Nearly half (45%) of Americans plan to start holiday shopping before November, with one in four starting before October. Retailers are capitalizing on this earlier start: Nearly 80% indicated they will begin holiday marketing efforts earlier this year. So how do you distribute your ad spend, without missing out on any revenue opportunities?
Three Buying Periods that Advertisers and Media Buyers Should Plan for.
Early November through to Cyber Monday.
During this time period, shoppers are looking at larger purchases, to make sure they get the “big gift” like a gaming system or a trendy toy before it sells out. This year retailers plan to start their Black Friday deals a week or 2 before Thanksgiving Day, expanding into 2 weeks of deals. Consumers plan to spend an average of $743 during the Black Friday (Nov. 24) to Cyber Monday (Nov. 27) shopping weekend, up 47% from last year’s average of $505. Advertisers need to get in front of consumers even earlier than past years to make sure they are top of mind for those big ticket items as Black Friday and Cyber Monday are no longer single-focus days.
Early December to the third week of the month.
Shoppers are out shopping for smaller-ticket, higher-volume items for family, friends and co-workers. Cyber Monday allows for “Bounceback Tuesday”: with accumulated cookie pools from shoppers who weren’t yet ready to purchase their big-ticket items, make Tuesday an amazing data day for retargeting.
The final week before Christmas.
The last-minute scramble to find the right gift and have it be delivered on time. Amazon’s promotion of two-day and even same-day shipping is pushing that deadline ever later as retailers like Target match their speed. This year’s holiday season gives shoppers an extra Saturday before Christmas Eve for last-minute shopping. It would be wise to set aside a media buying budget for last-minute promotional activity to encourage impulse buys during that final week.
To find out more about when and where we predict people will be shopping this 2017 Holiday season download Digilant’s Holiday and Consumer Shopping Report.