Effective Google Ads for Thanksgiving Sales

November 9, 2020 |
By Nancy Koskoshie

Thanksgiving is a brilliant time to sell products and services online. Buyers go absolutely crazy on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Many of them will start picking up gifts for Christmas, or at least trying to score themselves a decent bargain on something they have been eying up for a while.

A business can make a lot of money on Thanksgiving. In fact, this is the time of year that companies traditionally start heading into the black (hence the name Black Friday), but competition for sales is sky-high. If you do not know how to market your business, then your competitors will be leaving you behind. Thankfully, putting together some effective paid advertising on Google isn’t too difficult.

We are not going to share specific ads that you can use here. This is because an ad that is right for one business may not necessarily be a brilliant option for another business. Instead, we want to share a few tips on creating effective Google ads for Thanksgiving sales. This will allow you to tailor Thanksgiving ads for your business.

Create a sense of urgency

Ads that work incredibly well at Thanksgiving are those that have a sense of urgency about them. You want to encourage people to buy the products there and then. You need to be making them feel that this is something that really can’t be waiting until after Thanksgiving thing along the lines of ads that say things like this:

  • Don’t delay
  • Limited Time
  • Black Friday Sale
  • Cyber Monday Special
  • Don’t miss out
  • Available Now

You can think around with these words as much as you want, we are sure that you will know how to create a sense of urgency in your ads. Even if you do not want to add extra words to your ad, you can always change up the display URL (this can be whatever you wish). Making the URL something like this could work:

www.yourwebsite.com/ThanksgivingDeals

www.yourwebsite.com/LimitedOffers

Both of these options still convey a sense of urgency.

Highly Targeted Ads

an example of a thanksgiving email sent out to elevate sales success

Running ads around Thanksgiving is expensive. It is estimated that they can be up to 20% more expensive than at any other time of the year. This means that you want your conversions to be as high as possible. This means putting your general ad campaigns on the backburner.

Ads that you are running around Thanksgiving should be for specific products or at least specific keywords. Let’s say, for instance, you run an ad campaign targeted at pet supplies. This is brilliant, but it is not a good ad for Thanksgiving. Instead, your campaign should be for specific products or product categories you offer such as ‘pet beds’ or even ‘dog beds’.

The more specific you make your ads, the higher the chance of a conversion. This will be business your competitors aren’t getting on Thanksgiving.

Retargeting Campaigns

This is something that you will need to start a little bit prior to Thanksgiving. Around October seems ideal for this.

People will be searching for products prior to Thanksgiving, but they will not necessarily be buying them. With retargeting campaigns, you can pull them back in and grab that final purchase. Without retargeting, the people are still going to want those products, but they are going to be purchasing them from one of your competitors.

Seller Ratings

The ads that we have seen perform best around Thanksgiving are those that include the seller ratings on them.

People do not like taking a risk with their purchases at the best of times. It is even worse with Thanksgiving. People know that if they buy from one place, they are going to be missing out on offers in other places. If they have never heard of a company before, then it is unlikely they will get the business. Not without including seller ratings on the ads.

The seller ratings help to convince buyers that your site is the best to shop at. It shows that you are proud of the customer service and the product quality that you offer.

We can promise you that if you include your seller ratings on the ad, your CTR will go up. This could lead to a huge increase in conversions too, but your actual website is going to need to carry a bit of the burden there.

Seller ratings are not available for every business, so if you do not have the option available to you, don’t fret.

Location Targeting

an image of the city with google location targets elevated above the skyline

In many cases, you will find that location-based ads are a bit cheaper than general ads. However, that is not the main reason why you will be running them.

Location-based ads can get very specific. It also helps to create a sense of urgency as it appears as if you are reaching out directly to a person. People also place a bit more trust in companies that appear to be closer to them. You may see sales creep up as a result.

Your campaign shouldn’t completely be based around location-based advertising unless you are purely a local business, but an online-only business could do well targeting some of the major towns and cities around Thanksgiving.

Use Google Ad Extensions

Google has various extensions that you can use to add a bit of extra text to your ad. This may include terms such as ‘Free Shipping’ or ‘Ships Internationally’. Use them. Not only does it mean that you now have more words available for your main ad, but it helps to really convey that you are the best place for people to buy from this Thanksgiving.

Conclusion

If you follow these tips for effective Google Ads for Thanksgiving Sales, then you will see your conversion rate shoot up. Remember; you should be monitoring your campaigns throughout the day to ensure that they are as effective as possible. Some people may even run split testing on Thanksgiving, but this can be a little difficult to pull off if only one person is running the campaign. However, do not be afraid to tinker if one ad doesn’t seem to be converting well. You may be able to squeeze a few more sales out of it.

Of course, it can be time consuming and difficult to undertake a thanksgiving marketing campaign if your being pulled in many directions. That is where Yoshiro digital’s team of PPC marketing experts can help take on the task, thereby freeing you up to focus on the parts of your business that most need your attention.