Sharpen Your Pencils for Back-to-School Marketing
Transcript of Sharpen Your Pencils for Back-to-School Marketing
STRETCHING A BUCK
SEARCH: A GROWING PLACE TOFIND BACK-TO-SCHOOL SUPPLIES
BACK-TO-SCHOOL VS. HOLIDAYHOW DO THEY COMPARE ANYWAY?
TOP 4 SEARCHTERMS:
82%
58% OFPARENTS
OFSHOPPERS
Unpack your notebooks and sharpen your pencils, because the back-to-school shopping season is heating up. Don’t believe us? The second largest retail season of the year—which brought in a cool$26.5 billion in revenue in 2014—begins this month.
How long it runs, though, is anybody’s guess, because consumers are already indicating they’ll be changing their shopping behaviors. If you want to know how, we suggest you read on and study up.
No surprise here, but an overwhelming majority of back-to-school shoppers say their purchases will be influenced by how much money they can save. What is surprising, though, is how that focus on savings is changing behaviors.
Though search is a major lifeblood for any retail season, its influence on back-to-school has only grown over the years. Shoppers aren’t abandoning the one-stop brick-and-mortar approach to the season, per se, but they’re more willing than ever to look online.
Aside from the obvious overall revenue impact, back-to-school and Holiday have some nuanced differences. The lengths of the shopping seasons are one, but there are others, too.
Here’s an equation for you:
say they always look for deals before shopping.
will buy only the necessities during the traditional back-to-school season. As for the
rest of the traditional haul? They’ll wait untilHoliday Season (when the deals are better).
(AND THE SHOPPING SEASON)
“back to school”“school supplies”“school shopping”“back to school sales”
ALL ABOUT THE HAUL
Though shoppers are searching for deals, they also planned to spend more last year— $669.28 per household —than they did the year before—$634.78. That adds up to a pretty full backpack.
(WHAT’S IN THE BAG?)
81% of parents say it’s most important for students to have their school supplies on the first day of school
73% of parents say students heavily influence clothing and school supply purchase decisions
29%
$112.83$101.18SCHOOLSUPPLIES
$231.30CLOTHING &ACCESSORIES
$124.45SHOES &SNEAKERS
$212.35ELECTRONICS
of shoppers say they plan to spend more in 2015
average order value during
Back-to-School shopping season
AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD SPENDING PER
CATEGORY
31%BEGIN ONLINE SHOPPING
2 MONTHSBEFORE SCHOOL BEGINS
48%BEGIN ONLINE SHOPPING
1 MONTHBEFORE SCHOOL BEGINS
18%BEGIN ONLINE SHOPPING
2 WEEKSBEFORE SCHOOL BEGINS
Welcomeback!
months
month
WEEKS
38%of shoppers say they’ll do back-to-school shopping online this year
31%planned to use a tablet to make a
purchase in 2014
21%planned to use a
smartphone to make a purchase in 2014
1/3 Amount of shoppers who say online advertising helps them find back-to-school items
BACK-TO-SCHOOL
HOLIDAYSEASON
Discount Store: 64.4%Department Store: 59.1%
Clothing Store: 53.8%Office Supplies Store: 42%
Online: 38.2%
Final two weeks in August
Discount store: 61.9%Department Store: 59.7%Online: 56%Supermarket: 51.2%Clothing Store: 36.7%
Cyber Monday, Black Friday& Thanksgiving
$669.28 per household $804.42 per household
1.86% 2.29%
Desktop: 65.68%Mobile: 20.78%
Tablet: 13.54%
Desktop: 64.86%Mobile: 19.8%Tablet: 15.34%
WHERE THE SHOPPING HAPPENS
RED-HOT SHOPPING DAYS
OVERALL SPENDING
CONVERSION RATE
DEVICE SHOPPING
ACING BACK-TO-SCHOOL:THE ONE ANSWER YOU NEED
VOLUME VOLATILITYNIGHTMARES
FOR MARKETERS
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If you’re trying to ace productlisting ads during the back-to-schoolon your own, you’re doing it wrong.
That’s why we’re here. Sidecar is the first and only technology that fully automates Google Shopping campaigns at the product level. Retailers that use Sidecar drive
millions of dollars of measurable revenue and save time and internal resources, while maximizing ROI and improving the search-to-transaction journey for customers.
LEARN MORE AT: WWW.GETSIDECAR.COMSOURCES: NRF | SEARCH ENGINE WATCH | CNBC | EXPERIAN | AOL | MARKETWATCH