When it comes to social planning, the Christmas calendar is filled months in advance. Amidst the planning, it is important to ensure your social calendar reflects the needs of your customers.
Advertising on social media is a great way to target those shoppers with exactly the right targeting. Recently, Facebook analysed past data to uncover some key dates that advertisers should base their media plans around. By targeting these moments, brands can influence people at the point where decisions are truly being made this Christmas.
According to Facebook, the Christmas conversation has already started. First signs of this occurred back on the 24th October, 3 weeks before traditional media launches. Facebook also stated that 40% of women and 40% of mobile shoppers say they will have completed their shopping by November. This is an incredibly scary fact as we could have already have missed the boat on some of our potential audience.
However, it is definitely not too late to make an impact. Facebook’s statistics revealed that men, single people and millennials leave all their shopping to the last minute. Plus, there is a 46% increase during the second half of December. Interestingly, more and more older demographics are purchasing on mobile, especially those with children. This demographic is actually bigger than the demographic of those who don’t have children. For dads, December 12th is the biggest shopping day of the year, driven by mobile.
Although the lead up to Christmas is incredibly important, do not forget Boxing Day! This is one of the biggest days for online shopping and should be a key date on your social strategies, especially for retail clients. It is important to follow these social trends and ensure that you are targeting the right people at the right time. This will maximise your potential online and drive those ever important sales on the lead up to Christmas.
Facebook’s analysis also illustrated that some of the best value CPMs (costs per thousands) to be found all year on the social network were within the first two weeks of January. Being an acquisition-led agency, this is something that we must take into consideration when planning for 2017.
All Response Media Viewpoint
Since receiving these insights, we have included these dates in our holiday calendars when shaping campaigns over the coming months. As you can see, shopping habits differ drastically during this time and we must ensure we are staying ahead of the curve.
We will definitely factor the prospective lower CPM into our January planning. On average, CPM’s on Facebook for acquisition activity sits around £5, but is expected to drop to around £3 during a two week period. As you can imagine if your campaigns already have great efficiencies they can only get better. What a great way to kick start 2017.
