The Black Friday period is saturated with brands and ... a strong return for your brand, think about your ... ö eCommer
S E P T E M B E R 2017 Black Friday
GENERATE BRAND EXPOSURE WITH DISPLAY BECKY POTTER JUNIOR DISPLAY PLANNER BUYER — www.greenlightdigital.com | +44 (0)20 7253 7000
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Programmatic Display
The Black Friday period is saturated with brands and advertisers looking to maximise exposure, which makes inventory expensive and, to a degree, inefficient. To maximise returns, it’s important to develop a granular and strategic approach to your activity planning. By incorporating display as part of your wider digital strategy, you can gain both a strong share of voice during this brand-congested period and deliver strong returns. Careful planning, creative strategy and audience insights saw us deliver an ROI of 443% for Superdry and 519% for ghd during the Black Friday trading period, strongly marking display’s value for such campaigns. But what are the core tactics needed to deliver an impactful display strategy? Here are my three go-to’s:
1. TIMING Black Friday weekend may only be four days, but data shows consumers are scoping out offers as far ahead as October, so it’s important to ensure you’re featuring in the right spaces to connect with your audiences in the run up to it. Most premium publishers have their end of year inventory sold out by September, so pre-planning will help you secure inventory ahead of the rush or, worse still, before it’s gone. Similarly, by occupying site real estate for longer (for example, 1-2 weeks prior to the sales weekend), you ensure that brand exposure is achieved during the key decision period. What does this mean for brands? Start planning your activity in September, with the aim to get strategies signed off and inventory booked at the beginning of October.
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Programmatic Display
2. CREATIVE
or video, with an awareness message would
To ensure maximum engagement, and ultimately a strong return for your brand, think about your creative strategy. Talk to your target audiences differently, whether that be in relation to the types of audiences you’re targeting or regarding where they are in the Black Friday journey.
encourage interest and consideration among a relevant audience. This could then be followed up by product-focused banners or bumper videos (lasting approximately 6 seconds) with a stronger sales message over the weekend itself, which would cement conversions amongst those who had high purchase intent. Couple this with
You should consider a different call-to-action (CTA)
sequential ad messaging to ensure those exposed
as well as different formats for different parts
to the awareness activity then see the product
of this process. For example, in the lead up to
offers available, and you’re on to a winner.
the event, making use of a higher impact format,
A W A R E N E S S C R E AT I V E
B L A C K F R I D AY C R E AT I V E
A W A R E N E S S C R E AT I V E
B L A C K F R I D AY C R E AT I V E
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Programmatic Display
3. ACCESS TO DATA Messaging can be made more effective by layering a data strategy into your activity. This can be done using a variety of data types, including floodlight and data management platform (DMP) data. Creating audiences in the weeks leading up to a sale allows for breadth and depth across targeting pools so that a large number of relevant users are reached during this period.
prioritised accordingly in order to optimise ROI. By serving different creatives to these audiences, you can similarly ensure that the right message is being sent at the right time via prospecting or retargeting strategies. Much in the same way, data and audiences can be re-used from prior display activity, so that previously exposed audiences are reconnected with the brand. This ensures your brand is capitalising on previous interest and allows
Audiences can be segmented by the period
marketers to make the most of “retargeting
since their last visit, the products they were
Tuesday” following the heavy sales weekend,
searching for, and whether they look like – or
allowing aftermath sales to still be pursued.
act like – previous converters, and can then be
DISPLAY TIMELINE Utilising time is one of the key ways to make your display activity a success. öö Start activity between 6-10th November and let it run until 24th November (Black Friday) öö Creative needs to be with your trafficking and AdOps team five working days before your activity live date öö You should allow five to ten working day for your creative build to happen
öö This should occur after a media plan has been put together, which can also take anywhere between five to ten days depending on the complexity of the brief öö To guarantee display activity going live in the run up to Black Friday, the team needs a brief by October 16th öö For guaranteed publisher takeovers with 100% share of voice on specific sites, a brief should be received as early as possible
“Start planning your activity in September, with the aim to get strategies signed off and inventory booked at the beginning of October.”
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Programmatic Display
BLACK FRIDAY 2016: WHAT DO WE KNOW? We’ve worked with our key suppliers and partners to
• Samsung TV (18%)8
get primary data and search insights related to the
• Furniture (14%)9
2016 Black Friday trading period – below are our top stats and takeaways:
öö 61% of consumers planned to buy apparel over the holiday period, while 56% were looking for consumer
öö Retail sites’ total online spend reached £1.23 billion, marking a 12.2% increase from 20151
electronics10 öö 43% were in the market for video games and 40%
öö 52% of users searched on a mobile device, compared to 37% who searched on a desktop and 11% on a tablet2
wanted to shop for toys11 öö eCommerce metrics saw products viewed per user
öö Search volumes around Black Friday terms increased
go up 8% on smartphones, 5% on tablets and 2% on
towards the end of October, with the biggest uplift in
desktops, while add-to-basket rate increased by 19%
searches (bar Black Friday) occurring one week before3
on smartphones, 3% on tablets and 5% on desktops12
öö On Black Friday, searches rose by over 40,000%4
öö Conversion rates in general increased 9% on smartphones and 3% on tablets, while conversions de-
öö Key products that were searched for were:
creased 5% on desktops13
• Xbox One (28%)5
öö 30% of millennials started holiday shopping as early
• iPhone (20%)6
as September – compared to 23% for Generation X and
• PS4 (20%)7
22% for Baby Boomers 14
1. www.netimperative.com
6. www.bgr.com
11. http://www.nielsen.com/uk/en.html
2. www.netimperative.com
7. www.gamespot.com
12. www.emarketer.com
3. Captify
8. www.marketwatch.com
13. www.emarketer.com
4. Captify
9. www.telegraph.co.uk
14. http://www.nielsen.com/uk/en.html
5. www.venturebeat.com
10. http://www.nielsen.com/uk/en.html
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