Smartly.io: Stand Out From the Crowd During the Holidays - A Guide for E-commerce Brands
‘Tis the season for e-commerce brands to make their voice heard, but where do you begin? As consumer spending surges in the last few months of the year – and with Black Friday and other tent pole sales days approaching – it’s critical that brands stay nimble to get ahead of the curve. Smartly.io’s holiday ebook highlights how you can capture a bigger slice of the pie these holidays - here are some of the tips and tricks!
Storytelling with Instagram and Facebook:
An arresting 15 second combination of video, copy, images makes Instagram Stories a compelling way of engaging the 500 million daily users on Instagram*. Utilize graphic cues like arrows at the bottom of the ad, to encourage users to swipe up, or use animations that draw the eye towards the bottom of the screen. Repurpose or resize existing marketing materials to reframe for Instagram Stories’ vertical format.
Let’s not forget Facebook’s stories feature either, which is now available on the Smartly.io platform. We recently partnered with TUI Belgium , the world’s largest travel group, to run one of their biggest promotions, which drove their creative volume by over 100x. Suggesting a call-to-action early on in the creative with a clear value proposition were key to increasing their Click-Through-Rates by 14% and cutting their Cost-Per-Acquisition by 12%.
Creative Automation at Scale:
Drive reach and engagement, and save time with Smartly.io’s Automated Ads solution, which pulls content in your feed - for example, a spreadsheet with pricing and product information - allowing you to create endless possibilities of ad creatives from a single template without the legwork. It works seamlessly with our Video and Image templates tool to let you adjust price points and product inventory during holiday season and have your creative instantly updated.
#WorkSmartly with Your Smartphone
48% of holiday shoppers agree their mobile device allows them to make more informed purchase decisions during the holidays* (Source: FB IQ research) - brands must be mindful of designing their ads mobile-first. Take advantage of mobile-first advertising formats like Facebook’s Canvas and Collection Ads, as well as Smartly.io’s automation tools available for both. These formats are a great opportunity for your brand to make an impact through experimenting with platform-specific design such as stickers, animations and video.
Build the Right Audience
You could have the most powerful and visually appealing ads in the game, but they’re useless if you’re not targeting effectively. On Facebook, Custom Audiences or Facebook’s Pixel are a great way to ensure you reach people who’ve shown interest in your brand or existing customers. Lookalike audiences are a powerful way of targeting potential customers who show similar behaviors and interests as your existing customers - we recommend uploading your CRM data from previous holiday seasons and/or high value spenders when building this audience. If you’re thinking of taking a step further and dividing your audience groups to reach more people, think before you split. We recommend using as large audiences as possible and not splitting them up, as Facebook’s clever algorithms and user data will find the people most likely to convert.
Beat the Competition with Campaign Optimization
It’s pay to play this holiday season, and effective optimization can make or break your campaign. The longer the campaign, the more you should pay attention to setting up automation around bids, budgets, and rotating creative. Alternatively, if you’re running limited offers during Black Friday for example, implementing optimization triggers to help scale budgets and bidding based on campaign performance is a great way to go, especially when experiencing volatility during flash sales. Since ad performance changes and fluctuates the most this season, we’ve created a holiday calendar to help your brand budget and bid effectively.
For more tips and tricks, check out our holiday e-book to guide you through the holiday season.
(*Source Statista)
Read the original feature here
