Valentine’s and Mother’s Day are in the books, and now it is time to think of Dad. With Father’s Day approaching quickly this June 16th, advertisers across various industries have a unique opportunity to market their products and services. In 2012, Father’s day spending reached $12.7 billion and 2013 might even be bigger, as the number of people intending to spend more than the previous year has grown steadily since 2007.
Special outings - for example, a trip to the golf course - a visit to a sports event or dinner at a restaurant were the most popular gift category,with $2.3 billion being spent last year. Electronics, apparel and gift cards also belonged to the most popular gifts, followed by sporting goods and books and music. (1)
The number of shoppers who went online to purchase gifts was at 28.4% last year, up from 22.1% on 2011.(1) That’s why the Yahoo! Bing Network audience with its high purchase intent (the majority having spent more than $7,500 online within the last 6 months) becomes a very important target for any marketer offering presents for Father’s Day.
To prepare for the expected surge of traffic across search engines, optimizing your account in May is crucial. Online research begins about 1 month to 3 weeks before Father’s day with the following purchase trends (2):
- 30% two weeks prior
- 28% one week prior
- 12% last minute
To help small businesses to get the most out of your Bing Ads campaign we collected a few tips on what to look for when preparing your account for Father’s Day.
1. Keywords
- Create a dedicated Father’s Day campaign to catch the attention of undecided shoppers. In 2012, searches for the keyword “Father’s Day” and “Father’s Day Gifts” grew continuously since mid-May with a big spike in the last week before the event. On Father’s Day itself the number of searches jumped up by 72% compared to the day before. (3) This indicates that small businesses can drive a lot of potential shoppers to physical stores until the very last minute. Suggested keywords can be found here.
- Bid on all match types ideally with the highest bid on exact. This is important because exact match typically delivers at higher CTR with lower costs per click.
- Place competitive bids for your most important keywords. You want the associated ads to show in the mainline (the ads above the organic listings) where click volume is much higher.
2: Ad Copy
- Highlight free shipping, discounts and coupons.
- Promote shipping options such as guaranteed delivery for last minute gift shopping.
- Consider instant deals as 40% of shoppers indicate an intent to shop daily deals.
- Use all the new Bing Ads features such as sitelink extensions to link to specific pages on your website and location extensions to display your business address and phone number.
3: Targeting
- More than one-quarter of those who own a tablet (25.2%) said last year they used their tablet to make a Father's Day purchase. Overall, more than half (54.6%) of tablet owners used their device to research products and compare prices, redeem coupons and look up retailers' information such as store hours and location. (1) Bing Ads offers a variety of targeting options including device targeting to refine your campaigns
- Incremental bidding offers an additional opportunity to reach your preferred audience by increasing bids for specifically targeted customers. Here’s an example illustration of how it works:
The easiest way of course is to let us do the work. Simply send us an email at searchaz@microsoft.com and we’ll optimize your account on your behalf. Our search experts are more than happy to help.
Another simple way is to export your already-optimized campaigns from another search engine. Just use “Import from Google AdWords” from the main menu in Bing Ads and follow the instructions.
Thanks,
Peter
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(1) National Retail Federation: Dads Finally Getting Their Due This Father’s Day, According to NRF Survey; June 2012
(2) Pricegrabber 2012 Father’s Day Shopping Survey; June 2012
(3) Bing Ads internal data; May to June 2012