Planning for Holiday Season By Sean Popen

#SMX #HolidaySuccess @OfficeDepot

Anticipate, Engage, and Activate for the Holiday Season

Planning for Holiday Success


The Grey Holidays

HOLIDAY BUYING TRENDS


*Google Holiday Trends 2014

GREY HOLIDAY Top In-Store Spending Days Top Online Spending Days

3

Black Friday is spreading across the entire week of Thanksgiving

Holiday shopping season is expanding and covering more days

U.S. holiday weekend store sales fall on early discounts, online growth.

Black Friday weekend slows down as allure fades.

29% of shoppers start holiday shopping before Halloween.


CHANGING SHOPPING BEHAVIOR

§  2014 saw a shift in shopping to Thanksgiving and earlier §  Pre-Thanksgiving week sales

§  Saw a better ROI §  Drove nearly as many

sales as Thanksgiving and Black Friday

§  Were less expensive due to less competition

4 Source: Google queries across selection of retailers where queries are relevant


Retail Holiday Trends

RETAIL LEARNINGS


PRICE DROP PERFORMANCE §  2014 Testing showed that price drops in PLAs provide a substantial increase

in impressions and order volume §  Demand for popular tech items over the holidays in 2014 were high in the

mobile space §  Google continues to emphasize price point with their new promotional callouts

in PLAs

6


PRODUCT VS. CATEGORY LEVEL PROMOTIONS

§  Category level promotions allow better exposure across paid search and display §  Generic category sale sitelinks saw higher CTR and CVR than product specific

sitelinks §  There is simply more demand for category level queries

7 Source: Google Trends

• Laptops • Dell Laptops Ø 100

Ø 14

Black Friday


BUY BUTTONS §  Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest

§  There are more opportunities than ever to improve conversion rates in mobile


DIGITAL INFLUENCED RETAIL SALES §  Retailers are looking to measure online

to offline influence §  Forester reports that more than 50% of

sales will at least be influenced by digital in 2015 §  $1.9 trillion in revenue

§  A Deloitte study estimated that 25% of retail purchases are influenced by mobile.

§  Google’s LIA ads are an effective tool to measure online influence on digital


2015 PERFORMANCE & LEARNINGS Learnings §  Consumers are looking earlier and earlier for deals and many retailers are

meeting that expectation

§  Perception is not always reality – high demand days do not always produce positive returns

§  Category promotions tend to produce a better return due to their reach

§  Digital is driving retail sales even if it is difficult to measure


2015 HOLIDAY OUTLOOK

Holiday 2015 §  Continue to look for earlier opportunities to shift budget to meet changing

consumers behaviors

§  Leverage remarketing and segmentation to continue to cater messaging and offers based on the audience

§  Continue shift to mobile demand and evolution from research device to primary device

§  Look to leverage new sales opportunities like buy buttons that are being developed


THANK YOU!

SEE YOU @SMX WEST SAN JOSE, CA

MARCH 1-3, 2016

Planning for Holiday Season By Sean Popen

Retail

Transcript of Planning for Holiday Season By Sean Popen