How will Facebook ad costs fluctuate this holiday season?

We're entering the thick of the holiday season for advertisers, as brands gear up for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Ampush, a Facebook Marketing Partner, examined the trends of Facebook advertising in Q4 in its Holiday Pricing Strategy Guide. According to Ampush, the time to find value in Facebook advertising is past, as now CPM roughly doubles from the yearly average. However, there's high risk/high reward, as CTR is the highest at this time. Ampush Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer Chris Amos talked with Inside Facebook about what will work best for advertisers this holiday season: Sequencing ads — this is the first year we're seeing lots of e-commerce retailers leveraging this tactic. It's only been the past year that this has really caught on, and we're seeing great results, especially when video is used and advertisers starting campaigns early. Amos also recommended multi-product ads, videos ads and right sidebar ads as being key to this holiday season. Ampush broke down the trends in CPC, CPM and CTR week-by-week, finding that CTR will spike this week, the week of Green Monday (Dec. 8-14) and the week of Christmas (dropping off right after). Amos talked about what advertisers can do on Facebook as the competition for News Feed space heats up: Highlighting time-sensitive offers is even more effective this time of year since all purchases must be made in a few short weeks. E-commerce shops should call out free shipping (if available) to tip the scale in their favor and last ship date so buyers don't miss the chance to make a buy online. To drive people in-store past last ship date, Ampush recommends creating ads that call out individual store locations and target these to people that live in nearby zip codes. Utilize call to action buttons on link ads; use landing pages that drive people exactly to the page they need to be on to purchase (ie: if promoting a sale, take them to the sale page). Use mobile, where CPMs are cheaper (if site is mobile-optimized) use the right-hand side. Ampush's advice for the remaining weeks of the holiday season: Week 2 (Nov. 24-30): Target broadly and incorporate holiday themes or offers in ad creative. Week 3 (Dec. 1-7): Retarget previous website visitors with general or product-specific ads, allocating plenty of ad spend on mobile. Feature free shipping or low prices in ad creative. Week 4 (Dec. 8-14): Focus retargeting efforts on people who have not yet converted, but are most likely to, such as shopping cart abandoners and those who have searched for specific product. Exclude people who have already made purchases to make sure ad spend isn't being wasted. Week 5 (Dec. 15-21): Feature "shipping ends" dates in ad creative, showing last-minute or rush shipping available for deadline shoppers. Increase mobile ad budgets as shoppers will be researching in-store products on mobile and highlight nearby brick-and-mortar locations in ad creative. Week 6 (Dec. 22-28): Capture post-holiday shoppers who now have gift cards, promote your mobile app (if you have one), as app installs spike shortly after Christmas. To access the full report, click here. Readers: What other advice do you have? Top image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Social Pro Daily

How will Facebook ad costs fluctuate this holiday season?

Justin Lafferty

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Justin Lafferty