Increase Your PPC Spend for Highly-Anticipated January Sales
One of the things you might hear as an online or even brick and mortar business is “now is your opportunity to capitalise on sales.” One way to capitalise on the so-called buying season is to advertise, but every business owner knows what advertising is; we’re talking about PPC spending. Pay Per Click adverting is one of the most effective forms of advertising. Many business owners reading this may already know how instrumental it has been in growing their business. However, few companies capitalise on Pay Per Click advertising the way they should, plus, PPC isn’t limited to Google; there is Facebook PPC, Bing PPC, etc. So, when is the best time to increase your PPC spend? Figures show that the US holiday season (considered to be around Christmas time), is unsurprisingly one of the best times here in the UK too, accounting for around 19% of annual sales, based on statistics from the past two decades.
Summers in the UK and across the Atlantic in the US happen to be slower for many businesses. For instance, 61% of restaurants notice a 18-20% decline in the number of customers.
If your goal is to create a thriving business (which it should obviously be), you’ll have to adapt to what’s called seasonal trends, which requires planning your marketing campaigns ahead of time. PPC management will help you improve your holiday season sales, conversion rate and even prevent you from overspending in otherwise saturated markets. In our experience, the best time to spend on PPC is obviously through November and December, but you might also want to up your spending for January too. In this article, we’ll look at why it is worth spending more on PPC advertising in January, regardless of what you’re selling.
Why January?
Many businesses assume that once December is in the books, they can reduce PPC spending to previous levels. However, if you’re doing that or planning to do that this year, it might be a mistake that leads you to lose out on lots of sales.
The prevailing assumption is that all sales are exhausted; anyone who wanted to buy something already has it. That’s not true. While the peak may have passed, many people are still hunting for deals right through December and into January. This is especially true for items like computer parts, branded clothing, and even a couple of services. Running PPC ads in January will also be far cheaper compared to what they were in November and December because of fewer competing businesses spending on ads. Plus, your ads, especially on Google search, will stand out and rank higher because the competition is low. In other words, you spend less and get more or less the same results.
You Will See Higher Conversion Figures
Many businesses may not know this, but conversion figures improve in January. One reason for this, as mentioned earlier, is that there aren’t as many competing businesses advertising. The other reason is that competition is low, and so the Click Through Rate (CTR) of your ads is going to be higher. A higher CTR often means that you have more people coming on your website; coupled with a conversion-focused page, you can see at least a 20% increase in conversions, if not more.
If you spend more on PPC in January as we recommend, it will give you some headroom to experiment with different landing page designs and advertising copy. Doing this at any other time of year will often be more expensive, and you might not even be motivated because the sales figures wouldn’t justify your spending.
We advise that you experiment with a few dozen ad types, use a different company, and have different landing page variations for each type of ad. Then take that data and further fine-tune your PPC advertising’s ROI. Doing this in January will help you capitalise on smaller sales booms during the Back To School season, for instance, or during Amazon Prime Day.
It’s the Perfect Month to Get a Leg Up on Your Competition
Apart from not having to compete against other larger businesses on the PPC front, it’s also the best time to make a connection with your clients/buyers. You can offer potential buyers lower prices, better return policies, excellent customer service and everything else in between, which helps them remember you.
It’s essential to bear in mind that most people that buy from you in January are most likely going to buy from you during other times of the year so as long as they have a good experience. Since many of your larger competitors (and even smaller ones) may have stopped running all their discounts and specials, what you’re offering will certainly come across as more attractive. Pair that with excellent customer service, and they will not forget you anytime soon.
Final Word
Pay Per Click Advertising on Google, for instance, is one of the best ways to drum up sales in most niches. However, there is a right and wrong time to up your spending. Sometimes it may make more sense to hold back on PPC for a while till you see things heating up in your industry. But there are certain times of the year when the entire industry peaks, and that’s when your PPC spending should go up.
We also advise that businesses increase their PPC spending in the month, leading to a sales boom like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Doing this will help ensure that people know what you are offering and how they will stand to gain before the actual time comes to buy. Increasing PPC spending during the tail end of these booms helps you target people who might have missed out on those big sales.
