Seizinâ The Season

Seasons are named as such because they are repetitive. Some examples include major holidays (Christmas or Valentine’s Day), life events (wedding, graduation) and the start of the business year. Staying a step ahead of the marketing game by mastering the movements of your industry will put you in position to get the biggest return on investment from your campaigns. This blog outlines the key things that shift during the seasonal cycle and offers suggestions for improving your targeting efforts to support them.

The Shifts

Seasonality can result in certain areas in your business or target audience taking a completely different direction, for which you will need to prepare. This could be in terms of interests, purchase behaviour, affinity, etc. Let’s take a look at a few of the shifts:

Customer

Knowing who is making the decision to convert during key times can help tailor your message. If your client typically sells sport watches to males, consider focussing on the gift buyer during Christmas, for example, to serve more relevant ads and increase engagement. Jessica Maunder wrote a fantastic blog, going a bit deeper into Christmas and how to anticipate the change in online behaviours during the season.

Product

A less obvious peak time for eCommerce clients may be during a new product launch. Take advantage of the increased interest and attention surrounding your brand by highlighting relevant products. Alternatively, if your client has a wide product offering, consider the various times of year during which a particular product (or product type) is significantly popular. For example, a finance client will have a huge opportunity to cross sell at the start of the fiscal year, when investors are looking to expand their portfolios and engage with a range of products.

Time/Day

When planning your calendar, think about when consumers will start to make their conversion decision. For example, if you know that Valentine’s Day browsers will start searching on a particular day/week, you’ll want to get your activity started at least a week or two before that, so you can stay one step ahead. Google Trends is a useful research tool as it helps you identify historical online search trends for your market. You can filter by country, date, category and search method for a more granular view.

Device

Your environmental targeting strategy will play an important role, as there is a certain shift in device usage around key moments. What will your desktop/mobile approach be? You may find that more users will be browsing your site (or the general web) on their phones or tablets, thus your ads may need to stand out, be more direct or have a clearer message. Ensuring that your site and landing pages are suitable for each device is imperative here.

The Opportunity

Using the Data

We have to remember that seasonality, by definition, is repetitive. It is important to take notes of all tests and learnings, not only to avoid making any mistakes in future, but also to remember those things that actually worked. Last year, based on day-of-the-week analysis, I noticed that during the Christmas period, Mondays were extremely profitable for a number of my clients. Thus, I was able to tweak my respective campaigns accordingly, making notes to which I can refer during the next Christmas season.

Seasonality in marketing calls for constant optimisation, as it doesn’t always mean a spike in clicks and conversions. Sometimes a “season” means that you will see a huge slump in your data, and you’ll have to decrease your budget, or scale things back just a bit. If you were unaware of your low season and made radical decisions based on your data, you’d run the risk of negatively impacting overall campaign performance. Keep an eye on both the highs and lows to really stay ahead.

At Periscopix, we analyse all of the above and provide you with insight into your industry’s behaviour. Account managers make carefully considered recommendations regarding each and every aspect of your campaign to ensure you get the biggest return on investment.

If you are interested in finding out more about capitalising on your seasonal business with us, please get in touch.

To view the blog as written by Lola Ogunyemi, please visit Periscopix's website.