What's the best way to adapt your Q4 advertising strategy for Q1? The experts at TurnKey Product Management share their advice in this guest article.
The thrill of increased revenue in Q4 can be exhilarating! It's easy for sellers to enjoy the rewards of their labor leading up to this time of year. But it is just as easy to forget that the chaos of Q4 does not last all year. Therefore, you need a strategy heading into January for Q1. The sales velocity of products and prices changes when Q1 starts, and you need to be prepped and ready for the holiday aftermath.
Here are eight tips to help you make a smooth transition with your Amazon product advertising strategy from Q4 to Q1.
As we get closer to Christmas, you will start to notice conversion rates decrease. This decrease is good to be aware of so you do not overspend or overbid. When transitioning from the mania of Q4 to Q1, it is good to note that you should lower your bids and budgets for PPC. We recommend that you gradually decrease your bids as they start to normalize back to what they were prior to the holidays.
Turn off high-risk and holiday keywords. Instead, focus on your best performers and highly relevant targeting. Some of the higher-risk gift keywords geared toward the holidays are great to use in Q4, but you will want to adjust away from those keywords as you transition into Q1.
We all know the post-holiday New Year's resolutions are a big part of Q1. A great way to make the smooth transition of refining your targeting is to spin your product to appeal to Q1. If you sell kitchen gadgets, you could transition from holiday gifting to healthy cooking and meal prep.
The holidays were a great time to customize creatives with Sponsored Brand and Sponsored Display ads. However, if you used holiday-themed headlines and creatives, you should revert those back or change them to be geared more toward Q1.
New year, new you, and all those other Q1 taglines are coming! If you sell supplements or anything in the health and wellness category, this is your time to shine.
New Year's resolutions and health kicks are the driving force of Q1 sales for supplement and health and wellness brands. Now is the time to start planning your Q1 strategy to optimize the new year, new you consumers.
Imagine again for a moment that you sell kitchen gadgets. In this case, you would transition your creatives and keywords away from holiday meals, comfort food, and/or holiday kitchen gifts to meal prep and healthy cooking.
Play to your audience! If you are in the supplement or health and wellness category, you should plan to have a solid Q1. Make sure to stay super competitive with your top performers to hit the ground running in 2022! This means increasing your bids for keywords that perform well and increasing your budgets for the campaigns that have historically been profitable.
The audience that you retarget to is already qualified and looking for you. It is crucial to keep in mind that the retarget will be a lookback window of holiday shoppers, and the deals and specials they saw then won't be running in Q1.
With that said, you will want to lower your bids for your retargeting campaigns. Since your audiences will be larger, splitting them up is also a smart strategy to put into place.
A 30-day lookback window is pretty standard for retargeting in Q1. But if eligible, you could split out a 7-day lookback window and a 14-day lookback window. You can bid higher on those that viewed your listing in the past 7 days as they will be more qualified than those in the 30-day lookback window (if your audiences are big enough).
Instead of comparing Q4 to Q1, you should look at Q1 as an individual quarter with its own personality and realities. Then, build your strategies around these. It is wise not to compare Q4 to Q1. Instead, adjust your expectations to see 2022's Q1 in comparison to previous years. This outlook will keep your expectations in control and allow you to surpass previous Q1 performances.
Amazon product advertising can be difficult any time of year, but it is particularly tricking during this transitional period. It is vital to remember to be realistic about all the work that is required to prepare for Q1. Q4 is a huge quarter that doesn't reflect the entire year. It is quite difficult to match sales in Q4 to Q1. People don't spend nearly as much as they did in the previous three quarters. Buyers don't have the same spending habits in Q1 and tend to purchase a bit more conservatively. So, try not to base your sales expectations on what happened in the busy holiday quarter!
To learn more about other successful Amazon strategies, visit TurnKey Product Management today.
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