Tips & Tricks: Brace Your Sites for the Holiday Season

Date Sent: November 12th, 2021

Hi there,

Though Black Friday has not yet come to pass, the looming Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) shopping weekend marks the rapidly approaching holiday season. Many consumers have likely already started shopping for the holidays. Last year, 52% of consumers took advantage of pre-BFCM discounts as many brands opted to extend the online deals that they offered1, and this year, global supply chain issues are expected to result in major shipping delays during the holidays. Product scarcity and shipping delays will be inevitable this year, especially once the holiday shopping season hits its peak around Black Friday, and smart shopping experts suggest that consumers start shopping now to ensure that their gifts arrive on time2. 

Whether your team is extending BFCM deals throughout the holiday season or looking to enhance your site in preparation for an influx of online holiday shoppers, our use case ideas will give you inspiration for campaigns that will positively impact engagement and revenue.  

#1: Promote Discount Codes on PLPs 

Leading up to the holidays, many customers may visit your site to scope out the kinds of discounts that your team will be offering. Promote category-level offers and discounts on product listing pages (PLPs) with a Notification campaign to tease the deals that are relevant to the categories that users are interested in (i.e., deals that are relevant to the category pages that users navigate to).

When to Use: Launch a Notification campaign to promote holiday shopping deals about 7 days before those promotions will be available to users on the site. Target experiences to the category pages that have category-specific discounts or promotions associated with them. This is a great opportunity to incorporate messaging about bundle offers, such as a buy 3 get 20% off discount, or to promote category-wide discount codes that can be applied to any products of that particular category:

Pro Tip: Include some messaging that invites users to subscribe to email or text notifications about holiday offers. Define a destination URL for those variations that will take users to a page where they can provide their contact info when they click on the variation. 

#2: Serve a Homepage Countdown

Create urgency for users to finish their holiday shopping so that the gifts that they order arrive on time by serving a countdown timer on the homepage of your site. The running countdown timer can be an effective call to action and a helpful place to promote holiday gift guides or promotional deal pages. 

When to Use: Serve either a Dynamic Content banner or a bottom bar Notification on the homepage of your site and define the variables for the countdown timer with a date that's about a week before the actual holiday. Dynamic Yield offers out-of-the-box (OOTB) countdown templates for both Dynamic Content and Notifications. If your site is offering deals throughout the holiday season, consider serving a Dynamic Content banner that uses the Countdown template and specify the variables for the call to action button to promote those deals:

Serving a Notification campaign that uses the Countdown Bar template is another helpful way to create urgency for users to finish their holiday shopping and/or to promote holiday deals that they can take advantage of:  

Pro Tip: If the Countdown template for Dynamic Content doesn't quite fit the mobile dimensions of your site, consider launching a Notification campaign with experiences targeted to users on mobile and leverage the Countdown Bar template. You can target the experiences to the homepage, or set the Frequency of the campaign to be served Once per session.

#3: Share Holiday Discount Codes with an Overlay

If your team is offering a general site-wide discount code at any point leading up to the holidays, share this code with users to boost conversions throughout the season. Sharing a discount code like this early on will give users a good excuse to return to the site and complete a purchase. You can also incorporate messaging about the last day most users would need to submit an order by to guarantee on-time delivery.

When to Use: Launch an Overlay campaign at the time that the discount code will be valid on the site and consider setting the Frequency to Once per user. Use the Scratch Off template for a more interactive end-user experience and include messaging about the date(s) that the discount code can be applied, and/or messaging about the last date that users could place an order and get their items in time for the actual holiday:

Pro Tip: Target experiences of the Overlay to relevant Audiences and personalize the discount codes and corresponding messaging. For example, if your team has an Audience of users that are loyal return purchasers, you may want to offer those users a better, more exclusive discount.

1"Holiday Shoppers Take Advantage of Early, Thanksgiving Weekend Deals," National Retail Federation, December 2020

2"This Year's Holiday Shipping Delays Mean You Should Start Shopping for Gifts Now," Good Housekeeping, October 2021

Until next time,
Ashley

Ashley Berman
Sr. Customer Education Manager