Every consumer in the United States may not have participated in Cyber Monday 2012, but they sure did hear about it! Cyber Monday 2012 was predicted to generate $1.5 billion in sales in the United States. The shopping extragavanga grew by 30.3% from Cyber Monday 2011. Cyber Monday 2012 was so large and successful that IBM named it the biggest online shopping day in history.
This year, Cyber Monday beat Black Friday sales by 36%. According to IBM, Cyber Monday shoppers perfer to use PCs and laptops to do their online shopping, while 18% used their mobile devices to browse online which actually increased by 70% since Cyber Monday 2011. Cyber Monday 2012 resulted in mobile device sales of 13% which grew by 96% compared to 2011.
Of course, with such a large crowd of online shoppers, brands were pumping out larger budgets in their pay per click campaigns. However, a few small and medium business owners asked us, “how can we optimize for Cyber Monday success?”.
Our campaign management team here at LookSmart responded with the following tips and strategies:
- Create a whole new campaign instead of adjusting currently running campaigns. You can create one or a few brand new campaigns specifically for Cyber Monday which will keep your account cleaner and more organized.
- Segment your products accordingly and use past data and statistics to determine which products you expect will do the most successful with consumers on Cyber Monday.
- Offer a deal! Consumers love nothing more than getting a great deal on Cyber Monday! Create a deal, coupon code, etc. and use it in your PPC creatives to lure in consumers.
- Review and revise your negatives list to ensure you aren’t getting garbage traffic that will lower your return on investment. Black list any keywords and keyword phrases as required.