Google Retail Marketing Summit 2018: KATANA’s Takeaways
Last week, KATANA had the opportunity to attend Google’s two-day Retail Summit in the Big Apple, New York City! Agencies and retailers alike attended the conference to get a head start on Holiday marketing plans and budgets. The conference consisted of industry tips and key features helpful for Holiday Retail Campaigns. During Day 2, the Product Team for Google Shopping Campaign conducted workshops and spoke about how to effectively use the campaign type to execute profitable product launches for the Holiday Season sales. In addition, Google went in depth into their recently launched product, Smart Shopping. Check out our key takeaways below:
How to Create Successful Holiday Shopping Campaigns for Your Brand:
1. Improve Your Site Speed:
Over 53% of mobile visitors leave a page that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Having a mobile-friendly, fast-loading site can make purchases smoother and faster for potential customers.
2. Connect with Shoppers at the Right Time:
Over 50% of holiday shoppers begin research in October or earlier, so advertisers should be ready by September. For SEM, it’s important for marketers to know that 75% of consumers who use Search to help with a purchase do so early in the shopping process. In fact, shoppers complete 30% of holiday shopping before Thanksgiving — so the earlier you start your holiday digital marketing plan, the better.
3. Ad Relevance and Inventory Details
Targeting the right audience who would most likely purchase your product has shown excellent ROI. The numbers prove it: 91% of smartphone users purchase a product after seeing a related advertisement they describe as “relevant.” Your shopping feeds should display what is the latest and the most in demand. 75% of retailers expect to have information on products readily information before even physically visiting the store.
4. Create Effective Audience Targeting Groups
Create audience targeting groups and layer them based on prior purchases or loyal customers. Take advantage of your customer database and target people more likely to convert, and look at how many times they purchase and how much revenue was generated from each customer. Then, create audience lists based on these metrics (number of purchases or by revenue) and target.
5. Utilize the Power of Video to Drive Holiday Sales
YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the US. In the past year, 40% of YouTube users turned to the platform to learn more about a product before they bought it. If you’re looking for an excellent brand awareness campaign type, YouTube is your best option.
New Product Reveal: Smart Shopping
Smart Shopping campaigns are essentially a combination of Google Display and Shopping campaigns. It harnesses the power of automated ad placements and smart bidding to promote products via Shopping and Display ads, from a product feed across Google networks.
For marketers looking to implement machine learning tools like Smart Shopping into their product campaigns, it’s best if you pause non-Smart shopping or display remarketing campaigns in order to let the tool learn and acquire more data. Once launched, let the Smart Shopping campaign adapt to the set budget, product type, and audience targets before making any changes.
Interested in creating profitable Smart Shopping campaigns for the Holiday season? Contact us at letstalk@katana.media to get started. Follow us here on Medium for more industry updates and digital marketing tips.
