Table of Contents
- Retail Digital Media and Key Shopping Moments
- Retail Digital Media can help your brand attract shoppers during the event in many different ways
- 4 Considerations to create a high-performing Retail Digital Media plan for Black Friday
Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping events of the year, will take place on 23 November 2018. Are your eCommerce plans ready to ensure your brand achieves its potential peak performance? More than 170 million shoppers in the US participated in Black Friday 2017, according to the National Retail Federation. While brands tend to focus their in-store visibility, in 2017 shoppers spent $5.03 billion online. If we break it down, 64 million people shopped both online and in stores; 58 million shopped only online, and 51 million shopped only in stores[1]. This resulted in “the largest Black Friday online ever,” according to Taylor Schreiner, director of Adobe Digital Insights, with a 16.9% increase on the $4.3 billion in online sales achieved in 2016[2]. But this key shopping moment is not just a US phenomenon; “Across Europe data showed that the 2017 Black Friday period has been stronger than ever, with revenue increasing by over 50%, orders by one-third, and average order value by 15%.”[3]
Retail Digital Media and Key Shopping Moments
Retail Digital Media is critical during all key shopping moments, but especially in preparation for Black Friday. Why? Because Black Friday has become a critical time for brands to achieve their year-end sales target. And to win this moment, brands must be even more visible in a very crowded eRetailer environment. The activation of Retail Digital Media plays a major role in overcoming this challenge and enables brands to stand out from the crowd.
Retail Digital Media can help your brand attract shoppers during the event in many different ways:
- Retail paid search can make sure your hero products rank high in retailer search results pages. This will give you sufficient share-of-voice to shoppers who are interested in your category.
- Display banners can drive the awareness of your promoted products while building interest in your brand, whether inside or outside the category section.
- A systematic use of re-targeting can help close the deal within the day.
4 Considerations to create a high-performing Retail Digital Media plan for Black Friday
- Build a specific integrated planning strategy for Black Friday that combines retail search and display, inside and outside the category, to optimize conversion amongst a sufficient number of shoppers.
- Negotiate the best possible buying cost as part of yearly deals. CPM can show a significant inflation on Black Friday compared to any other day of the year. Controlling the buying cost is therefore a must in order to achieve a positive ROI.
- Think about year-on-year (YoY) optimization and define a success measurement plan. Define your key performance indicators and goals while getting the retailer to commit to sharing performance data.
- Design specific creative assets for Black Friday, avoid simply recycling your traditional digital advertising assets. Repurposing will not enable your brand to stand out, be recognized and chosen in such a crowded multi-category environment.
Want to know more about how to get a competitive edge with Retail Digital Media? At the eBusiness Institute our experts have been advising brands on Retail Digital Media since 2014. We help our clients to utilize RDM successfully to win in the eCommerce space. Contact us for more information.
Authors: Alexia André, Jordane Beller
Sources:
[1] NRF: Holiday retail sales 2017
[2] Adobe digital insights, 2017 ADI Holiday Recap
[3] CJ, 2017 Holiday intelligence repor
