Welcome to the first issue of The Insighter, a monthly brief that pairs fresh marketing insights with an action plan for growth. Each issue will explore a new topic related to our research. First up: Consumers are getting ready for the holidays earlier than ever, and marketers should be ready too.
This year, consumers are facing a condensed holiday shopping season and an abundance of choice. This calls for an updated marketing approach to holiday readiness that rethinks how to win every day, not just “peak days.”
As you’re building your holiday marketing strategies, lean on our consumer mindset framework. Understanding these four mindsets — deliberate, deal-seeking, determined, and devoted — will help you connect with customers throughout the season.
- Starting as early as May, consumers are deliberate, thoughtfully planning their holiday purchases and wishlists.
- Throughout the season, they’re continually deal-seeking, hunting for deals and prioritizing quality and value, but we see this behavior peak during Cyber Week — the five days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.
- In December, they become even more determined to complete their shopping ahead of the holidays and engage across channels.
- Through January, devoted consumers continue to shop past peak season and prioritize brand loyalty.
This holiday season’s condensed purchase period intensifies the need for brands and retailers to cater to the early-shopping mindsets, deliberate and deal-seeking. Brands and retailers can gain a significant edge by fostering confidence, encouraging purchases before Black Friday ushers in the holiday rush, and ensuring they stay in consumers’ consideration sets for later purchase.
Read on to learn how to stand out to shoppers, and tune into Think Retail on Air on Aug. 27 to hear from leading marketers, industry experts, and our product teams about how to build your seasonal strategies.
Connect with deliberate shoppers now to capture hearts and wallets
This holiday season, consumers are feeling the pressure to be discerning with their purchases, with 61% of U.S. consumers saying they can’t afford to make the wrong purchase decision.1 This could be part of the reason we’re seeing consumers getting a head start on their shopping. In a recent study we ran with Ipsos, 34% of U.S. consumers said they had already started their holiday shopping in July 2024, a significantly higher percentage than in July 2023 (28%).2
In tandem with this deliberate mindset, we’re already starting to see deal-seeking behaviors among consumers. These shoppers are continuously on the hunt for deals, with 75% of holiday shoppers saying they keep their eyes open for promotions throughout the holiday shopping season.3 Make sure your deals and discounts are visible to shoppers across the entire season so that savvy shoppers feel confident purchasing when they’re ready.
This holiday season, connect with shoppers on a deeper level using Google’s AI-powered tools. Take a holistic approach to create meaningful experiences that resonate throughout the customer journey. Capture shopper attention in real-time across Google with personalized shopping ads, and build lasting brand connections through engaging YouTube campaigns. Guide shoppers seamlessly to your online or physical stores through search, catering to their preferences for in-store or online shopping. And, finally, your data and Merchant Center will be your key to monitoring product performance, audience behavior, and the competitive landscape, enabling data-driven decisions to refine strategies and maximize ROI.
Help shoppers feel confident about their wishlists
Thanksgiving falls especially late this November, leaving five fewer shopping days between Cyber 5 and the end of 2024 compared to last year. Given this shorter shopping period, retailers should not only reach shoppers early, as they’re building their wishlists, but also help them make assured decisions, increasing customer satisfaction and reducing returns. Building customer confidence now is critical to helping you capture attention and make connections during this limited number of holiday shopping days.
Sixty percent of U.S. consumers have abandoned a purchase altogether when faced with too many options or too much information.4 But when they have the information they need to navigate these many options, shopping is more fun and rewarding, and better for your bottom line as retailers. We’ve found that purchase confidence is 3.2X higher among shoppers who feel they found relevant information compared to shoppers who did not feel they found relevant information.5 Those confident consumers go on to be 6X more likely to want to buy again6 and 18X more likely to recommend the brand to family or friends than those with low confidence.7
Use YouTube to reach shoppers early as they build consideration sets to help them feel confident about their future purchases. According to a U.S. survey conducted by Material, online video shoppers are 3.9X more likely to start on YouTube than any other platform.8 In that same study, we also found YouTube’s influence cuts down the average online video shopper’s journey by six days.9 Tap Video Reach campaigns and Video Action campaigns to reach and influence shoppers as they look to YouTube creators for inspiration.
Be sure to pair your YouTube ads with Search ads through Performance Max campaigns. Based on retailer marketing mix model analysis conducted by TransUnion, on average, the retailer brands that reduced their Q4 share of wallet for paid search and/or YouTube from 2021 to 2022 could have seen a nearly $83M increase in revenue had they held their paid search and YouTube share of wallet constant year over year.10
How one brand turned holiday gains into year-round customer growth
Best-in-class retailers like Athletic Propulsion Labs (APL), a luxury performance footwear brand, have been leveraging AI to connect with shoppers throughout the season.
During the 2023 holiday season, APL wanted more ways to increase overall sales and grow their customer community by finding new buyers. First, they generated leads with short-term sales during Cyber 5. Then, they used AI to follow up as part of a year-long strategy.
AI-powered solutions like Performance Max helped them take the guesswork out of how and when to connect customers with tailored messaging, optimizing engagement across Google platforms and automatically matching ads to individual customer preferences like comfort, style, performance, or a combination thereof. Through this approach, APL drove 20% new customer growth and 23% revenue growth during the 2023 holiday season. APL stayed in touch with its Google team throughout the holiday weekend to further optimize bids and budgets when performance spiked. This kind of agile approach is critical to driving new customer growth.
APL will be joining us, along with other retailers like Ace Hardware, Adidas, Veronica Beard, and Movado, at Think Retail on Aug. 27 to share how they’re putting Google AI to work to maximize their holiday results. Tune in to get more Google and YouTube holiday insights and access to our product experts.
