How Online Advertising Can Drive Last-Minute Holiday Shoppers

Read Time: 5 minutes

As the holiday season approaches, retailers face the challenge of grabbing the attention of last-minute shoppers. This is the period when most consumers are rushing to complete their purchase of gifts for their loved ones, so effective online advertising can play a critical role in influencing their purchase. Through specific advertising campaigns, it’s possible to target procrastinators and turn them into customers.

Strategies like persuasive promotions, social media advertising, and retargeting campaigns can boost recognition and influence immediate transactions. Additionally, enhancing mobile functionality and integrating data analytics can assist in fine-tuning your online advertising campaigns and reach these last minute shoppers.

Let’s dig deeper into the digital advertising tips that can help retailers targeting last-minute holiday buyers and increase sales by improving the visibility of the brand during this highly competitive period.

Targeted Advertising

Targeted advertising is rapidly gaining popularity in the modern day. Consumer activities are monitored through their search history, demographic information, and page visits to optimally curate the advertisements that match their preferences.

Strategies for targeted advertising include:

• Retargeting Ads: Instead of casting a wider net to all consumers, it can save you marketing resources by focusing on users already aware of your business and products. Aim at quality prospects who’ve shown interest, put products in their cart, and did not check out. Appeal to such consumers with advertisements that recreate items they came across in the store to appeal them to impulse buy. Your messaging should have inviting images of your products to trigger the user to click the ad. Also, use a call to action like “shop now” or “buy now” to simplify the purchasing process.
• Social Media Ads: Social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram have a paid ad policy. Advertisers generate campaigns for holiday products that are likely to interest last-minute shoppers. These campaigns increase the probability of making more sales through website conversions.

Promotional Offers

Creating a sense of urgency among consumers towards your products can be very effective inprompting quick purchases. Offering discounts and promotions during the last days of a holiday gives shoppers a chance to buy last-minute holiday gifts. It also encourages them to share irresistible offers with their social circles, converting to more sales.Some popular advertising strategies for promotional offers are:

• Free shipping: High shipping costs increase online shoppers’ cart abandonment rate. Free, fast, and reliable shipping right before the holiday season brings order fulfillment to consumers and can increase sales. You can also incorporate a minimum order subtotal that guarantees free delivery.
• Flash sales: An impromptu sale brings attention and excitement. A price drop on items frequently purchased for a limited time introduces the fear of missing out among consumers, increasing foot and website traffic. Your flash sale should not last longer than 24 hours for enhanced effectiveness in encouraging immediate buys.

Website Marketing

Web marketing is an ideal strategy for your holiday marketing strategy. It would help if you made it easy for potential customers to buy from you. One way to do so is by curating lists of products mostly shopped during holidays and displaying them on your website. Analyze your sales data and come up with list labels such as:

• “For her” or “for him.”
• Items under a specific price range
• Popular or recommended products

Top Tip: A website that is easy to navigate attracts more customers willing to buy during the last-minute holiday rush.

Email Promotion

Email promotion is an online marketing strategy that allows businesses to reach out to their audiences to build brand awareness, loyalty, and trust. Email adverts inform subscribers about upcoming holidays, promotions, and offers on previous items purchased.

Avoid using spam triggers in your content to increase the effectiveness of email marketing. You can consider using a platform that sends timely emails when triggered by a customer’s action, such as cart abandonment. Also, having countdown alerts can help to remind subscribers that shopping deadlines are nearing so they can make an advance purchase.

Create a Gift Guide

Curating a holiday gift guide with some ideal recommendations attracts customers’ attention. The guide may be a blog post, email, or web page. Gift guides can help last-minute shoppers easily find suitable gifts for their loved ones during the festive season.

Social Media Contests and Giveaways

Online contests are an innovative way to boost last-minute sales. Business owners sponsor holiday-focused contests across social media platforms to your customers’ attention and stay on their radars. You can launch a holiday campaign in the form of a competition where the winner gets free products or significant discounts on things purchased within a specified period. You can also have multi-day giveaways to increase engagements on your social media pages that subsequently translate to conversions.

Another contest that is likely to engage potential customers is asking consumers to comment on your posts about upcoming holiday-related content. The comment with the most likes replies gets a giveaway, which increases the audience and enhances brand awareness.

SMS and Push Notifications

Integrating SMS and push notifications is effective for promotions. Many last-minute holiday shoppers use their phones for texting, making SMS a powerful advertising tool. SMS integration during holidays elevates customer engagement and marketing performance by directly reaching out to customers and driving action.

Creating Engaging and Interactive Holiday Content

Engaging holiday content helps to capture your audience’s attention. You can create a holiday calendar that contains unique content, surprises, and daily offers to drive sales and increase engagement. Another way to make last-minute sales is by incorporating holiday-themed quizzes, polls, and other interactive elements that provide personalized product recommendations to consumers to help them get products that meet their needs faster.

You can also collaborate with influencers to curate holiday-themed content for your business, which will help boost your brand visibility. Target niche influences that will help your brand connect with specific demographics during holidays to amplify your marketing efforts.

Get Help Implementing Your Next Online Advertising Campaign

A properly executed online advertising strategy can significantly increase your sales during the holiday season. From timely planning to targeted advertising and curating engaging content online, multiple ways exist to capture the holiday spirit and get sales conversions.

Connectica LLC is a digital marketing agency that prides itself on implementing innovative approaches to showcase your business’s brand. These approaches include content creation, graphic design, video production, social media marketing, website creation, and SEO optimization.

Contact us for a free SEO report, and let us help you climb new heights in the digital space.