SteelHouse Rolls Out Annual Holiday Guide for Marketers to Develop Sharper, More Effective Ad Campaigns

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- This holiday shopping season, marketers should anticipate more consumers buying their gifts on mobile—and perhaps at the last minute—as they take advantage of later delivery dates offered by retailers, according to SteelHouse's annual Holiday Marketing Guide. In its fifth year, the guide was created to help marketers sort through digital-related shopping nuances and develop more effective holiday advertising campaigns. It features holiday trend data based on shopping habits from 2015, and includes perspective on what digital marketing strategies will work best this year.

Patrizio Spagnoletto, CMO at SteelHouse, says digital's impact on the overall marketing funnel has significantly changed the traditional holiday retail landscape.

"Mobile is growing rapidly," he shares. "Consumers are searching for last-minute deals, and they're waiting longer to begin their holiday shopping with retailers that accommodate later delivery. These are important shifts that require marketers to be more strategic and thoughtful about how and when they reach the critical in-market buyer."

The SteelHouse team has pulled out their top three holiday trends and recommendations that marketers should understand as they ready their seasonal ad campaigns. These unique insights, among others in the Holiday Marketing Guide, were gathered from holiday 2015 data that included impressions, clicks and purchases from SteelHouse brand clients across ecommerce, as well as aggregated third-party data.

• Move to mobile: Retail sales nearly doubled on smartphones year-over-year, increasing by 95.8%. And over 80% of millennials and Gen-Xers used a mobile device for holiday shopping.
  SteelHouse take: Be ready to update ad copy and creative. Keep an eye on your market to ensure campaigns are competitive and keep ads fresh with timely messages, such as deals or later shipping cut-offs, that appeal to shoppers in the moment and drive action.
• Last-minute shopping: December 23, 2015 saw the biggest year-over-year increase in ecommerce sales with a 56% growth rate, thanks to later delivery dates.
  SteelHouse take: Prospect early to convert later. Shoppers put off their purchasing until later in the season gives marketers more time to build an audience. Then, practitioners can hit critical buying periods with a full conversion funnel.
• Digital Black Friday: In 2015, CPMs were 3x higher than normal on Black Friday.
  SteelHouse take: Increase CPMs intelligently. Temporarily increasing CPMs is the best way to ensure holiday campaigns get in front of your audience. Test multiple bids and CPMs per campaign to find the sweet spot for performance and reach. Last year, for example, SteelHouse drove 30% of all conversions for one client between Black Friday and Cyber Monday by temporarily increasing their CPMs based on data from previous years.

To view all the trends and best practices SteelHouse gathered in the 2016 Holiday Guide in its entirety, click here.

About SteelHouse
SteelHouse provides software for brands, agencies, and direct marketers. The SteelHouse Advertising Suite gives premium brands worldwide everything they need to run acquisition and retention campaigns through display, mobile, and social. With the SteelHouse Creative Suite anyone can create beautiful ads using the content around them.

Sean Shortell
SHIFT Communications
Email: [email protected]  

Alysha Light
SteelHouse
Email: [email protected]

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SOURCE SteelHouse

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