For U.S. retailers, the holiday season can make or break their year, and the competition continues to heat up with increased investments across all marketing channels. Retail ad spend hit an all-time high during Q4 of last year, reaching a staggering $1.8B—up 22% from the same time in 2020.
In addition to an increased presence from competitors, this year will be particularly challenging for many brands and retailers, as approximately 1/3 of shoppers are planning on spending less this holiday season than they did last year. Retailers will have to work smarter and differentiate even more to match 2021 holiday sales levels.
Midsummer is generally the best time to start planning integrated advertising, media, and commerce strategy in order to maximize your ROI during the holiday shopping season—even marketers are human. We all blink and somehow it’s early November, and there are still plan refinements to be made, assets to produce, and budgets to firm up.
The good news is that it’s not too late to impact your holiday marketing plan. Here are five strategies you can still implement this holiday season.
Treat Yourself Messaging & Targeting
With 57% of U.S. shoppers saying they plan to treat themselves this holiday shopping season,*** creating specific messaging strategies that speak to the self-shopper is a great way to drive incremental sales. Even though it may be too late to create dedicated campaign assets for these consumers, advertisers can still update their programmatic DCO, social, and marketplace ads with self-shopper copy points. From a targeting perspective, Millennials and men (of all ages) are the audiences most likely to shop for themselves this season, and they should be prioritized to receive this messaging.