Carly Stec says, “The malls are decked with holly, your inbox is filling up with holiday-themed promotions, and you’ve deemed it socially acceptable to start listening to your favorite holiday playlist on Spotify … or maybe that’s just me. Either way, the holiday season is here, and marketers are gearing up to finish off the year strong. But just like shopping for gifts, planning your holiday campaign is something you don’t want to shove off until the last minute. There’s going to be a lot of spending going in over the next month or so, which is why it’s... [...]

Fergal Glynn says, “Slated to pull in approximately $965 billion between November and January, this season’s holiday sales will see a four percent bump versus last year. But, online retailers looking to unlock the season’s full potential need to make holiday shopping trends part of their sales strategy. How can you prepare your business for this year’s holiday sales storm? We’ve laid out a few quick online sales tips to help make this season your merriest yet: Tip #1: Get the Timing Right Just because you’re early to the holiday game doesn’t mean you’ll win. Revving up... [...]

Jack Simpson says, “With Black Friday and Christmas on their way there is plenty to keep marketers’ minds distracted. But come the new year the problem of ad blocking is going to be more prevalent than ever.  I caught up with Forbes’ European managing director, Charles Yardley, to find out how the publisher moved toward a native content revenue model and why it chose to go down that route. How worried are you personally about ad blocking?  Ad blocking is a hugely important topic and poses real threats to all ad-supported publishers. It’s very much top of mind at Forbes. How damaging... [...]

Jonathan Segal says, “The upcoming holiday season can be the most wonderful time of the year, but it all poses challenges to entrepreneurs of all sizes. Yes, there are risks. What good does not come with some risk? But most of the legal and employee relations risks can be mitigated with some thoughtful planning. So here’s a checklist of issues to minimize the risk that your December celebrations will result in January claims. 1. Don’t eliminate Christmas. Don’t eliminate Christmas from the holiday season, says this Jewish guy. It’s a beautiful holiday that should be celebrated. And a... [...]

Michael O’Grady says, “In Western Europe, November and December account for a fifth of annual retail sales. However, consumers aren’t spending more over the holiday period; they are just shifting their spending earlier in the shopping season. Forrester expects European online sales over the holiday period to grow 12.5% compared to 2014. In the UK, heavy discounting, notably as a result of Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions, has a huge impact on holiday shopping. Holiday spending is of critical importance to retailers. In 2014, Amazon traded one-third of its retail sales in... [...]

Kyla Cobb says, “In today’s MarketingExperiments blog post, we’ll look at the 2014 holiday campaigns of Amazon, Best Buy, Apple and Walmart and see what you can learn from their efforts. If you sell anything at all — from books to electronics to glow-in-the-dark toilet paper — you compete with at least one, if not all, of these retailers. More than 500 data points gathered and analyzed over 42 days To understand the information you’re about to see, let’s take a quick look at the methodology. 16 Web Research Analysts from MECLABS Institute (MarketingExperiments’ parent research... [...]

Berry Levine says, “Like parents with young children, marketers with marketing technology can see a new level of maturity in each new holiday season. As we enter this year’s holidays, I checked with three marketers to find out what differences they’re seeing in marketing tech at the ground level, compared with just a year ago. Campaign Monitor CMO Kraig Swensrud, whose company enables email campaigns for two million customers, says that these small-to-medium-sized businesses “simply want do-it-yourself.” More than in previous years, he said, SMBs now expect one-click integration... [...]

Ben Davis says, “Some retailers are making basic errors preparing their landing pages for Black Friday. As we’ve discussed previously, retailers need a year-round Black Friday landing page to ensure that they achieve decent search rankings and keep their audience informed. Granted, Black Friday only truly hit the British consciousness during 2014’s elbow-fest, but some websites have missing pages or redirects where their Black Friday landing pages once were. I’ve had a look at the landing pages of some British retailers that sell TVs. Let’s see how they compare. Littlewoods Starting... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “For this holiday season, 80% of consumers plan to spend as much as or more than they did last year, according to a recent report from SAS. The report was based on data from a survey of 3,458 consumers in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. The US leads expected spending growth, with 29% of US respondents saying they plan to spend more this year. Most Canadian shoppers, on the other hand, say they are tightening their budgets this year. Millennial respondents (age 18-29) are the most likely to say they will increase their spending this year, whereas older... [...]

Michael Guta says, “As Black Friday 2015 fast approaches, shoppers and retailers are getting ready for the single busiest day of the year. In the U.S. alone, $9.1 billion was spent by shoppers in stores in 2014, which doesn’t include online sales. However, a new survey conducted by Prosper Insights and Analytics on behalf of the National Retail Federation (NRF) reveals almost half of holiday shopping (both buying and browsing) will be online this year. In the 10 years the NRF has been tracking this trend, this year’s projected 46.1 percent represents the high mark thus far for online... [...]