The most wonderful time of the year will be here before you know it! And with each of the holidays approaching – Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas – comes great opportunities for digital advertising, which means the best time to start planning for 4th quarter is NOW.
You’ve been hearing from us a lot on how much more time people are spending on their devices during the pandemic – shopping, streaming, sharing. The habits that have been formed over these months were not just temporary. More people are going to continue doing their shopping online, making digital advertising a great way for businesses to get their name and story out to the masses.
Halloween may not be a big focus for your business, but if it is, there are great ways to capture audiences and show them targeted ads for what your business is selling. And if we can get this targeted around a holiday like Halloween, just think of what can be done during the holiday shopping months!
Here are some of the targeting categories that are available to target people for Halloween on Facebook and Instagram:
Facebook & Instagram Targeting Categories:
- Halloween
- Haunted Attraction
- Haunted House
- Halloween Costumes
- Halloween Horror Nights
- Horror Movies
- Parents of Young Children
Other strategies to take advantage of that offer Halloween behavioral targeting categories are Native ads, Display ads and Pre-Roll ads.
Native/Behavioral Display/Pre-Roll Targeting Categories:
- Halloween
- Halloween Candy Buyers
- Halloween Costume Buyers
- Halloween Super Shoppers
- Halloween Products
- Halloween Party Supply
- Halloween Decorations
- Halloween TV Specials
- Halloween Enthusiasts
- Holiday Entertainment Lovers
- Horror Enthusiasts
- Horror Movie Fans
- Parents of Young Children
In addition to targeting by these categories above, you can also target by Keyword, using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Retargeting.
With Keyword Targeting, ads are shown to people that go to webpages that contain the keywords related to your business. AI Targeting uses machine learning to target consumers based on who is engaging with the ad. It’s kind of like a funnel – the targeting starts wide and gets narrower as it learns who is actually interacting and engaging with your ad. It also picks up the people that may have been missed with Behavioral or Keyword Targeting because they may not have been showing that behavior yet or searching for that information yet, but AI is smart enough to include them in the audience based on other people like them who are already showing interest in your ads.
The final targeting strategy is Retargeting. If someone has already been on your website it means they were already interested at some point so, of course, we’d want to continue to target them, which is what Retargeting does. Allowing the advertiser to have frequency with consumers is foundational because, typically, people need to be brought back multiple times before they convert (AKA take the action that we want them to take).
Another product that offers Behavioral Targeting categories for Halloween is Mobile Conquesting. We can target the categories listed below AND we can target people by where they have recently been. Maybe you want to target people that have been to a haunted house, a pumpkin patch or a competitor’s store. We can geo-fence those locations and serve your ad to those people while they’re physically there. After people leave those locations we continue to serve them your ad with geo-retargeting. And then we can also target their neighborhoods with geo-retargeting lookalike. With this particular product we can also show you how many people saw your ad and then physically went into one of your locations. Spooky right?!
Another new feature of Mobile Conquesting is Cross Platform Targeting. This means we can serve someone an ad on their mobile device, but also then start serving ads to them on their other devices like their desktop or laptop. You can utilize Cross Platform Targeting with Social Media, Native ads, Display ads or Pre-Roll ads.
Mobile Conquesting Targeting Categories:
- Halloween Attractions and Events
- Haunted Houses
- Family Entertainment Centers
- Soccer Moms – People whose activities strongly suggest they are family focused moms. We could then use Cross Platform Targeting to reach those people when they go onto other devices with display, native, social or pre-roll ads.
The final product we are going to talk about is Amazon Premium Targeting. There are also many different targeting options to choose from with this tactic. The first is Behavioral Targeting where we would target people that have shown a certain behavior, and then show them ads on Amazon.com, Amazon owned properties and other apps and websites that Amazon has partnered with.
Amazon Premium Targeting – We can target behaviorally with:
- In-Market Halloween Candy
- In-Market Halloween Costumes
We can also target specific Halloween products with Product Targeting and create an audience. So if someone has recently searched for a Halloween costume, Halloween decorations, Halloween lights or Halloween candy, we can create an audience and show them ads on Amazon.com, other Amazon owned properties and other websites and apps that Amazon has partnered with.
Once Halloween comes and goes, we are full steam ahead into Black Friday and Christmas shopping. Be proactive and use the fact that more people are making their purchases online to your organization’s advantage. Target your core audience and get your brand’s name in front of the correct eyes! Here are some ideas on how to target Black Friday and holiday shoppers:
Display, Native, and Video Pre-Roll Behavioral Categories:
- Black Friday & Cyber Monday Shoppers
- Black Friday / Cyber Monday Online Spender
- Black Friday
- Black Friday / Cyber Monday Shopper – Consumer Electronics
- Black Friday / Cyber Monday Shopper – Apparel and Accessories
- Black Friday & Cyber Monday Movie Goers
- Black Friday Tech Hunters
- Black Friday Fiends
- Black Friday Shopping Enthusiast
- Black Friday Sportswear
- Black Friday Beauty Seekers
- Black Friday Fashion
- Black Friday Jewelry
- Cyber Monday Shoppers
- Christmas
- Small Business Saturday (Saturday, November 28th)
- Affluent Christmas & Holiday Shoppers
- Christmas – Celebration Planners
- Christmas – Christmas Buyers – Christmas Buyers with Children
- Christmas – Decorating Enthusiasts
- Christmas – Gift Budget – $100-$199
- Christmas – Gift Budget – $200+
- Christmas – Gift Budget – $50-$99
- Christmas – Gift Buyers Shoppers – Mobile and Consumer Electronics
- Christmas – Time of Christmas Purchase – One Month Before Christmas
- Christmas – Time of Christmas Purchase – One Week Before Christmas
- Christmas – Time of Christmas Purchase – Two Months Before Christmas
- Christmas- Sports Enthusiasts
- Holidays – Hanukkah
- Hanukkah celebration planners
- Hanukkah decoration shoppers
- Holidays – Kwanza
Mobile Conquesting Behavioral Categories:
- Discount Shoppers
- Discount Department Store
- Christmas Lights & Decorations
- Christmas Lights & Decorations-Mfrs
- Christmas Lights & Decorations-Wholesale
- Christmas Stockings Christmas Trees
- Christmas Trees-Artificial (Mfrs)
- Christmas Trees-Wholesale
- Holiday Letters and Gifts
You can also utilize Mobile Conquesting for Black Friday by geo-fencing businesses and then continue to geo-retarget them for repeat business, or to drive foot traffic to your location. Maybe you have a list of loyal customers and want to get the word out about your Black Friday sales. You can utilize address targeting and address retargeting to serve ads on their mobile devices and continue to serve them ads when they leave that location.
Amazon Targeting:
- Christmas Movie & TV Fans – Lifestyle
- Christmas Shoppers- Lifestyle
- Holiday Hosts- Lifestyle
- Holiday Books- In-Market
Don’t be late to the holiday party. Take advantage of the right opportunities available and get your campaign prepared and in place for when your audience starts spending all that time online and in digital spaces. You’ll be sure to build top of mind awareness, setting you and your brand up nicely for the new year!
Source: Vici Media Inc’s Blog published on Septeber 22, 2020, written by Katie Pray.