- 
October 29, 2007
Holiday PPC Preparation: You should have started yesterday!
The weeks between Halloween & Thanksgiving fly by so start preparing your paid search campaigns now to maximize on the biggest retail season of the year. According to comScore last year during the Holiday season consumers spent $24.4 billion online! That number alone should motivate you.
During October and early November you should flesh out holiday keywords and ad creative and load them into your Google AdWords account. This will give your ads time to gain history, and since part of your quality score is based on history, this is a must. It will also give you time to sort out any disapproved keywords or ad text.
Also, in December keep a close eye on your bids and positioning. Obviously competition will be higher than normal, so you will need to be more aggressive. Google is expecting ad approval delays on the following dates in November: 1,5,6,7,8,9 & in December: 17,18,19,20,21.
It is important to ensure your ads are showing up through all stages of the buying cycle. Google suggests that you target general holiday gift terms to reach potential customers early in the buying cycle. But this can be a challenge! How do advertisers with niche products make money off of general terms? Qualify, qualify, qualify. Use your ad text to weed out people who wouldn't be interested in your product, and get your potential customers to click! For example, let's say your company sells leather laptop cases and you wanted to target the keyword "gifts for dad."
Find Unique Gifts for Dad
Our handmade leather laptop cases
will make Dad happy! Free shipping
GiftForDad.LeatherLaptopCases.com
By putting the product description in the ad text you let people know exactly what kind of site they are going to visit. If their father was an outdoorsy guy that didn't even own a laptop, this ad text would save you from paying for that click! Although many internet shoppers expect free shipping, there have been studies that prove this is still an important offer.
After customers have decided what product they want to buy, they then start using search to "bargain hunt." To capitalize on this you should test putting the price in the ad text. Maybe even in the headline? So for the same company bidding on a more specific keyword such as "leather laptop cases" this is a great ad to test:
Leather Laptop Cases $59
Fast, free shipping on our quality
handmade Laptop Cases. Order now!
www.LeatherLaptopCases.com
Even if your campaigns are running smoothly now, don't miss out on potential sales by assuming no tweaks need to be made before the holiday season.
