Google marketing strategy 2020

Were seeing that trend play out this year too, as almost a third (31%) of people surveyed in the U.S. have already started their holiday shopping.3With shopping underway, we recognize that people will be in different stages of the process, so providing them with the right experience at the right stage is important. For example, we plan to ramp up our Search ads earlier in the lead-up to big holiday sales events (think Black Friday and Cyber Monday) than in previous years. Search is the second most popular way (just behind TV ads) that tech shoppers find out about holiday sales and promotions, and we want our ads to be present and top of mind when shoppers are hunting for deals.

Its also important to ensure potential customers get the product information they need before making purchases. For instance, our intel tells us that for Pixel, it takes 21 days, on average, for customers to make their purchase decision. And during that time, more than 80% conduct research online. Once our brand is in consideration, we lean in to video and image-rich ad formats, like those on YouTube, to promote our product features and benefits, and showcase how our products are helpful in everyday life. Plus, we know that 70% of shoppers surveyed said they bought from a brand after seeing it on YouTube.4

We also usevideo ad sequencingwhere we are testing narratives that help move customers faster down the path to purchase.

Rule No. 2: Measure total sales while enabling people to seamlessly buy online and in-store

Its important to remember that while U.S. online holiday sales grew 24% year over year in 2020, in-store purchases made up approximately 73% of all 2020 holiday sales in the U.S.5These numbers help prove brick-and-mortar shopping isnt dead, and people increasingly want the options of online, in-store, or even hybrid buying.

In fact, purchases made online that were then picked up curbside or at the store increased by 52% last year.6 And while this growth was fueled out of necessity due to the pandemic, people enjoy the convenience, cost, and time-savings benefits.

In June 2021, Google opened its first-ever physical retail store in New York City, where shoppers can experience an extensive selection of products made by Google. For Media Lab, this marks the first holiday season in which were able to direct people to a physical store. Were excited about offering our customers the options of completing their transactions at GoogleStore.com, going to a local store with available inventory to complete their purchases, or shopping online and picking up their orders in-store.

Plus, with other tools, likedata-driven attributionthrough Search Ads 360, were able to create a multitouch attribution model that properly attributes credit to our ad campaigns and moves us away from a last-click-only model. This allows us to understand the impact of our upper- and mid-funnel campaigns, and it informs us how to best invest our advertising dollars. We incorporate these models into Smart Bidding as well, which again does the heavy lifting to automatically adjust our bids to maximize on our ROI target.

For more about how were planning for shoppings busiest season, check outThink Retail on Air 2021to hear Janell Fischer, VP of customer experience, further discuss Googles 2021 retail holiday strategy.

This perspective originally appeared on Think With Google

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