5 Ways to Use the Web Effectively This Holiday Season to Drive Sales

November 13, 2008 By Cynthia Stephens

multipage

It's no surprise that holiday sales are expected to be weak this year. The silver lining in this tough forecast, however, is that online sales may still grow, if only slightly. Given this outlook, creating effective online marketing is more important than ever — and it's not too late to maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Here are five ways online retailers can hit consumers' minds and wallets this holiday season:

1. Identify your rivals' search engine marketing strategies. Many retailers set up their SEM campaigns well in advance, which doesn't account for changes in consumer behavior, sales trends and the economy. There's still time to impact your SEM campaign to attract the most important customers, however. Research which search terms drive traffic to your site now, and compare that with the ones driving traffic to your competitors' sites. For Wal-Mart and Target, popular search referrals have recently included video games (Nintendo's Wii, in particular) and Elmo Live, which promises to be one of this season's hottest toys.

2. Use smarter targeting to expand your online media buys without sacrificing quality. Today's advanced Web analytics solutions allow you to pinpoint segments of consumers according to income, shopping habits and lifestyle categories. In this economy, advertising at nonretail sites visited by affluent consumers can be a strategic move, since these consumers may be less impacted by the economic downturn. Your rivals may overlook this more unusual inventory. Our data indicates that affluent consumers are likely visitors at news and media Web sites such as SeekingAlpha.com, BusinessWeek.com and MarketWatch.com. Interestingly, the same segment regularly visits the Web sites of Banana Republic, Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma, which means these companies pay attention to the right group.

3. Pay more attention to the post-click experience. On average, more than 95 percent of visitors that click on online ads never make a purchase. To see how well your advertisements are doing, track campaign-specific performance of both your and your competitors' advertisements. How well do these ads work, beyond just simple impressions and clickthrough metrics?

• MORE ON
• E-COMMERCE