“
– Frederick Vallaeys, Co-founding CEO, Optmyzr

“Include ad text like "Black Friday Sale" in ALL your ads. And don't forget the path names - e.g. www.domain.com/Cyber_Monday/Sale.”
– Dave Szetela, Owner/CEO, FMB Media
 
“Part of those December wish-lists will become January shopping lists. Think beyond the 25th by using a special remarketing list to re-engage past searchers.”
– Mark Irvine, Sr. Data Scientist, WordStream

“Focus on the 3 B’s to make sure you're ready for this year's holiday-palooza in Paid Search: Bids, Budgets, and Behavior! Watch your bids and be ready for increased competition this year with key players more prevalent than ever. Make sure you keep a close eye on your daily budgets and don’t accidentally limit your campaigns on key days. Finally, remember that normal audience behavior goes out the window in this crazy season! Be ready for some demographics to shop for other demographics, impulse purchases to increase, and bounces on product pages to rise! It’s the holidays, sparky, hang on for dear life!”
– Kirk Williams, Owner, ZATO Marketing
 
“Check your internal site search data from last year. What did people want on your site while holiday shopping? If you sell those products, make sure more shopping feeds and search campaigns are ready to capitalize on what people may want again.”
– Joe Martinez, Director of Client Strategy, Clix Marketing
 
“Shipping options become less viable after December 18, shoppers are choosing to buy online and pick up in-store. Consider this trend by making this a key CTA Dec 18 – 25. Use Bing Ads location and site link extensions. Link to a store finder page.”
– Lisa Raehsler, Founder, Big Click Co., Search Engine Marketing Consulting
 
“This holiday season improve campaign performance using Bing Ads audience targeting options. Don’t miss the opportunity to re-engage with high-value audiences by ensuring your remarketing and custom audiences are ready to go.”
– JD Prater, Ads Evangelist, Quora
 
“It is not a bad idea to let seasonal or holiday campaigns run an extra couple of days – or run specific belated campaigns – to target all of those who have inevitably forgotten to buy a gift for someone and do last-minute-panic online shopping.”
– Jennifer Slegg, Founder & Editor, The SEM Post
 
“If you start ramping advertising the week of Black Friday, it’s too late. You need to start ramping top of funnel spend now so you have warm audiences when they are ready to buy! Most don’t do this, and it can make a huge impact on your holiday sales revenue.”
– Bryant Garvin, Director of Online Advertising, iServe

“Extension optimization: Remember, each extension is an opportunity to highlight specific, product-level benefits or attributes that catch a user’s eye.“
– Megan Taggart, Director of Account Management, Aimclear

“Be unique! Don’t press discounts with OMG BLACK FRIDAY CYBER MONDAY ad headlines. Create promotions that’ll stand out during a crowded time. And remember, the Q4 audience isn't your normal audience - message appropriately to gifters and win.”
– Aaron Levy, Director of Paid Search, Elite SEM

And finally, a bonus B2B gift from our resident B2B Expert, A.J. Wilcox from B2Linked:
“Pause your ads entirely for the whole second half of December in the US. Users are out on vacation which causes available inventory to drop, all the while big brand marketers are bidding up trying to finish the quarter strong. These two forces cause CPCs to spike upwards. All the while, every lead you do generate is worth less because as soon as they talk to your sales team, the first thing out of their mouth is ’Let’s pick this conversation up after New Year’s,’ causing the lead to cool.”

Holiday shopping is in full swing

Make sure you aren’t left out in the cold by trying out these tips before it’s too late.

Looking for more? You can view tips, insights and statistics and get a downloadable holiday campaign planner. And if you'd like to share your own top tips with the world, then tweet us @BingAds and join the conversation.

Thanks for your time and happy holiday campaigning.