Google shares its holiday shopping insights

We’re officially into autumn now and Christmas shopping season is almost within touching distance. The good news is that there are still a few weeks to get organised and plan your seasonal campaigns before Black Friday and Cyber Monday kick into gear. With that in mind, Google has taken to its blog to share a slew of statistics and its own nuggets of advice to help you keep your virtual tills ringing with seasonal sales in the run up to the holiday season. Here’s what the search engine had to say…

Digital is ever more important at this time of year Google’s figures show that digital plays an absolutely crucial role in the holiday shopping process – which is good news for your eCommerce website. Over half of holiday shoppers spend time researching their present purchases online before they commit to an idea while over half of the total time spent holiday shopping occurs online.Mobile also plays an important role here, with Google’s research concluding that 57% of UK shoppers buy products while using their mobile device. As a website owner, this means it’s critical that your site is optimised for mobile shoppers. In particular, ensure that pages and images are quick to load, product descriptions don’t require excessive scrolling and double check your checkout process is mobile friendly. That could mean allowing sign in or registration using Facebook or Google for example and ensuring form data is easy to input from a smartphone. Holiday shopping starts now You may think that September is a little too early to haul out the wrapping paper but, the path to purchasing presents begins now says Google. It also continues after Christmas Day itself so consider this when planning your seasonal campaigns. This could mean leaving your seasonal Google Ads campaigns live after Christmas Day for example. Personalisation can help you win the sale If you aren’t in the habit of using personalisation in your marketing campaigns, there is no better time to start than right now. Google says that around half of shoppers say that promotions and deals which tie in to their previous orders would elevate their user experience. Tailoring your seasonal deals to previous purchase behaviour could help you to win the sale at this crucial period and chances are, if you’re not doing that, a competitor will have a tempting offer of their own to serve up.