The year is drawing to a close, bringing with it a wave of promotional offers like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This strategic final quarter is packed with opportunities, and you need to approach them with confidence.
Whether on Meta Ads, Google Ads, or other advertising platforms, get ahead of the curve and set yourself up for a strong year-end by following these must-dos.
Get ahead of the learning phase
Your campaigns' learning phase — which can last up to 3 weeks — is a period during which the algorithm optimizes itself and collects data. As a result, performance can be unstable and results may dip.
We recommend getting ahead of this learning phase so that the algorithm has moved past it by the time your promotional offers go live, ensuring it runs as efficiently as possible.
Test lead generation campaigns and broaden your audiences
At year-end, internet users have strong purchase intent and are actively looking for deals and gift ideas for their loved ones. Given the surge in demand, it's worth stepping away from your core target persona in favor of broader audiences and people actively seeking bargains (interests: promotions, discount coupons, Black Friday, etc.).
With that in mind, and ahead of the promotional periods, take the opportunity to test lead generation campaigns (Lead Gen). These email capture campaigns will help you grow your CRM database and keep your audience informed about your upcoming deals and major events.
On top of that, your website will attract a large volume of traffic over the next two months. Be ready to scale up the budget on your retargeting campaigns to capture virtually everyone who has interacted with your e-shop and drive conversions.
Don't forget to leverage your prospect lists to launch lookalike audience campaigns!
Make the most of your product feeds
You can retarget your audience with a DPA on Meta Ads. This dynamic ad format pulls from your product catalog in the form of an image or a carousel. With this format, the algorithm dynamically shows the products users have shown interest in, via your website or app.
Similarly, a DABA targets users who have never interacted with your brand and personalizes ads based on the products most likely to appeal to your audience.
We recommend using every available shopping channel to attract a qualified audience. These channels immediately surface an image, price, and brand, which ensures higher-quality clicks.
You'll find the Shopping feature on most major ad platforms: Google with Performance Max campaigns, Pinterest with catalog campaigns, and more recently on Meta via Advantage+ Shopping Campaign.
Our essential creative best practices for year-end
Competition is fierce in the final months of the year, and standing out becomes critical to avoid losing potential buyers.
Follow these 4 tips and polish your creatives to rise above the noise!
- Prepare short, authentic content
As you've likely noticed, short-form content is dominating social media: on average, 45% of Instagram accounts post to Reels at least once a week. Ride that wave and prepare different visuals for Reels (Instagram), Shorts (YouTube), TikTok, and more.
Have fun animating your message to catch users' attention, and don't forget to tie your ads to the upcoming event.
- Highlight your competitive advantages
What better way to stand out from the competition than to put your competitive advantages front and center? Use as many ad extensions as possible on Google, along with the info labels available on Meta.
- Create a sense of urgency
Upcoming promotions (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc.) are short-lived — nudge users into action with urgency-driven copy like "only a few hours left to grab this deal" or "limited offer." Build that FOMO!
- Add product tags to your creatives
Personalize your Meta visuals with product tags, which let you identify the featured products and display their price. Users can then click directly on the tag to be redirected to the corresponding product page.
You now have everything you need to finish the year strong in the digital space!
Want expert guidance on your digital marketing strategy? Don't hesitate to reach out!
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