Cold weather and family gatherings aren’t the only things that the holidays bring. November and December can be notorious months for increased ad competition and high cost per click. Thankfully, Digible’s paid media department has leveraged past years’ data to help guide us to create a successful, comprehensive spending strategy that maximizes return on ad spends during these competitive months.
The Problem: I Really Can’t Pay, Baby!
The cost per click is high. Just as the holiday season can shake up personal schedules and routines, it also impacts campaign budgeting and paid media key performance indicators (KPIs). Looking at eight weeks’ worth of data, from November 1st to December 31st, the trend lines demonstrated a consistent decrease in impression availability, across all channels, during holiday weeks. Limited inventory for impressions, with consistent competition, resulted in impressions and clicks costing more, ultimately limiting the number of clicks we can afford with unvarying monthly budgets.
Sleigh Bells Ring, Are You Listening?
Competition is growing, are you optimizing? With November and December being popular consumer advertising times, impression costs often skyrocket during these months. We want to ensure that our clients digital marketing campaigns are not impacted by this increased competition and can continue to stay within the previous return on ad spend benchmarks. While Digible always aims to meet all KPI goals, our main concerns and area of focus during this time are cost per click (CPC), cost per thousand impressions (CPM), and cost per lead (CPL). These KPIs are critical as keeping these within benchmark ensures maximizing the number of impressions and clicks our ads receive.
Comparing KPIs from the fourth week of November (Thanksgiving week) and the fourth week of December (Christmas and New Years week) to the weekly average of their respective months we were able to evaluate the historic impact and develop a holiday pacing strategy to set you up for success in this volatile time.
While The Impression Share Is Frightful, The Strategy is Delightful
…as they shouted out with glee…”more info please!”
During this time of year, optimizations are important not only because ad space is more expensive, but also due to leasing trends pivoting. During these holiday weeks, individuals are more focused on spending time with family and less motivated to source the necessary paperwork to submit an application or commit to touring or moving. These renter actions, (or lack thereof) have the potential to decrease onsite conversions and calls during this time period as a result of individuals being less in a rental mindset.
In addition to budget pacing optimizations, there are other critical holiday changes that can be made. Consider adjusting creative and copy to reflect winterized amenities (covered parking, indoor fitness center, hot tubs, and fireplaces), holiday special offers, and/or holiday hour changes to the leasing office.
Ready to make this the most wonderful and successful time of the year? This year the present under the tree is, that if you’re already utilizing Digible for your Multifamily Paid Media Management, we’ve already got your strategy under wrap!
Interested in learning more or adding these holiday tactics to your existing campaigns? Contact your Account Manager today!
