SEO and PPC Tips for the Short Shopping Season

This year's shopping season is shorter than usual: Only 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas instead of the usual four and a half to five weeks.

• Hanukkah begins on Christmas Day, and Kwanzaa is the day after.
• Because Christmas and Hanukkah fall on Wednesdays, eliminating the need to shop at retailers over the weekend for last-minute gifts, there may be an increase in demand for e-gifts and gift cards.
• It's an election year in America.
• The last election took place during a pandemic, so shopping habits and promotions cannot be compared.

A shorter shopping period means an earlier final shipping date, less time to clear 2025 inventory and less advertising space and promotions available, increasing costs.

There's some good news to make your life as a marketer easier.

• This year, you can save time and money by not having to run separate holiday campaigns, including the summer solstice on December 21st this year, with one overarching message for each religion.
• Because email campaigns apply to all holiday customers, there’s less design work, split testing, and deadlines.
• The last day to ship is the same for all customers, eliminating the need for additional calendar reminders.
• Media is important and price hikes haven't started yet as many people haven't realised the year is short, so you can get a solid deal by booking your space now.

Here are some ways to prepare for the holiday season by marketing channel:

(Note: SMS, email, and social media have been excluded here as they would all benefit from a combination of the above.)

Niche Sites, Influencers & Publishers

Niche sites, influencers, and media companies create content for Small Business Saturday, with roundups sharing the best of Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday, as well as listicles of the best of XYZ.

You're limited in the videos you can shoot and where you can publish without scaring off your fans, and your ability to share specific products is limited. With days to free shipping and publishing times dwindling, now's the time to get your listings in order.

When planning your editorial calendar, consider the following:

• Free shipping is a big part of the consumer decision-making process, so find out which niches or industries have slower shipping times. Prepare for them early in the season. This includes furniture, bespoke gifts and print-on-demand products.
• Consider increasing your prices this year as you will need to make up for quantity shortfalls due to the limited time you have to publish your shopping list, send emails, and post on social media.
• Look at trends and interests from the beginning of the year and arrange sponsorships based on consumer demand. Be sure to include “it” toys and gifts. Find unique things that have a similar or same audience and pair them together.

Big brands are likely paying a lot of money to be featured, which will make your listing stand out as unique compared to big media companies that mostly feature big brands.

By targeting a similar buyer demographic and including products they want, rather than relying on the budgets of big brands, affiliate links and paid sponsored links can drive more conversions and drive another media buy.

PPC and Paid Social

We already expect costs to rise during the holiday season, but this year, with less time available to shop, people will have to spend their budgets and costs are expected to rise even more, so messaging is my advice.

(Please note that the content in this section is not political, and we do not encourage you to promote politics in your messages. What matters is the tone and voice of the words you use. You need to respond to your potential customer in their current state of mind.)

Look at the top counties and preferably the zip codes your customers live in and segment off the top 30 to 100 or more if possible. Once the election starts, look at how each person voted because America is heavily Democratic. Then modify your messaging into three categories based on their voting patterns.

• Supportive: The losing side.
• Bright and excited: The winning side.
• Standard Holidays: When the vote is close to 50/50.

The great thing about PPC and social media advertising is that you can target people using inclusions, exclusions, geography, etc. Politics is intense, so you can say the same thing differently depending on how the election votes.

Let’s say you sell water heaters. Based on the three bullet points above, you might phrase it like this:

• Supportive: The world is full of stress, so replace your water heater today to keep it clean and give you some “me time” when you need it most.
• bright: Don't let an outdated water heater ruin your “me time” this winter. Replace it now and keep your showers, baths and system hot this holiday season.
• standard: Don't suffer from cold showers this winter. Now is the time to replace your water heater and save XY% during the holiday event.

You can always use ad rotation tools to test standard messages, including uplifting or reassuring messages, to see if changing them based on election results or voter turnout in your county or ZIP code makes a difference.

SEO

Search engines have entered the shopping process: some create shopping experiences featuring brands and filters, while others surface coupon codes and other things of interest.

You’ll also likely see products become available near you for last-minute gifting, so now is the time to get your tech stack in order.

• Learn how to use the Promotions feature in Google Merchant Center to help your deals appear in organic search results.
• your Latest data feeds, submitMake sure search engines like Google are working and make sure your local retailers are doing the same.
• Track which products have high conversion potential and work with your PR and affiliate teams to get your products and services featured at the top. The links are not SEO backlinks, but they can be crawled to help people find your most important holiday offers.

For domestic and international SEOs, it’s often too late to make changes by the time the season starts due to code freezes. Instead, be proactive with the steps mentioned above to keep your SEO effective and benefit your company and clients.

Learn more: 9 SEO Tactics for the Holidays

Affiliates and Influencers

This is a time-sensitive channel, so you need to start preparing now. Great affiliate managers spend most of the year building evergreen content that brings top-funnel traffic to their sites. The holiday season is the time to get the push and block your competitors.

Space is limited this year, so reserve your space now below, sign a contract with your partner, and get your budget approved as soon as possible.

• The day when influencers get promotions and products.
• Product and category specific converting phrases and wording to share with all content creators (YouTube, social media, niche sites, listicles, PPC partners, etc.).
• Email and newsletter features and sponsorships.
• You are guaranteed a listing on a specific listing article and advertising space within it.
  • Share with your social and PPC teams which listing posts have non-affiliate ads so they can focus their ads on listing posts that drive affiliate sales.
• Social media date and time promotions to block competitors and secure your space.

With just 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, combined with the added complexity of overlapping holidays, this year’s compressed timeline calls for a strategic approach to SEO and marketing.

By implementing the strategies above and staying flexible, you can turn the challenges of the 2024 holiday season into opportunities for growth.

The key is to act now: the earlier you prepare, the better your chances of grabbing your share of holiday sales during this condensed shopping period.