Make an Impact with your Black Friday Advertising

Black Friday is one of the most popular days on the shopping calendar as Black Friday flags the start to the Christmas shopping season. As such it’s important to make an impact with your Black Friday Advertising. For those that don’t know, Black Friday is the term used for the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States and it’s typically one of the largest revenue days for retailers.

In past years Black Friday coupons have played a role in driving consumers to buy in store, but it’s important to remember that many consumers will prefer to click on advertising driving them to buy online. So it’s essential to not only do offline media, but ensure you invest in online Black Friday Advertising to drive sales online. Even if you only do in store sales, its important to run a campaign which reaches consumers, engages with them and creates a relationship well before they reach the store.

Because the Gourmet Ads network features an audience of grocery buyers and household decision makers it’s essential to ensure that we are part of your Black Friday Advertising media mix.

Ideas to make your Black Friday Advertising stand out from competitors include;

1. Roadblock Advertising – every impression for Thanksgiving and Black Friday will be yours across the network. We can offer you 100% of the network for 2 days.
2. Interstitial Advertising – Undertake an interstitial campaign capped at 1/24 on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Offers a high engagement rate and can include video and rich media.
3. Beyond the Banner – create a free standing rich media ad which grabs consumer’s attention and encourages click through.
4. Display Advertising campaign – Key to success is to include a variety of creative including expandable units on rollover to increase the engagement rate. This campaign could be run a week before Black Friday or launch on the morning of Thanksgiving.

If you haven’t already booked your Black Friday Advertising, then don’t delay as the Gourmet Ads network often books out during the Thanksgiving period.

Black Friday Advertising is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.

For the team at Gourmet Ads, the fourth quarter (or Q4 as some say) is very much considered the business end of the year for us. It’s when many food, wine and grocery companies begin their advertising campaigns, having reserved the majority of their annual advertising budget for the last 3 months of the year.

For many of our advertisers, their campaigns are centred on key dates which revolve around consumers either buying food and wine or shopping / shopping online. These key advertising days include;

• Thanksgiving (see Thanksgiving Advertising)
• Black Friday Shopping (See Black Friday Advertising)
• Cyber Monday Shopping (see Cyber Monday Advertising)
• Christmas Shopping (i.e gifts)
• Christmas Day ( see Christmas Advertising )

Apart from the days themselves, another key reason for advertising in Q4 is the traffic to foods sites and in particular recipe sites peak. Year on year, publishers during Q4 tend to see an increase of approximately 20-25% compared to throughout the year. There’s the obvious environmental reasons such as cold weather outside encourages people to stay in and go online. But add to this, the volume of consumers who are searching for recipes increases greatly during this period. As such because the traffic across the Gourmet Ads network grows during this period, we also increase our overall reach of the network. Which means that advertising at this time of the year allows you to capture, influence and engage audiences online, increasing sales and revenue.

So it makes sense that if you’re tasked with marketing your food brands, wines or grocery stores during Q4, then you need to start media planning and media buying right now.

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Q4 Advertising Campaigns is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.

Reach Holiday Shoppers by running targeted campaigns holiday days

The global financial crisis is still very real for many consumers which means like last year, this holiday period, a vast amount of consumers will be tracking down deals online. With consumer determined to limit their holiday spending some will print coupons online and take them to the store or supermarket, while others will buy online. Because the Gourmet Ads network features an audience of grocery buyers and household decision makers it’s essential to ensure that we are part of your holiday advertising media mix.

There is no doubt that year after year, the holiday season is the busiest time for online retailers, so if you’re not advertising during this period then you’re definitely missing out on sales. In order to reach holiday shopper we’d recommend running targeted campaigns near key holiday dates.

Apart from simply booking advertising campaigns, it’s essential to have key messages in your advertising creative which engage with consumers driving them to your online store. Some online retailers will use coupons like percentage based i.e 10% off the product or total order. While other online retailers during the holiday season will offer a credit or rebate towards their next purchase with them.

Holiday Shoppers like “Free Shipping”, “Flat Rate Shipping” and “Overnight Shipping”

In terms of key delivery based messages to help convert customers, make sure you use phrases like “Free Shipping”, “Flat Rate Shipping” and “Overnight Shipping” which are familiar with consumers who order online. There is a great deal of evidence in the market place that suggests that free shipping can significantly help conversion rates online.

Finally, we’d suggest booking a variety of advertising units such as regular display, interstitials, expandable ad units, video and rich media. You might also be interested in Holiday Advertising blogs we’ve written in the past. Each have a different take on the event and these are focused to Q4 Holidays, see;

• Thanksgiving Advertising
• Black Friday Advertising
• Cyber Monday Advertising
• Christmas Advertising

If you haven’t already booked your Holiday Shoppers Advertising, then don’t delay as the Gourmet Ads network often books out during key holiday dates throughout the year.

Reaching Holiday Shoppers is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.

For Many Advertising Agencies Fall Media Planning is well underway

It’s mid June and we’re already having companies lock away their fall campaigns with Gourmet Ads. It’s typical to see this sort of six month forward media planning with campaigns booked already pretty much focus on holiday periods such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Just like snow falling, media planner and media buyers need to take a blanket approach with high share of voice to ensure their products gain the attention they desire online. With this in mind, it’s key to lock it in as soon as possible.

Fall is so important to many food and wine companies. Not only are the holiday periods key, but we find that traffic generally increases to our sites during the fall. There are a variety of reasons for why we see this trend of increased traffic (I believe the main reason is that cold weather contributes with more people generally staying in) during the fall period. Take a look at the graph below from Google Trends for the keyword search “recipes”. Towards the end of each year take a look at the common annual trends for people searching “recipes”. Given that the majority of sites in the Gourmet Ads network feature recipes we also see this trend rather consistently.

Media planners and media buyers should look at starting campaigns in early September and October, then mid November vamping it up to high share of voice. Focusing on key dates around Thanksgiving, then Black Friday, the last few days of online Christmas spending and then Christmas spending.

Fall Media Planning is about engaging with Consumers in Q4

We’ve previously write blogs on Thanksgiving Advertising and Christmas Advertising which both focus on each of these topics. Both blogs give you ideas on timing and what can be done in the lead up to both thanksgiving and Christmas.

So although we’ve just started the US summer, start your fall media planning for advertising campaigns at the end of the year is something that should be happening now.

Fall Media Planning is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.