Reading Time: 11 minutes

Recentemente, o Google listou as notificações push como uma importante tendência de marketing que não pode mais ser ignorada pelos profissionais de marketing. Na era do GDPR, onde os clientes não gostam de ser invadidos com mensagens ou e-mails indesejados, as notificações push funcionam como uma alternativa perfeita, pois funcionam com o princípio do marketing baseado em permissão. À medida que mais e mais marcas adotam notificações push, montamos um guia passo a passo de 15 capítulos que ajudará você a criar campanhas vencedoras e impulsionar as vendas. Além disso, confira:

Práticas recomendadas para otimizar campanhas de notificação por push após analisar 45 BILHÕES de notificações de 35 países.

Casos de uso de diferentes setores que podem servir de inspiração para suas campanhas.

O que são Notificações Push? 

Existem várias definições para notificações push que são lançadas; alguns os chamam de mensagens acionáveis, outros se referem a eles como mensagens ricas e outros usam o termo mensagens personalizadas. Mas qual destas é a descrição correta? Todas elas.  Veja como podemos dividi-las:

• Enviadas por um aplicativo ou site para o telefone ou desktop do usuário.
• Usadas para enviar alertas e mensagens ao usuário em tempo real.
• Podem conter conteúdo de mídia avançado, como imagens, GIFs ou vídeos.
• O conteúdo da notificação pode ser personalizado para direcionar a ação desejada do usuário.

As notificações push são mensagens curtas que aparecem no celular ou na área de trabalho do usuário, incentivando-o a realizar alguma ação. Seus clientes são pessoas ocupadas que provavelmente esquecerão as ótimas ofertas que você anunciou há alguns dias por e-mail ou o carrinho que abandonaram depois de adicionar muitos itens a ele.

Se você deseja que eles se mantenham atualizados com as últimas ofertas que você está oferecendo ou deseja lembrá-los dos itens iminentes no carrinho, as notificações push podem ser uma maneira perfeita de se comunicar. Com os índices de abertura de e-mail diminuindo rapidamente, as notificações podem ser uma ótima maneira de as empresas se envolverem com os usuários e reduzirem o churn.

O benefício da notificação push é que você pode cronometrar a mensagem e até personalizá-la, dependendo da situação. Por exemplo, um cliente que abandonou o carrinho receberá uma notificação de lembrete, enquanto um cliente que não usa o aplicativo para fazer compras há muito tempo pode receber ofertas relevantes para ele.

A notificação push também é uma poderosa ferramenta de marketing. De acordo com a Invespcro, as notificações push podem aumentar o engajamento do aplicativo em 88% e levaram 48% dos usuários de dispositivos móveis a fazer uma compra na loja. No entanto, uma notificação push pode ser invasiva se não for feita da maneira certa. Leia adiante para saber como usá-las criteriosamente e as melhores práticas a seguir para aproveitá-las ao máximo.

Como funcionam as Notificações Push?

Agora que você sabe como as notificações push podem ser poderosas para sua campanha de marketing, vamos nos aprofundar para saber como essas notificações funcionam.

Usamos o exemplo da forma de entrega de notificações push da MoEngage para ajudá-lo a entender melhor o funcionamento. Quando um profissional de marketing cria e executa uma campanha usando a plataforma da MoEngage, a MoEngage identifica os usuários que atendem aos critérios de segmentação definidos pelos profissionais de marketing e possuem pelo menos um dispositivo ativo vinculado a um token push ativo (um identificador exclusivo definido por plataformas de mensagens em nuvem, como APNS e FCM que ajuda os profissionais de marketing a se comunicarem com os usuários finais do aplicativo).

Depois que a MoEngage identifica os usuários qualificados com a ajuda do limite de frequência, ela determina os dispositivos ativos que receberão a mensagem. Plataformas de mensagens em nuvem, como GCM, FCM e APNS, recebem a mensagem e assumem o processo de entrega. A plataforma de mensagens em nuvem então retransmite a mensagem para o dispositivo do usuário final. Assim que o usuário recebe a notificação, o Software Developer’s Kit (SDK) da MoEngage informa o servidor sobre isso. Isso é chamado de impressão. Você pode ler e saber mais sobre como funciona neste artigo 

Tipos de Notificações Push?

Existem dois tipos diferentes de notificações push – notificações push da web e notificações push móveis. As notificações push da Web são enviadas de um site. Você as recebe em seu desktop ou dispositivo móvel, mesmo quando o site não está aberto. A notificação por push da Web é compatível com Safari e Chrome e é ideal para empresas que ainda não criaram um aplicativo. A notificação por push em celular é enviada de aplicativos de celular. O usuário precisa instalar o app de celular para que o profissional de marketing possa enviar notificações. 

Para quê são usadas as Notificações Push?

As notificações push podem ser usadas para vários fins, como:

• Interagir com seus clientes: Um usuário médio de celular usa pelo menos nove aplicativos por dia. A maioria dos aplicativos não é aberta com tanta frequência quanto talvez um aplicativo de táxi ou OTT. Para garantir que seu cliente não esqueça do seu aplicativo ou o desinstale, você precisa mantê-lo engajado. É aí que as notificações entram em ação. Com ofertas personalizadas, lembretes e notificações relevantes, você pode capturar a atenção do seu cliente e envolvê-lo em sua plataforma.
• Levar o cliente a fazer uma compra na loja: As notificações push podem ajudá-lo a preencher a lacuna entre os canais online e offline e criar uma experiência omnichannel perfeita para seus clientes. De acordo com o Google, 82% dos usuários de smartphones usam seus dispositivos móveis para fazer uma compra física. Você pode aproveitar essa oportunidade para enviar notificações push personalizadas para impulsionar suas vendas físicas.
• Retenção de clientes: Reter clientes é um desafio maior do que conquistá-los. As notificações push, no entanto, podem corrigir esse problema. Também ajuda na retenção de novos clientes. Os relatórios sugerem que o envio de uma notificação de integração a um cliente recém-adquirido na primeira semana pode levar a um aumento de 71% nos índices de retenção de aplicativos.
• Forneça atualizações em tempo real: Seja para informar o usuário sobre as condições climáticas ou permitir que o usuário rastreie um pacote, você pode enviar atualizações em tempo real para seu usuário usando notificações. 

Diferença entre notificações push da Web e notificações push do aplicativo

A Diferença entre notificações push da Web e notificações push do aplicativo é o alcance. A diferença entre as notificações push da Web e as notificações push do aplicativo é o alcance. Você não precisa de um app de celular para enviar notificações ao usuário. Você pode enviar notificações em computadores, laptops e navegadores móveis. Para notificações push móveis, o usuário precisa instalar o aplicativo para receber mensagens. 

Processo de Ativação de Notificação por Push

A ativação da notificação via push é um processo que permite que os clientes gerenciem suas mensagens via push, permitindo ou impedindo que os aplicativos móveis as enviem. Um app de celular precisa fazer uma solicitação de aceite durante a instalação para garantir que o usuário tenha permitido o envio de mensagens via push.

Considerando que as notificações por push são baseadas em permissão, o processo de aceitação geralmente envolve uma estratégia em que você pede permissão para aceitar, de forma mais incisiva ou mais suave (hard-ask ou soft-ask) Hard-ask é quando você pergunta diretamente ao usuário uma pergunta de ‘sim’ ou ‘não’, ou seja, se ele deseja permitir ou bloquear as notificações. O usuário escolhe a opção desejada e o processo é encerrado.

Hard-ask é direto e tem o maior número de índices de aceitação. No entanto, eles funcionam melhor com sites HTTPS. O soft-ask, por outro lado, envolve fornecer informações adicionais sobre qual valor ou benefício o usuário receberá ao responder afirmativamente. Vem antes do hard ask. Há a possibilidade do usuário desistir se houver muitas etapas envolvidas. Portanto, tenha o soft ask visualmente apresentável e certifique-se de perguntar no momento certo. Não importa qual abordagem você escolha, certifique-se de que sua mensagem para aceite seja relevante e personalizada. Isso pode dobrar o índice de aceite

Requisitos técnicos para implementar notificações push da Web

As notificações push da Web são ideais para o público que não deseja se inscrever no e-mail, mas ao mesmo tempo deseja receber as atualizações mais recentes de seus sites. Para garantir o máximo de opt-ins e engajamento, você precisa tornar suas notificações push da Web um canal vencedor. Aqui estão os requisitos técnicos que você precisa cumprir ao enviar notificações push.

• Detalhes FCM: A MoEngage usa o número do projeto do FCM e a chave do servidor de API correspondente para enviar uma notificação por push. Para obtê-los, use as credenciais do FCM Compartilhado da MoEngage e selecione Personalizado para inserir os detalhes de seus projetos.
• Ícone de Push: Carregue seu logotipo para mostrar o ícone da sua marca nas notificações push.
• Integração HTTP ou HTTPS: Embora os pushes da Web sejam suportados apenas para o domínio HTTPS, a MoEngage permite que os profissionais de marketing também permitam assinaturas para sites HTTP. A MoEngage cria um subdomínio HTTPS. Feito isso, você pode selecionar o tipo de domínio HTTP ao configurar o push e inicializar o SDK em sua página com o App ID da MoEngage. Se seu site for um HTTPS, selecione HTTPS como tipo de domínio ao configurar o Web Push. Você precisa hospedar dois arquivos no diretório raiz do seu servidor web – manifest.json e serviceworker.js. Clique em Salvar e baixe esses dois arquivos. Use seus arquivos de manifesto e service worker existentes para dar suporte às notificações push, inclua um link para manifesto em HTML e integre o SDK em sua página.

Navegadores e dispositivos que suportam notificações push

Atualmente, a notificação por push da Web da MoEngage funciona no Chrome (versão 42+ no macOS, Windows, Linux e Android), Firefox (versão 44+ no macOS, Windows, Linux e Android) e Opera (versão 37+ no macOS, Windows , Linux e Android). As notificações push da Web funcionam em todos os computadores e laptops, independentemente do tipo de sistema operacional. 

Tipos de mensagens via push, as marcas enviam em suas campanhas

As notificações push podem ser personalizadas com base em qual estágio do ciclo de vida do cliente o usuário pertence e nos objetivos da sua campanha. Aqui estão alguns tipos de mensagens via push que você pode enviar para seus clientes:

• Transacional: As mensagens via push transacionais são enviadas aos usuários quando você deseja informá-los sobre o status de suas transações. Por exemplo, quando você faz um pagamento de contas usando um aplicativo de pagamento, recebe uma notificação transacional informando que o pagamento foi feito.
• Educacional: Você pode usar mensagens via push educacionais para enviar informações sobre novas adições do curso ou lembretes para fazer uma prova.
• Promocional: Você pode usar notificações promocionais para informar os usuários sobre novas ofertas, ofertas exclusivas e vendas instantâneas. O objetivo é solicitar que o usuário compre em seu aplicativo.
• Ciclo de vida: A personalização é o segredo para manter seus clientes envolvidos em todas as fases do ciclo de vida do cliente. Você pode enviar mensagens via push personalizadas para seus clientes, dependendo do estágio de seu ciclo de vida. Por exemplo, você pode enviar uma notificação calorosa de integração a um cliente recém-adquirido para solicitar que ele abra o aplicativo, ao mesmo tempo em que você pode enviar ofertas promocionais especiais para reengajar clientes que não compram no seu aplicativo há muito tempo.
• Avaliação ou feedback do cliente: Quer que seus clientes avaliem seu produto ou serviço na loja de aplicativos? Você pode enviar notificações push solicitando que eles deixem comentários e uma classificação em seu aplicativo. 

Índices de cliques de notificações push

Os índices de cliques push podem chegar a 45%, revela um estudo realizado pela MoEngage sobre campanhas de notificação push em mais de 35 países. Em comparação com outros canais, como e-mails e SMS, os índices de cliques de notificações push são 7x maiores que os e-mails, enquanto o índice de abertura é 50% maior.

As notificações push funcionam melhor do que outros canais porque ela aparece na tela do usuário, diferente dos e-mails que permanecem fechados por muito tempo. As mensagens concisas também o tornam um meio de comunicação mais eficaz, e o fato de o usuário optar pelas notificações o torna um canal mais confiável em relação aos demais.

Exemplos de mensagens via push

Vejamos alguns exemplos de como as marcas usaram notificações push para aumentar suas vendas.

• Sivvi: A Sivvi é uma varejista on-line com sede em Dubai que vende roupas, calçados e acessórios da moda para homens e mulheres. A Sivvi enfrentou um problema comum que a maioria das empresas de comércio eletrônico enfrenta: os clientes abandonam seu carrinho de compras depois de adicionar itens a ele. Isso resultou em baixas conversões. A Sivvi usou as notificações da MoEngage para trazer os visitantes de volta ao site, o que resultou na conversão de até 10% dos usuários abandonados. Veja como a Sivvi aumentou seu ROI em 70%.
• PetFlow: A PetFlow é uma marca de varejo que oferece ração especializada, brinquedos, guloseimas e outros acessórios para animais de estimação. A PetFlow confiou apenas no e-mail marketing para aumentar as conversões. Quando identificaram um declínio no engajamento, a PetFlow usou notificações push da web para enviar mensagens personalizadas aos clientes e direcionar o tráfego para suas lojas. Isso levou a um aumento de 7% no índice de engajamento. Confira como a PetFlow melhorou seu índice de engajamento com notificações.
• SportsCafe: SportsCafe é uma plataforma completa para indianos que são fãs de esportes e oferece resultados ao vivo, relatórios de jogos, etc. A SportsCafe usou as mídias sociais e o Google AdWords para direcionar o tráfego para o site. No entanto, 90% deles eram visitantes anônimos. A equipe queria aumentar o tráfego e criar um grupo de visitantes engajados. Eles usaram as notificações via push Web da MoEngage para fornecer notícias esportivas de última hora e anotações analíticas para usuários em computadores e telefones celulares. Isso resultou em um aumento de 32% na média de visualizações de página no site e um aumento de 120% no tempo gasto no site. Veja como a SportsCafe aumentou suas visualizações médias de página com notificações push.

Diferença entre mensagens via push e de texto

Mensagens de texto ou SMS podem parecer uma abordagem antiga para atingir os clientes. No entanto, pode ser um meio eficaz para alcançar e atingir os clientes, principalmente aqueles que não possuem um smartphone para instalar o aplicativo. Na verdade, você também pode automatizar campanhas de SMS usando ferramentas de automação.

A desvantagem é que você não pode adicionar conteúdo de mídia avançado, como GIFs, animações e emojis para tornar o texto visualmente atraente. A notificação push permite que você faça isso. Também existem limitações legais, como certos países têm um limite para o número de mensagens de texto que você pode enviar por dia. As notificações push não têm esses limites.

Outra grande diferença é que é fácil optar por não receber mensagens push, o que não é tão fácil com mensagens SMS. Embora isso possa parecer uma boa notícia para os profissionais de marketing, a verdade é que seus clientes podem achar suas mensagens de texto intrusivas, spam e podem até optar por não se engajar mais com você. Isso pode ter um grande impacto na fidelidade do cliente.

O que são as notificações push do Chrome?

Você sabia que as notificações push do Chrome podem aumentar as conversões em seu site em até 9x? É mais benéfico do que outros canais, como e-mail e push de aplicativo, pois os índices de opt-in são mais altos do que os índices de opt-in de e-mail e os índices de opt-out são significativamente menores do que os do push de aplicativo de celular. A notificação por push do Chrome ajuda os profissionais de marketing a rastrear visitantes anônimos no site, e a entendê-los e envolvê-los com conteúdo relevante por meio de notificações Este guia mostrará como a notificação push do Chrome funciona e como ela pode fortalecer seus esforços de marketing.

Neste capítulo, você aprenderá:

• Como funcionam as notificações do Chrome?
• Como ele pode ajudar na resolução de problemas de marketing na web
• Como isso pode ajudar a trazer os usuários de volta ao site
• E fornecer engajamento impecável entre canais

Como Acertar nas Notificações Push do App

As notificações push são sem dúvida a melhor forma de comunicar com os clientes e aumentar as conversões. No entanto, uma notificação push irrelevante ou de spam pode prejudicar a reputação da sua marca e criar desconfiança na mente de seus clientes. 85% dos usuários do Android não sabem como desativar as notificações do Android. Isso pode parecer fazer a alegria dos profissionais de marketing, mas não por muito tempo.

Reunimos o capítulo com as melhores práticas que ensinarão você a usar as notificações via push corretamente. Você aprenderá:

• Como as notificações push estão ajudando os profissionais de marketing a se comunicarem com os clientes?
• Por que a segmentação de usuários é importante?
• A arte de ser útil, cortês e rápido
• Como a segmentação, a personalização e o deep link juntos ajudam a criar uma ferramenta de marketing móvel forte?

Por que as Notificações Push do App não são Entregues

Não se preocupe se suas notificações não forem entregues apesar de seguir as práticas recomendadas (consulte o capítulo 3) de notificações e definir a campanha corretamente. Pode haver vários motivos pelos quais elas não são entregues aos usuários finais, apesar de terem sido enviadas com sucesso ao GCM. 

• As notificações podem ser bloqueadas pelo usuário no nível do sistema operacional
• O usuário não está conectado ao GCM
• Expiração do tempo de vida antes da entrega da notificação
• Dispositivos de usuário não recebendo notificações

Neste capítulo, vamos nos aprofundar nos prováveis motivos que podem afetar a entregabilidade das mensagens. 

Bônus: Discutimos como você pode superar esse desafio de marketing no capítulo.

SAIBA MAIS

Para uma análise detalhada dos fatores que influenciam o índice de entrega de notificações push, baixe este Relatório de entrega de notificações push.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Like every year, 2022 Ramadan season is likely to drive a sudden recurring spike in mobile traffic. Marketers in the SEA region are always looking forward to this time to drive personalized campaigns and drive sales. However, with every passing year they are witnessing diminishing returns on their campaigns.

The traditional campaign-centric approach is unidimensional and relies on communicating and showcasing product features linearly without considering the vast spectrum of customer preferences.

Therefore, to make the best of this season, a shift from the traditional campaign-centric approach towards an insights-led approach or strategy is rightly needed. An insights-led strategy relies on customer usage patterns of the product to communicate the core, making it far more personalized and effective.

Want to know more about insights-led approach during Ramadan? Here is our humourous take on it – Access Now

This post will look into how marketers in the SEA region can apply an insights-led approach to better analyze, segment, and engage mobile customers. Additionally, we will propose four steps that marketers can apply to boost their sales during the Ramadan season.

What is an Insights-led Strategy?

There are three steps to drive an insights-led strategy:

Analyze and Segment: The first step is to analyze customer behavior and segment them meaningfully. These segments allow you to create relevant campaigns and improve the product experience for customers.

Engage: Once multiple segments are in place, you can orchestrate your customer’s journeys with the help of personalized messages sent via push notifications, E-mails, videos, etc., across multiple channels.

Optimize: AI and machine learning identify the best time, the right communication, and optimum customer journeys to boost your messages’ deliverability further.

On top of it, an insights-led approach builds further by sending personalized and engaging content to the right customers.

Additionally, marketers get to take this streamlined and effective approach and apply it across multiple channels to drive engagement and sales. All of this roughly sums up to four actionable strategies that marketers can follow to engage their customers in this Ramadan. These are:

Understand and Identify your Customers

In order to understand your customers, the first step is segmenting them on the basis of their behavior. We have uncovered the following shopping patterns in the festive season using behavioral segmentation. This is many steps ahead of the conventional segmentation based on demographic variables.

Customer’ behavioral segmentation comes from many usage patterns often determined by three factors: recency, frequency, and monetary (RFM.) Marketers equipped with the proper behavioral segmentation can run highly targeted marketing campaigns during Ramadan to drive sales.

While marketers widely use demographic segmentation, it does not delve deep into the respective behavior patterns of the customer. This is why marketers who send personalized messages using an insights-led approach outdo the ones using conventional segmentation.

We have seen in-app conversion rates increase by 23% and 255% for Android and iOS devices respectively for customers running personalized action-based campaigns.

Read how Blibli boosted their engagement by 70% and repeat purchase by 43.75% using gamification as an effective segmentation strategy.

Reach the Right Customers and Reach them Effectively

Our findings also revealed that apps getting the most traction during the Ramadan season belong to shopping, finance, gaming, and entertainment. DAUs and MAUs for these apps often rise by significant margins during the festival.

Age groups for these customers vary because every member in the family has a smartphone. Thus, crafting compelling messages becomes a necessity.

Our data shows that marketers who have sent messages based on customer attributes have seen an uptick in their in-app campaigns.

Engage your Customers with an Immersive Experience

Brands must focus on data-driven marketing to re-engage high-intent audiences and drive personalization at scale. An insights-led strategy open you up, to multiple possibilities due to the sheer amount of meaningful and interpretable data it can deliver.

What is even better is the ability to create immersive experiences during the mobile moments of truth robustly. Marketers can help their brands stand out by leveraging custom creatives to grab attention and drive meaningful connections during moments of truth.

Additionally, marketers can drive maximum reach and engagement with interactive videos.

Since many of these customers have come online for the first time, it is best for Brands to leverage the power of localization and go hyper-local by offering the messages in multiple languages.

Irrespective of the unified spiritual significance of Ramadan, consumers celebrating across different countries in Southeast Asia respond better to hyper-local offerings.

Close the Deal in Mobile Moments of Truth

Marketers in Southeast Asia should keep in mind that their targeted audience is always connected through multiple devices. During the Ramadan season, the usage gets further intense as testified from elevated DAUs and MAUs for apps. Marketers should build seamless buying journeys across multiple channels to get the best out of this opportunity.

Using an insights-led platform, marketers can deploy push notifications, E-mails, social media ads to create an omnichannel experience in bringing customers to the app.

At the same time, you can nudge the customers to discover relevant products or content categories with the help of in-app messages, and inbox feeds.

A wide array of digital channels and touchpoints for marketers directly translates to advanced cross-device attribution,  shoppable online-to-online, and online-to-offline experiences. Brands can leverage them in guiding consumers along the shopping journey and boost sales during Ramadan.

Read how Pops worldwide employed a mix of in-app messages, E-mails, and push notifications for sending personalized content and boost their video consumption by 46%.

Conclusion

An insight-based approach outweighs the traditional campaign-centric approach by miles when marketing to mobile customers. Marketers can carve out behavioral segments with ease and robustly deploy immersive experiences using push notifications, E-mails, and social media ads. Overall, you can expect to boost CTR by 52% and 44% for Android and iOS devices, respectively after personalization and provide a complete omnichannel experience during this festive season of Ramadan.

Further Reading

Grow Your E-commerce Brand with Content Marketing This Holiday Season

A Detailed Guide To How Coupons Influence Consumer Purchase Behavior

Reading Time: 5 minutes

If there’s one thing that costs less than traditional marketing but generates 3x more leads, it’s content marketing. On average, companies that execute strong content marketing strategies spend 62% less and produce 67% more leads per month. Year-over-year growth in unique site traffic also sees a 7.8X uptick for content marketing leaders, compared to followers. Content marketing is essential for all businesses today, but even more so for E-commerce.

With the holiday season approaching, shoppers are anticipated to spend 62% of their holiday budget online. Content marketing with a holiday twist gives brands the perfect opportunity to score some major growth. Let’s find out how.

Establish Brand Awareness With a Blog

Studies show that 78% of consumers perceive a positive relationship between themselves and a company after consuming custom content. Content marketing gives brands an avenue to build this direct, custom relationship without seeming sales-y or fake. To do this, you need to deliver value to your consumers via content and educate them about frequently-asked questions in the space you operate in. Below is an example of a brand that does this well.

Future Kind is an E-commerce shop that sells vegan supplements. Instead of relying solely on organic search traffic for the keyword “vegan supplements”, which has thousands of monthly searches, Future Kind has created a blog with articles containing helpful advice and detailed information about vegan supplements.

With informative, custom content about vegan vitamins and calls-to-action leading directly to Future Kind’s products, they are positioning themselves as a reputable brand in the vegan supplements industry. Future Kind now has access to this new traffic from their blogs and in return can generate more sales this holiday season.

Offering useful guides, like this one on travel nursing careers, is also a good way to build trust with your audience and establish yourself as a reliable source of information to your customer base.

Your audience is looking for genuinely helpful content that doesn’t make them feel like there is a catch or an agenda. If you can provide that, they will trust your brand and your products. In short, content is king. It is a surefire way to generate brand awareness and increase traffic to your E-commerce website.

Experiment With Different Mediums

Blog posts are traditionally the go-to when it comes to content marketing. However, over the past few years, new mediums have started to infiltrate the content marketing industry. Podcasts, for example, are a very effective, yet underutilized, content marketing channel for E-commerce businesses. By 2021, 78% (222 million) of Americans are familiar with podcasts —up 3% from 2020—and more than one-third (104 million) of Americans listen to podcasts regularly (Source: Buzzsprout).

Let’s take a look at an E-commerce brand that sells fireplaces, to understand how podcasting can help them:

This business can create an entire podcast around current outdoor furniture trends, how to decorate certain rooms in your home, and even how to make a small room appear larger. It’s all about delivering value and keeping your audience engaged. Podcast listeners are more likely to follow companies and brands on social media. Listeners will come back to the brand each week, eager to learn about current trends, how-to’s, and are more than likely to end up purchasing products from the store.

The most important benefits of podcasting are that podcasts have low barriers to entry and are very easy to start, even with little experience. All you need to get started is a microphone, podcast software, and a podcast host. Also, make sure to use an online audio editor to enhance the quality of your podcast sound. With very little effort, your E-commerce podcast can be published on Spotify in no time. Not only will this increase your outreach, but also help establish your brand as a trusted authority in your niche.

Creating a podcast in addition to a blog, will significantly increase your outreach, help you stand out from your competitors, and drive sales during the holiday season.

Kickstart An Affiliate Program

As an E-commerce business, a great way to get in front of more potential customers and deliver value is via affiliate marketing. Around the holiday season, for example, most consumers search for reviews on products or services they intend to spend on—either for themselves or as a gift. This is where affiliate marketing comes into play.

When consumers search for something like ‘best gifts for 2021’, or ‘best Christmas tree shop’, getting your product listed in these round-ups will help you drive sales. You can also deliver reverse value to the blog that mentioned you, via a referral commission. For example, take a look at this review of Credit Saint where they work with an affiliate to write an honest review about their service. When searching for credit repair companies, this review would come up and encourage readers to use their service.

Consumers, now more than ever, are utilizing product and service reviews to make buying decisions. By utilizing affiliate marketing, you can capture honest reviews that show the true value of your product or service.

Now, simply repeat the same for your physical products. Start contacting blogs and journalists and offer them a commission for the sales they can deliver to you. With the help of affiliate marketing, you are bound to jumpstart your brand’s growth this holiday season.

Key Takeaways

This holiday season, make the most of content marketing and drive higher sales than before. Consumers are more digital than they were before the pandemic, and E-commerce brands stand to benefit the most from this.

Start by building your brand’s awareness through custom content and blog posts. From there, focus on building trust in your niche. This can be accomplished through blogs, podcasts, or video mediums. Don’t be afraid to try something new to stand out from the crowd.

Finally, one of the most important things, make sure you are delivering value. If you build it, they will come. Consumers are always looking for current information. If it is at their fingertips, they are more likely to convert from a lead into a sale.

What are you waiting for? The holiday season is upon us, so get out there and start that content marketing strategy today. Depending on your efforts, it is possible to see results even within a matter of days.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

India has witnessed a very different Festive Season the last couple of years – one with lockdowns and social distancing. This year, as the country recovers from the second wave of COVID-19, the festive celebrations make a grand re-entry with improving vaccination counts, increased focus on family get-togethers, return of the cricket season, and huge E-commerce sales.

This Festive Season, marketers have a tremendous opportunity this season to make a mark in the minds of consumers and bag massive mindshare.

In their latest report, ‘Decoding the Connected Indian Festive Shopper in 2021’, InMobi unraveled the current consumer shopping sentiments, their expectations from online and offline brands, and discussed the best ways for marketers to guide connected consumers during the moments of truth. Here are some of the key highlights from the report.

Festive Season 2021: shopping trends and opportunities

Consumer sentiment and Festive Season plans

Despite a few tough months in 2021, Indians display their celebratory spirit to indulge in festivities. While 72% of Indians are looking forward to shopping, 62% are keen on shopping online, making this a massive ‘Digi-fest.’

Interestingly, an Indian shopper is set out to spend an average of INR 21,230 on festive shopping this year which is a whopping 42% increase from last year.

Culture reflects the myriad shopping choices of the diverse Indian consumer. While shoppers from the Northern and Western parts of India prefer purchasing Automobiles and Gadgets this festive season, the shoppers from the Southern and Eastern regions are looking forward to indulging in Clothing, Home Appliances, and Jewelry.

A measured shopping approach

While 72% of consumers are indulging in shopping, the rest, 28% are adopting cautious optimism. The lasting effects of COVID-19, reduced budgets, safety concerns, and the lack of the right offers are cited as the major reasons not to shop this festive season.

This leaves brands with an opportunity to reach out to these consumers and ensure they communicate the latest offers and product information to help consumers make informed and value-focused purchases.

Meet the diverse Indian shoppers this Festive Season

This festive season, diverse Indian shoppers fall into three buyer personas:

1. Bargain Hunters: The price-conscious consumers who haven’t planned their purchases and are on the lookout for the best offers in the market.
2. Category Explorers: Shoppers who have decided on categories but are yet to decide on the products or brands.
3. Brand Lovers: The Shoppers who have already decided on the brands and products they will purchase.

With close to 47% of ‘undecided’ or ‘completely unplanned’ festive shoppers, brands can tap into the shopping moments that matter for these consumers.​

While Bargain Hunters champion apparel and groceries, home appliances and beauty products are most loved by Category Explorers. Notably, big-ticket items such as Jewelry and automobiles are cult favorites of Brand Lovers.

Bargain Hunters are always looking for the best deals and shop most during the big sale periods and 63% of Category Explorers will make their purchase before Dussehra.

While Category Explorers plan to do their research by September itself, they are much more likely to make their purchases only after a considerable period of research, analysis, and exploration.

68% of Brand Lovers shop a month before Dussehra. They have higher budgets than most shoppers in Festive Seasons owing to their affinity for brands. An average Brand Lover is expected to spend an average of INR 30,240, whereas a Category Explorer is set out to spend INR 19,105 on an average.

The ultimate checklist for Shopping brands to plan a blockbuster Festive Season in 2021

With mobile being a primary screen for Indians to learn, explore and buy, how can marketers leverage the ‘Mobile-fest’ to deliver safe and relevant festive shopping experiences for the Indian consumer?

Here’s our take:

1. Get your audience strategy right

The first step to getting the festive strategy right is by adapting to the new normal consumer habits. With the right mix of demographic, appographic, location, and inferred data, marketers can understand the changing dynamics of the Indian festive shopper and identify the most relevant consumers for their brand.

2. Guide families with Household Targeting

With changing roles of family members in a household, shopping is no more an individual decision in India. Brands must try to identify the initiator, influencer, decision-maker, and buyer. With advanced cross-device attribution and online to offline experiences, shopping brands can go a long way in guiding families along the shopping journey and driving purchases.

3. The three-step Creative Formula

• Step 1: Spark curiosity by leveraging custom creatives and driving meaningful conversations
• Step 2: Drive reach and engagement by using immersive and interactive videos
• Step 3: Re-Engage high-intent audiences by using data to create personalized experiences

4. Capture Purchase Intent across offline and online touchpoints

Consumers are seeking contactless experiences more than ever. To drive digital store-like experiences and to capture purchase intent, brands must highlight features such as Store Tours, 360-degree views, shoppable carousels, and much more.

Armed with these festive season insights, marketers must leverage mobile to understand, identify, engage and acquire audiences. Read Inmobi’s latest report, Decoding the Connected Indian Festive Shopper in 2021, to delve deeper into consumer behavior across India and optimize your brand’s mobile-first campaigns this festive season.

Further Reading

• [PODCAST] Key Holiday Trends For Retail And E-Commerce Industry For Festive Season 2021
• India Inc & COVID-19: Business Learnings From The VC Ecosystem
• [PODCAST] Holidays 2021 For App Marketers: Trends, Do’s And Don’ts, And Actionable Strategies
• 3 D2C Ecommerce Retail Marketing Strategies to Adopt

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Halloween may not compare to the enormous commercial opportunity holidays like Christmas or Black Friday present. But this spooky season allows marketers to indulge in bone-chillingly creative campaigns that grab customers’ attention and indulge in terrifyingly bad wordplay.

Halloween Spending Trends

Does the fact that Halloween originated in Ireland and Scotland mean European brands should focus on it more? Customers love spending on Halloween. According to Statistica, customers in the UK spent around £474m on Halloween in 2019. This makes Halloween an opportunity you as a marketer cannot miss! Be it increasing brands awareness, sales, retention, app installs. Whatever your marketing goal, good Halloween marketing campaigns can definitely be a good push forward in achieving those.

Let’s take a look at Halloween marketing campaigns that hit the nail right on the head, so you can implement some of these to retain and engage your customers this Halloween season.

Ghoulishly Engaging Campaigns To Learn From

Dead Man’s Fingers and their Halloween App

UK-based alcoholic drinks producer, Halewood Artisanal Spirits launched a Halloween app to increase traffic to their website and encourage more purchases. The app called Fruit Fright can be accessed when customers scan QR codes on wooden stirrers presented with their fruity drinks. The QR code will be activated in over 700 pubs in the UK and will be live for the whole month of October.

Burger King’s Halloween Game

Burger King launched three new Whoppers for Halloween to capture new customers and re-engage with their loyal customers. Similar to Dead Man’s Fingers, Burger King also had a strong focus in gamifying the customer experience to drive conversions and increase business for the new Halloween Whopper editions. On the purchase of each Whopper, the customer could unlock different levels of the game “Underworld”, “Red Forest of Horror” and “Black Haunted House”.

M&M Max and Millie’s Ghost Stories:

The brand struck gold with these Halloween campaigns. M&M came out with a series of 30-second animated videos that ran throughout the month of October. The story was told throughout 7 videos. This marketing campaign was centered around Millie and her Halloween candy. The viewers could pick the direction of the animated series by selecting options for the outcome.

     Millie and Max: Chapter 5

Help us create Ch. 6! Does Millie choose A) M&M’S Ghoul’s Mix B) M&M’S White Candy Corn#MillieAndMax #Halloween pic.twitter.com/nR7Ce3vj3v

— M&M’S® Brand (@mmschocolate)

The League and Soul Cycle’s Push Notifications

The League is a social dating app where the users are vetted by the team before being accepted. The app used push notifications to ensure a fun time and build on their quirky brand image. The League’s push notifications are a great example of how to incorporate a spooky vibe into their halloween themed campaigns to engage with their loyal customers.

Soul Cycle also uses push notifications to remind users of their brand identity. They also use this channel to invite customers to attend classes regularly.

Svedka Vodka: The Banner Ad Curse

Svedka Vodka used video brilliantly to grab the attention of their customers and got a free pass (somewhat) to retarget their customers with their ads incessantly. After clicking on a video of Halloween cocktail recipes, viewers were shown another that said “You are cursed now”. Cursed with hellish ads. The vodka brands stayed true to the threat and retargeted the viewers with a continuous stream of ads to garner more attention online.

Lyft and Netflix’s Stranger Things Collaboration Video

Lyft collaborated with the hugely popular Netflix series, Stranger Things to create a memorable experience for the passengers. Passengers who chose the “Strange Mode” were taken on a spooky ride with strange and eerie things happening during the ride.

Angry Birds Halloween Campaign

Angry Birds, one of the most popular and beloved games, released Angry Birds Halloween in 2010. The game featured multiple Halloween-themed episodes for players to enjoy. The game started with a focus on Halloween. Ravio Entertainment then released “Angry Birds Seasons.” In this edition, each episode was based on different events, like Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, New Year’s, etc.

With the examples above, it is evident that the opportunity that Halloween offers brand marketers is limitless. At the center of an effective Halloween campaign lies a deep understanding of your customer. What drives them, what is it that they expect from your brand, what frustrates them, etc.

To help you better create the best Holiday campaigns, we’ve compiled a recipe book with Halloween, New Year and Christmas campaigns from leading European and North American brands like Macy’s, Burger King, OTTO, and more .

You can get your recipe book here. The report also gives out strategies that marketers can use to personalize customer journeys during the holiday season.

Further Reading & Listening

Holiday Marketing Tricks That Can Help You Win Treats

What You Need to Know Before Planning Holiday Engagement Campaigns

Engaging Your Customers In The Age Of Virtual Oktoberfests

How To Build Loyalty Programs That Your Customers Will Love

Customer Engagement: Actionable Strategies for 2021 and Beyond

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Holidays invariably evoke emotions. According to a study by the United Kingdom-based Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), campaigns with emotional content performed twice as well as those with only rational content (31% vs. 16%). Purely emotional content also did better than a mix of emotions and rationality (31% vs. 26%). As a marketer, you need to ensure that your holiday campaigns focus on emotions such as joy, merriness, and togetherness.

In order to help you frame a winning strategy, we bring you examples of successful holiday marketing campaigns. These campaigns are from top brands like The Apparel Group, Wish, Lifestyle Group, MAP, and more. You can emulate the learnings from and implement them for the upcoming Christmas and New Year campaigns. Let’s jump right into it!

Here are some successful holiday marketing campaigns to inspire you:

Before we dive in, just a reminder. You can find insightful trends, actionable strategies, and use cases from top global brands in our comprehensive holiday marketing guide:   

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1. Gamify shopping experience to drive repeat purchases

   Dubai-headquartered 6thStreet.com, the e-commerce arm of The Apparel Group, one of the largest retailers in the world, registered significant growth in sales during the 2018 Black Friday campaign season. This encouraged the brand to increase repeat purchases the following year.

   By gamifying the shopping experience and rewarding shoppers who completed five purchases, they increased repeat purchases by 24% during Black Friday 2019!

   To achieve these spectacular results, the brand used automated workflows that got activated on completion of the first purchase – a trigger email was then sent to the shopper, highlighting their progress towards the ‘goal’ of five purchases and nudging them to buy more.

Bonus Material – Take a look at How to Get Repeat Purchases From E-commerce Customers

1. Use real-time triggers to segment and target

   Landmark Group is one of the largest retail and e-commerce businesses across the Middle East, Africa, and India. During White Wednesday 2019, Landmark Group used segmented campaigns based on real-time event triggers, amplified push notifications, seamless customer journeys, and personalized messages to encourage maximum usage of discounts and offers, and improve app purchases and conversions.

   The strategy was to encourage existing app users to opt-in for push notifications and prompt inactive customers to engage with the app through attractive offers. Inactive customers who were already opted in were sent compelling communication to make use of offers instantly.

   The brand prompted the wishlist functionality within the app, slashed pricing, and gifting options for active customers.

2. Adaptation of current assets in the apps

   Just like storefronts display seasonal decorations like pumpkins, cobwebs, and Christmas wreaths, Apple’s App Store & Google Play spin in a colorful showcase of orange pumpkins and witches for Halloween, red Santa hats, and snow for Christmas, and so on.

   Many publishers try to capitalize on their users’ holiday sentiments and adapt their products to the mood. Adaption is perhaps the most common tactic used by brands to make changes related to the holidays.

   The Christmas graphic for the “Wish” app is a good example:

3. Communicate discounts category-wise

   The leading Indian retail fashion brand, Lifestyle has planned festive, promotional, and special offer campaigns for year-end 2020 with ‘Buy 1 Get 1’ and category-wise sales across Women’s wear, Men’s wear, Kids’, Beauty, and more. They aim to communicate these sales using messaging around special coupons, a Buy 1 Get 1 offer, or a flat 40-50% off via push notifications differing according to specific categories.

   The brand has also been forced to change its holiday marketing strategy to focus more on online marketing as compared to 2019, due to an increase in MAUs (monthly active users) and DAUs (daily active users).

   Compared to 2019 holiday sales, the chain expects 2X growth this year, though tech issues could blunt the numbers.
   

4. Run in-app campaigns based on purchase behavior

   The Indonesian e-commerce platform ran campaigns promoting products during the 10/10 sale in 2020, by targeting users based on their historical touchpoints with them. The brand reached out to users through push notifications, in-app messages, and emails.

   Past purchase behavior-based targeting and running in-app voucher campaigns. Blibli also used in-app campaigns for their sale to drive engagement and to give users vouchers which they could then use to complete purchases.

   Blibli leveraged their payment partnerships during the sale to offer discounts to their users and also promoted flash sales via their email campaigns.
   

5. Using gamification, loyalty programs, and lucky draws

   Indonesia’s leading lifestyle retailer is gearing up for end of year sales with 10.10 and Harbolnas (Hari Belanja Online Nasional or National Online Shopping Day), both due in the final quarter of 2020. Participating brands include the likes of Planet Sports, Marks & Spencer, SOGO, Brikenstock, Mango among others. The brand actively uses referrals and gamification to attract audiences.

   In addition, they also run the MAPCLUB program which provides loyalty points that can be redeemed to win exciting prizes such as iWatch, Samsung A50, iPhone SE, etc. through lucky-draws during the sale period.

   MAP uses smart segmentation to decide on the frequency of communication. By leveraging RFM, one of MAP’s business units, Mapemall, identifies segments of customers such as loyal, close to conversion, price-sensitive and inactive, to send as many as 5 emails/day across brands.

6. Change icons and graphics based on local festivals

   Various regions have differing holiday and shopping events spread across the last quarter of the year. Be active in changing your app icon and graphics based on the biggest event in your region. For example, in Russia, New Year’s Eve is a bigger holiday than Christmas, so apps like Ozon, one of the largest e-commerce companies in the country, added Santa Claus to the App Store icon just before announcing New Year discounts. The Chinese shopping season starts on November 11. It’s an unofficial holiday for bachelors. The holiday has become the largest offline and online shopping day in the world. The biggest shopping apps like Aliexpress are actively promoting this holiday on their app pages.

   

Do further check out the 7 brilliant holiday marketing eCommerce ideas to boost sales this holiday season.

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Who doesn’t like the spirit of the holidays? You’re probably thinking of gifts, hanging out with your friends (safely – wear your masks, people), and family. Christmas, Halloween, Easter- pumpkins, cobwebs, wreaths, and candles, every holiday has its own attribute.

In addition to attributes, there are also special offers, discounts, and promotions to attract customers. The same goes for the mobile market. The apps are products as well, and as such each holiday season, the App Store & Google Play spin out a colorful showcase of orange pumpkins, red caps, and snow. But before you try to capitalize on the holiday sentiments and adapt products to the seasons, let’s talk about the app metrics for holiday marketing efficiency measurement. All visible changes are aimed to boost external metrics and acquire more users while internal metrics are equally important.

Internal and external app metrics for holiday marketing efficiency measurement:

• Conversion rate: Once you’ve changed the graphics or text on the app page to accommodate the holiday spirit, it’s time to measure the effectiveness. If you update icons or screenshots the main external metric should be conversion rate from page view to installing, or CR from impression to install in App Store Search. How did these metrics change after the update?

• Installs: Many products during the seasons “sacrifice” their keywords in some text fields in favor of adding information about seasonal offers. Including but not limited to: discounts and holiday promo codes (e-commerce segment), additional seasonal loot and quests (games), new seasonal product innovations (utilities – live wallpaper, sticker app, etc.). This information can often be seen in the Subtitle fields, in promo texts (App Store), or in a short or full description (Google Play).When updating the texts, you should check how rankings with new keywords have changed. For example, the ‘Wish’ app has improved its rankings in the US Google Play after adding a new short description: 👻 Halloween deals are alive! 🧟‍♂️ Download now to shop 🎁Then you should check how search page views (or impressions in App Store) and installs were affected by that rankings improvement.A new app title and subtitles can also affect conversion rate in the same way as an icon or screenshots. We recommend updating text and graphics separately to measure its effectiveness in the correct way.
• Impressions and page views: Many marketers argue whether there even is a need for seasonal text optimization – in terms of using special keywords such as ‘Christmas’. The demand/popularity of these queries (and related holidays) really increases during the relevant holiday season. Below you may find a historical trend of the 2 examples of search popularity dynamic for ‘Christmas’ & ‘Halloween’.

The popularity of the ‘Christmas’ keyword is seeing a steady climb two months before Christmas:

Keyword Popularity Trend, source: AppFollow

The question is how and whether it is possible to use these queries for optimization in order to achieve an increase in search visibility and installations. In fact, the relevance of these queries to your product is very important. For example, if the app is in the online shopping category, “Christmas presents” can be a great seasonal key to your upgrade. A live wallpaper app with new Easter attributes in April can also be a successful seasonal keyword optimization.

However, you shouldn’t include such ‘holiday’ queries in your text meta if it’s not relevant. It is highly unlikely that users will search for a Sudoku game by the query of ‘Christmas present’.

• DAU/MAU: Seasonal in-product events are not only one of the ways of attracting new users, but also a method to retain current users. The introduction of additional seasonal functionality becomes an additional incentive for users to visit the app.
• Retention Rate: Correctly built content logic (for example, if we are talking about games, the system of daily rewards) will keep the user coming back to the app, encouraging them to login at least once a day.
• Revenue: Seasonal limited shopping deals are also a good way to boost your income. If we are to talk about the gaming segment, a loyal audience will be interested in getting limited and rare perks. Speaking of utilities, seasonal discounts on regular offers, or creating custom ones would be a good upgrade. It all depends on your ingenuity.

Seasonal marketing do’s and don’ts

Now that we are done discussing app metrics for holiday marketing, here are a few tactics that you should implement in your seasonal marketing strategy:

Do not be obvious: When you are looking at stores Search pages during the Christmas season, you may see that lots of apps are using the same attributes: Christmas candies, red hats, etc. Try not to be trivial and see what you can come up with, how to apply it, and make it relevant to your product.

Take into account local specifics: Different cultures have different customs and traditions. Don’t try to promote Christmas in Arab countries or Ramadan in Israel. Always consider the specifics of your key markets.

Apply for the season featuring: Games are predictably featured the most by the App Store during the holiday season. The next popular category is holiday stickers. Messengers, recipes, and shopping lists apps were also featured in the last few years.

You can have a great boost in browse traffic if you get featured in the App Store and Google Play. We recommend sending featuring requests a few weeks before the start of the holiday season. Having holiday-theme app pages or in-app events would increase the probability of featuring.

Featured Today in US App Store, source: AppFollow

Start your holiday activities early: You have to prepare the holiday app page and in-app events one month in advance. In this case, you will have enough time to run A/B tests in Google Play and check the metrics after updating graphics in the App Store.

Run A/B tests: Create separate tests for each metadata field: icon, screenshots, short description. So you’ll know the effect of each item. If your app has enough users in a few countries then also run country tests because the results can be different depending on the region and cultural differences.

These are the do’s and as for the don’ts, just do not make too many drastic changes and do not update anything for the sake of updating. Optimize wisely.

What to expect during the holiday season?

As we can see, the app stores already shine with holiday decor with creatives of many apps/games already full of snowflakes and Santa hats. From a creative perspective (in terms of graphic assets), classic ideas wander from year to year. The new trends for the current holiday season are not different in this regard. We definitely can not ignore some newly released features on the market.

So what about the latest trends?

• After the iOS 14 release, the widgets became more popular. If your application supports this feature, this is a good way to please your users with a seasonal widget design. Still wondering whether you need to have one? Take a look at the dynamic of the ‘widget’ keyword trend below:

Keyword Popularity Trend, source: AppFollow

• App Clips is another new feature offered by Apple. With it, you can offer users a unique experience with the key benefits of your app and adjust it for the holiday season. For example, e-commerce app clips can help users quickly receive holiday discounts and bonus cards or quickly find necessary seasonal goods.
• There is a new wave of COVID-19 related restrictions in many countries around the world, and in some of them, the lockdown is on again. There is a high chance that this Holiday season, many people will celebrate at home. Take this into account and prepare the proper seasonal content for your audience.

Key takeaways

In this paragraph, I think you expect to see something like: ‘Seasonal updates are the key to success and a great way to attract more users to your app’ or ‘Seasonal updates are a waste of resources, mobile users come to the mobile store to satisfy their need, for example, to find a new currency converter’. But it isn’t that simple. As with any marketing activity, the main takeaway is: ‘We need to test’. The practice of seasonal updates has been on the market for many years, but there is no universal answer to the question ‘will it work this time?’

The decision to make a seasonal product change (adding seasonal content) is made at the product level and many factors are taken into account, including team resources. Factors that can influence decision-making in this matter:

• the historical experience of the product (having a successful/unsuccessful experience in the past years)
• analysis of competitors (market)
• current team’s resources

With the unique challenges thrown across by the holiday season, you’d benefit from checking out the holiday marketing trends emerging these days and adapt accordingly. In any case, updating the application’s product page is certainly an easier task, but no one can guarantee that the new seasonal adaptation will convert users better.

Reading Time: 6 minutes

It’s often said that the holiday season is “the most wonderful time of the year,” but it’s also the most competitive time from a marketing perspective. Ongoing App Store Optimization efforts are a must-have all year, but increased competition and seasonally relevant trends make Q4 a particularly important season.

In the final quarter of the year, app developers and marketers are firing on all cylinders to reach users during the holiday rush. With each year comes new devices; with new devices come new users; with an increase of new users comes an increase of advertisers looking to get their attention. Even apps without a holiday focus will need to increase their marketing efforts to play on an even field during this competitive time.

App Store Optimization marketing (ASO marketing) is essential to achieve this. As we enter Q4, developers must be sure to update their app listings on time, including their keywords and creative sets, to both take advantage of the season and prepare for the competition.

When to Begin App Store Optimization

The App Store and Google Play Store need time to merchandize an app for its keywords and the apps need time to build their rankings – developers can’t update their keywords and creatives the night before Thanksgiving and expect to be at the top of the search results in time for campaigns of Black Friday.

It takes roughly 3-4 weeks for the stores to fully merchandise an updated store listing, although that time can be accelerated if you are also running paid campaigns like Apple Search Ads.

You’ll need time to gather data and figure out what aspects of your store listing perform best, which can take a few weeks as well. During this time, you’ll want to monitor your performance, identify what features and keywords are impacted by the seasonal trends, and adjust your listing accordingly.

You’ll want to give yourself at least a month to index and rank for the new keywords and see how well the optimization is working. Starting too late can result in missed opportunities to optimize for the season and give your competitors a head-start. Be sure to start early, so you can have a lead over your rivals as you enter the competitive season and rank well for your holiday-focused keywords.

Seasonal Keyword Optimization

App Store Optimization is an ongoing process, requiring consistent updates based on user trends. As seasonal trends cause user demand and search terms to fluctuate, the updates must be adjusted accordingly. What users search for during the summer can be very different from what they’re looking for during the winter months. Events like holidays can influence user search trends as well, and there’s no shortage of holidays in Q4.

App developers need to keep up with these changes to ensure their app store listings are targeting the terms and highlighting features that users care about at the moment. Even apps unrelated to the holidays will want to keep an eye on changing keyword trends and update to capitalize on them as new users flock to the app stores. This can help apps stay competitive and make the most of the seasonal demand.

Take a look at ASO Marketing – Expanding Your App Into New Territories here

How to Optimize for Seasonality

If your app has holiday-related features or updates, it’s critical to update your metadata to align with them. This can help ensure your app will appear in searches for those terms.

Shopping apps, for instance, see an increase in demand during the holiday season as users search for gifts and deals. This is when seasonal optimization is vital. Targeting “holiday shopping” or “Black Friday deals” may not be too important during July, but is essential for those apps during November and December.

Given the increase in competition during Q4, shopping app developers (and all developers) will also need to be more aggressive in bids for Search Ad campaigns, even for non-seasonal shopping terms. The seasonal increase in demand will make even evergreen terms like “shopping” face much higher demand, regardless of if the app is focusing on holiday shopping. With proper optimization, you can prepare for the holiday demand and keep up with your competitors.

Creative Optimization

Your creative elements, including the icon, screenshots, and video, take up a significant amount of real estate on your app store listings and play an important role in conversions. As you update your keywords to align with the season, you should also update your creative set to match.

When you optimize your app for the holiday season, it can show users that you’re focusing on their needs. If a user is searching for an app to help with gift shopping, a creative set that calls out how users can “find the perfect holiday gift” will directly relate to that need and is more likely to appeal to users.

Seasonal updates also show users that your app is up to date and relevant, even if they’re not holiday-focused. Keeping creative sets up to date signals to users that the app is updated for their current needs. If a fashion app is updated for holiday styles or cold weather outfits, it will show users that it relates to their current needs. If it’s still focused on spring fashion, the user could perceive it as out of date and irrelevant.

As you increase your paid marketing efforts for Q4, it’s important to remember that the paid traffic from all channels will lead users to the app stores. Whatever route a user takes to get to the store, the creatives displayed on a product page play an important role in whether or not a user decides to actually download the app. Optimized creatives are your final pitch for organic and paid installs alike.

How to Best Optimize Screenshots

If you want your screenshots to stand out from the competition, there are some best practices you can follow. For seasonality, the first step is adjusting the imagery in the screenshots to reflect the holidays.

In the case of mobile games, this can mean highlighting seasonal events. For shopping apps, this could include showcasing gifts and winter gear. If the app is updated for the holidays, the screenshots should reflect that.

Apps not focused on the holidays should still update with seasonality in mind. Vacation apps may want to switch their imagery to highlight ski trips instead of trips to national parks while streaming apps could highlight holiday classics available for viewing. Keeping screenshots fresh throughout the year is important for any and all apps.

Using a screenshot copy that relates to the updated keywords can also help. This helps relate the app to user search queries by directly connecting it to the terms they’re looking for. If users can see in an instant how an app relates to their search, they’re more likely to click on the app and potentially download it.

Keep in mind that competition is increased in Q4. You’ll need to make efforts to stand out from the competition and gain conversions, even if your app is not related to the holidays. This is the time to update with tested, engaging creative sets that will help you end the year on a high note, no matter what kind of app you develop.

Overall

The holiday season presents significant opportunities for app developers, with increased shopping, multiple holidays, and the end of the year. At the same time, competition increases significantly as developers up their end-of-the-year marketing budgets. This means more spending on paid ads and a greater need for impressions to lead to conversions.

When users buy or receive a new phone, the first thing they’ll want to do is shop for apps. App developers and marketers need to adjust their strategies to capture these new users.

If you want to make the most of seasonal trends, you need to update your keywords and creative sets for the season, while giving your app enough time to the index for the new terms and build rankings for them. While increasing ad spends can help you keep up with the competition, increasing it without considering what you need to increase conversions can provide lackluster results and a high CPI.

Even for apps without seasonal changes, optimizing, and increasing ad spend is essential to reach new users.

With proper App Store Optimization, your app can be prepared for the holiday rush and the increased competition, resulting in enough growth and usage to help ensure a happy new year.

Reading Time: 8 minutes

The holiday season is a  special time that’s warm, comforting, and familiar. Gifts, wrapping paper, tinsel, and twinkling lights bring joy to millions around the world, year after year.

While some traditions will stay the same, many will change. With millions of people adapting to a new normal and businesses adjusting to restrictions, this holiday season is very different. This means Holiday traditions and gift-giving may look very different this year. While framing campaigns, you need to be aware of the holiday marketing trends and add value to consumers’ lives. Help them stay connected to who or what they care about most.

In 2020, holiday season sales for retail and e-commerce surpassed the trillion-dollar mark for the first time ever. Despite the unprecedented pandemic and the unusual holiday, with the right strategy you can still grow and earn profits. Forrester expects e-commerce sales to grow by 18.5% this year.

To help you navigate this unusual holiday season, we at MoEngage in collaboration with AppFollow have released a guide with:

• Expert insights and examples of highly successful campaigns from global brands
• Holiday marketing trends for 2020
• Do’s and don’ts while framing holiday strategy and
• 20 actionable strategies you can implement right away

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Before you download the guide, let’s explore past festive seasons, holiday marketing trends, and how has it changed. We can begin by looking at the biggest shopping events around the world, campaigns run, and performances.

Festive seasons across geographies

The United States and Europe: Brands being campaign planning from late October, around Halloween. Although Black Friday and Cyber Monday originated in the United States, they are widely popular in Europe too.

• Black Friday: Held on the day after Thanksgiving, it’s one of the most awaited shopping days with unbelievable offers.
• Cyber Monday: Held on the Monday following Thanksgiving. Brands like Walmart, Amazon, and Target offer numerous deals on iPads, GoPros, televisions, etc.
• Christmas and New Year Sale: One of the biggest sale periods of the year extending from Christmas week to New Year’s eve. Holiday retail sales were up by 3.4% in the US, while e-commerce sales increased by 18.8% compared to 2018.
• Boxing day: Largest post-Christmas shopping event of the year. Presents an opportunity for retailers to clear inventory. Although on a decline, brick-and-mortar stores like John Lewis and Marks & Spencer witnessed an increase in traffic.

India: Traditionally, India’s offline sales have always peaked during Dussehra and Diwali.

According to a Mastercard report in 2019 overall retail sales grew by 3.4% year-on-year, while online sales increased by 18.8%!

• Flipkart’s Big Billion Day Sale: Flash sales, new deals every 8 hours, discounts on apparel, electronics, and large appliances.
• Amazon’s Great Indian Festival Sale: Big discounts and exclusive deals on mobile phones, home appliances, gadgets, accessories, fashion, and footwear.
• Christmas and New Year Sale: Travel & hospitality, and e-commerce/retail industries have their own online and offline sales at the end of the year, with brands like H&M, Nykaa, IndiGo leading the play.

Middle East: Burgeoning e-commerce brands, powered by digitization and key acquisitions such as that of Souq by Amazon, have changed the landscape in the Middle East, reinventing the way people shop.

According to a Bain prediction, e-commerce in the region is expected to be worth $28.5 billion by 2022.

White Wednesday draws huge crowds through buy-one-get-one offers and attractive discounts. Consumers in Saudi Arabia and Egypt are major drivers, contributing a 30-35% spike in sales every year.

Southeast Asia: Nearly 40% of the online sales in Southeast Asia occur between October and December. Shoppers are open to purchasing from multiple brands and platforms.

• 11:11 (Single’s Day Sale): Started by Alibaba in November 2009, this 24-hour shopping event has become a global phenomenon.
• Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sale: Generates a lot of buzz and dominates social media chatter across Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
• Harbolnas: Analogous to Black Friday campaigns and Cyber Monday sales in the west, Harbolnas (Hari Belanja Online Nasional) or National Online Shopping Day, held in December every year, is Indonesia’s single biggest annual shopping event.

Australia and New Zealand: Actual holiday sales in Australia hit $7 billion for the first time in 2019. Shoppers in New Zealand have been warming up to Black Friday spending.

NZ Online Shopper Survey of 2018 revealed that 44% of shoppers admitted to shopping more than what they normally would, resulting in a 10.4% increase year-on-year in retail spends on Black Friday.

• Black Friday: Always bigger and better each year, research in 2019 has shown that Australians will spend $3.9 billion during this sale.
• Cyber Monday: Great value offers across fashion, electronics and gadgets, travel, and more are the highlights of this sale.
• Free Shipping Day: Held on December 14th, all products are shipped without any additional charges.

Previous campaign performances across geographies and categories

Holiday season 2020 is unlike any other owing to the pandemic and the ensuing crisis. However, to give you an idea of what to expect, here’s a brief overview of holiday marketing campaign numbers in the past along with key data points and trends:

• In India, online shopping searches peak 2-3 weeks before Diwali with sites witnessing a 30% increase in their traffic during the holiday season. Interestingly, non-metro consumers are participating more enthusiastically in online shopping.
• Apparel, accessories, and mobile phones are leading products purchased by consumers.

According to Google’s Consumer Barometer stats of 2017, 41% of Singaporean shoppers research online but shop offline. Offline retailers thus launch more in-store-only discounts and offer to attract online shoppers.

• In Indonesia, although Ramadan is considered the biggest festival, marketers have been using the upcoming holiday season as an opportunity to grow sales. Apparels and accessories feature among the top searches during the holiday season.
• In the Philippines, online shopping searches have increased by 57% in 2018 over 2017.
• Apparel, footwear, food, and personal care are the leading categories for shopping. The shoppers are more focused on gifts that have utility and provide value for money.
• Over the last decade, the Middle East has shown a steady increase in shopping around Christmas and New Year.

A 2019 Salesforce report showed that 76% of shoppers in UAE made holiday purchases from online marketplaces and 48% used Instagram as their main source of inspiration. Offline sales continue to remain relevant with 56% of shoppers purchasing products online but preferring in-store pickup.

• In the US, 30% of all retail sales occur between Black Friday and Christmas. Black Friday witnessed a surge in sales, with 93.2 million buyers in 2019, 50.4% of whom were women, with millennials spending the most.
• In Europe, Christmas retail was most extravagant in the United Kingdom and Germany with an average Christmas budget amounting to €461. The United Kingdom, Spain, and Germany were the biggest spenders with a year-on-year increase in online retail sales with apparel, consumer electronics, toys, and games as popular products.

According to the Inside Australian Online Shopping Industry Report, the holiday season accounted for 15% of all e-commerce transactions in 2018. Fashion, health and beauty, and homeware and appliances are among the leading products purchased online.

• In New Zealand, nearly 60% of consumers planned to shop online for Christmas in 2019. A survey by PayPal revealed that discounts are a key attraction for shoppers in Australia. The survey also showed that seven out of ten Australians actively sought online discounts, while 50% waited till the item they wished to purchase was sold at a discounted price.

Holiday marketing trends

Despite the palpable excitement in the air, holiday seasons seem to be damp this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are some critical challenges and holiday marketing trends you’ll need to be wary of:

• According to the World Health Organization, nearly half of the global workforce runs the risk of losing their livelihood due to COVID-19. The users would prefer to save money for the future instead of splurging.
• COVID-19 has transformed millennials from swipers to savers. COVID-19 seems to have changed the spending habits of consumers not just in the United States but also in developing countries like India. Consumers will be more value-conscious and less impulsive while shopping. As Chris Farrell, the Marketplace Senior Economics Correspondent, puts it, “More people are embracing frugality or thrift.”
• A holiday season seems incomplete without the images of people lining up outside retail stores as early as midnight to buy their favorite products. However, this year is going to be completely different. A new global study shows that 36% of shoppers now prefer weekly online shopping as compared to the 28% who chose the option pre-COVID-19. This is particularly challenging for brick-and-mortar shops that have relied mainly on in-store sales during the holiday season.
• The disruption in supply chains due to the pandemic badly impacted the retail industry. In April, the retail sales in the United States plunged by 16.4% due to supply chain issues. Problems such as labor shortages, transportation restrictions, and border closures, have added stress on the retail supply chain and led to artificial shortages.

How to adapt holiday marketing strategies for this year?

Based on the above-mentioned holiday marketing trends, it is clear that the changing customer preferences coupled with economic uncertainty and reluctance to step out have affected how users will shop during the holidays. So, how do you adapt your strategies to win this holiday season?

Here are 3 tips for you to keep in mind while framing holiday marketing campaigns

1. Keep multiple ad formats ready: It is wise to keep different formats and sizes of creatives ready for various channels. Limiting to the popular format gets you the majority of the impressions, there is high competition resulting in high CPM/CPI. Chances are, different formats, including the least popular sizes get you additional exposure at a much lower price.
   Keep testing to discover the most relevant ads for audiences coming in from different channels as they’ll have different expectations. Differentiating through dedicated ad formats for each channel is all the more important in 2020. The online ad space is getting crowded due to the entry of brands that weren’t investing during the pandemic’s peak. There are also newcomers who have recently moved from offline to online and they’ll go heavy on ad spends.
2. Cater to the new lifestyle: Due to the pandemic new behavior, habits, attitudes, and lifestyles have emerged. Users are now working, exercising from home. You need to target these new personas by using relevant products. Study your user’s browsing and buying history. Leverage user data and insights to drive holiday deals and campaigns better targeting users.
3. Keep up with travel habits: This holiday season, people are more likely to take short trips. Families could get away together to spend a portion of the holidays at a place other than their home. These short trips might have a positive end-of-year effect on hotels, restaurants, and other tourism-related industries.

Stay updated with all of our holiday marketing coverage right here!

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