How To Drive Traffic & Conversions This Holiday Season

However, before you start planning your holiday campaigns let’s take a look at the predictions for the upcoming months and the best tools to help you be successful in your marketing efforts.

2018 HOLIDAY SEASON PREDICTION

• Mobile devices will dominate the holiday season
  According to a recent study conducted by Salesforce based on shopping data of over 500 Million global shoppers, mobile devices will drive 68% of traffic and 46% of orders, and thus, dominate the entire season over other devices. In the light of these findings, it will be increasingly important for e-commerce to account for mobile-friendly touch points throughout the shopping journey in order to avoid friction.
  
  Mobile visits will peak during three key moments of the holiday season:
  • Black Friday
  • Cyber Monday
  • Christmas Eve/Christmas Day
• AI-based product recommendations will drive 35% of revenue
  
  64% of shoppers feel like retailers don’t really know them, there is an increased need for more personalized, relevant, shopping experiences and recommendations, especially during the holiday season when customers are repeatedly bombarded by offers.
  
  Using AI to offer specific and personalized product recommendations will soon become a must, it already provides a tremendous advantage to businesses currently using it. Chatbots are also a great way to guide and support shoppers along their journey to make their experience seamless and personal.
  
  
• 40% of the holiday season shopping will happen on Cyber Week
  
  In 2017, shoppers spent more than $3 Billion on Cyber Monday (20.5% more than in 2016) according to a study conducted by Comscore.
  
  This year, Salesforce is predicting that nearly half of the holiday shopping will happen during Cyber Week and that shoppers may not return to the website to accomplish more purchases after this date, until after the beginning of the next year, making it increasingly important for businesses not to miss the mark on those promotional events.

EMAILS AS A COMMERCE DRIVER

As you will have guessed from the heading, email marketing is an unmissable tool during the holiday season. The right email campaign will drive traffic to your website and lift conversions during a time when your customers are actively trying to shop, all, at a minimal cost compared to other marketing tactics.

According to a study by Adobe Digital Insight, email marketing was the third highest commerce drivers in 2016.

To compare emails’ marketing success to other marketing tactics, our partner Shopify studied the main drivers of conversion during the 2017 holiday season and found that email collected the highest conversion rate with 4.29% followed by Search in second.

Image via Shopify

TAKEAWAYS

When planning your email campaign for the next few months remember this:
  –  68% of traffic will be driven by mobile
  – 46% of orders will be made on mobile
  – 35% of revenue will be derived from AI-based product recommendation due to consumer’s increasing need for personalization
  – In 2017, emails generated a 4.29% conversion rate during the Black Friday-Cyber Monday period

GEARING UP FOR THE HOLIDAY

Need help gearing up for the holiday? Our team will help you navigate the busiest time of the year by providing valuable consumer insights, craft a unique and seamless customer journey, and create an email strategy that will drive traffic to your website and lift conversions. Get in touch to learn more!