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Facebook Advice To Make The Most of Christmas Ads

Published by richard on October 30th, 2016

As the festive season approaches as quickly as ever, one way to really connect with your customers and win new business is through the use of Facebook Ads.

Whilst it might not be the first place consumers go to get their shopping done, using a mix of visually compelling and well-targeted adverts can help sky-rocket Christmas-time revenue.

Facebook has released a set to tips to help businesses make the most of their advertising platform during the season. They include how to build awareness, drive brand loyalty and reach the right people. The guidelines also share insights on how to find new customers on Facebook, as well as taking a look at how other businesses have made the most of Facebook Ads.

Below are Facebook’s four key tips to finding the right people to shop with you this Christmas.

Build Awareness

Facebook suggests that getting ahead of the game is one of the best things you can do ahead of Christmas. Shopping peaks at the end of November and throughout December, and so right now the best thing a business can be doing on Facebook is building brand and product awareness with potential customers.

Brand building can go a long way in driving sales in the long run. Facebook suggests trying a broad advertising campaign that gets your message in front of as many people as possible, and reappears on their timeline at least twice a week.

Then, when it comes around to attempting to make a sale, your potential new customers will already feel connected with your brand and will therefore be more likely to buy.

Find New Customers

As Facebook correctly points out, it’s no longer the case that consumers dedicate just one or two days to do their Christmas shopping. With the rise of mobile commerce, more and more people are doing their Christmas shopping in a more fragmented fashion; whilst on the train to work, at home on the sofa, when standing in a queue at the Post Office – literally anytime, anywhere.

They suggest the following:

  • For ads with seasonal messages, add an Auction campaign on top of Reach & Frequency campaigns that you’re already running to reinforce messaging.
  • Use a Brand Awareness objective instead of Page Post Engagements to optimise your ads for increasing awareness among your audience, rather than just likes or shares.

Reach the right people

As with all advertising, your message will only ever translate into sales if it’s targeted at the correct person. For example, trying to sell baby toy gifts to somebody with no children is much less likely to convert into a sale than if the same advert was targeted as couples with newborns.

Because of this, Facebook suggests that any sales advertising should be targeted using their Custom Audience features, to create separate segments of your customer base to sell to.

Another suggestion is to ‘give customers a nudge’, using Facebook’s new dynamic ads. These adverts can display items that a customer has added to their cart, but failed to purchase. When scrolling on Facebook, the customer will see the items they showed an interest in, alongside a call to action to encourage them to complete the transaction.

Drive brand loyalty and value

The final piece of advice that Facebook gives businesses is to encourage customers to keep coming back for more. They note that not all customers have the same lifetime value, and as such, reaching out to and connecting with the most valuable customers is the best way to grow revenue.

The company give the following pieces of advice to help build loyalty amongst customers: 

  • Try existing customers to increase LTV
  • Try segmenting based on the recency of purchase and value and alter your bid accordingly
  • Don’t forget to combine email marketing databases with Custom Audiences

Cross-sell and upsell to drive more purchases

  • Consider creating Custom Audiences of categories from your website or app, and re-target customers with a complementary or high-value product, then automate the process with Dynamic Ads.

The Final Word

Christmas is getting closer and closer. It’s a real opportunity for businesses to grow their customer-base and take real advantage of the spikes in consumer spending. Facebook has offers a huge amount of practical advice in this valuable guide. To read it in full, head over to their blog.