6 Common PPC Oversights to Correct Now to Optimize Q4 Impact

Every year, I see new brands making old mistakes regarding Q4 marketing strategy. Learn from other’s mis-steps and make sure your campaigns aren’t getting hamstrung by any of the following.

1. Failing to plan out creative

Brands that don’t prepare their offers, promotions, and creative assortment are leaving a lot to chance in Q4.

This year in particular, with lots of data showing that creative diversity is a growth driver, it’s vital to plan ahead so you’re not rushing and/or settling for boring, boilerplate messaging and creative to try to engage high-intent shoppers.

I also recommend that you plan out a schedule of creatives with different messaging as the holidays near. This could look like: 

• Savings are here
• Sale extended
• Get the ultimate gift for [whoever]
• Order by XX date to ship/arrive before the holidays
• Last chance
  
  

2. Ignoring retargeting audiences for too long

The buying season starts earlier every year, which means your retargeting audience should be ready earlier every year. Advertisers who don’t have retargeting audiences fresh and ready early in Q4 are missing out on users already in the consideration stage. If this is you, invest in awareness or upper funnel spend ahead of time to warm your audience, get your retargeting lists together as a P1, and make sure your products are there with a solid offer when the audience is ready to convert. 

One last note on retargeting audiences: don’t be afraid to get creative. This could be a great time to start a cross-selling strategy or try to win back old customers.

3. Running ads in tiny windows

One of the biggest benefits of the major platforms’ automated campaigns is their self-learning nature and ability to improve performance over time. But that’s the key phase: over time. The campaigns and individual ads need time to gain information to optimize, so you need to make sure to launch early enough to let the algorithms dial in. One or two days won’t cut it, and overly aggressive swaps of ads for short periods will cause big swings and fluctuations in performance.

4. Failing to create a sense of urgency

Today’s users are accustomed to seeing promotions run for more than a couple of days; many are taking their time to act on promotions in case a better one comes along. Creating a sense of urgency with “last chance” assets and messaging like “while supplies last” and “before stock runs out” can spur users into action.

5. Rehashing last year’s strategy

Did you know Google has new sitelink functionality, and Meta is giving advertisers more options for promotional call-outs? You wouldn’t know that if you simply refreshed last year’s Q4 campaigns without updating the arrows in your advertising quiver. Make sure you’re up to speed (or asking your agency partners to get you up to speed) to keep your campaigns current with all available features.

6. Overdiscounting 

I’ve seen a lot of brands come up with over-the-top discounted offers during the holidays, only to attract a high volume of low-LTV customers who are only after the deals. Providing huge discounts to customers at certain times of year can train your customers to hold off on purchasing to wait for the big discounts, or encourage customers to purchase once and never again – which can serve to devalue your brand. 

Outside of price savings and discounts, try to get creative with your offers and use it as a chance to build LTV instead of discounting your products or services. This could look like free gifts with purchase, spend more to save more, discounting new products to existing customers, discounts on subscriptions only, etc.

In aggregate, correcting all of the mistakes above can have a huge impact in your Q4 campaigns – and make the holidays a happier time for your brand. If you’d like to schedule a quick conversation to get the latest and greatest holiday campaign insights, get in touch.