Seasonal Advertising 101: Optimizing Your Campaign for Easter eCommerce Success

All businesses that use eCommerce, either partially or exclusively, need to prepare for Easter. Like other big festivities, this special day represents a time for family, friends, and you guessed it, shopping.

To help you get ready for this egg-loving, chocolate-rocking, Spring-fueled holiday, we’ve put together a complete guide on how to get ready by creating a killer Easter eCommerce campaign.

The Easter Shopping Season

While some celebrate Easter for religious purposes, one thing is certain: it marks the end of winter and the beginning of great weather for much of the Northern Hemisphere.

And, even if flowers, clothing, and candy are among the most popular purchases, verticals such as gaming, betting, and entertainment also experience a formidable boost in sales.

But, besides the onset of Spring and everything that comes with it, Easter is a great chance to promote your products and net more sales. With consumers thinking of splurging and spend over $150 per person, total gross sales are expected to surpass $18.3 billion and set a new record for Easter. Especially if you consider the fact that more than 81% of consumers plan to celebrate it as well.

At the same time, eCommerce has proved to be a force to be reckoned. According to data released by the U.S. Commerce Department, eCommerce sales grew 16% in 2017. Not only this, but online sales also represented 13% of total retail sales and 49% of the total growth the industry saw last calendar year.

The combination of both these factors means that you need to design and launch a dedicated campaign and take advantage of the holiday extravaganza.

How to Build an Effective Easter eCommerce Campaign that Converts

Creating an effective Easter eCommerce campaign is challenging. But, as long as you have the right setup, you should be able to take advantage of this seasonal boost and connect with your target audience at the same time.

In order to launch a successful Easter eCommerce ads campaign, you should:

1. Customize Emails, Social Posts, Ads, and Other Points of Contact

Easter is one of those holidays that you can’t help but use egg-puns and bunny references – and you shouldn’t be afraid to!

Make sure you remind your audience that it’s Easter and that you have pretty awesome promotions via email, social media, and any other digital point of contact.

Engaging and connecting with consumers will help you get on their maps and ultimately win their wallets over. And, like we said before, 4 out of 5 people plan to celebrate Easter, so make sure you create some themed ads, graphics, and general content to entice them all. Here’s how you can optimize your landing pages and banners.

Companies that sell software, games, and other types of online content can use this to their advantage and create a series of Easter-themed videos and rich-media ads that entice consumers more than traditional ad formats.

2. Build Easter-Optimized Landing Pages, and Apps

Besides creating customized content, you also have to prepare your website or app. While the visual side of things is extremely important, also remember that your site or app may experience heavy traffic.

Which, after all, is the whole point of your campaign.

Verify that your website is set up to handle a heavy influx of traffic without crashing or malfunctioning. If your website requires a lot of changes, you may consider completely overhauling it and making the new version scalable.

You should also remember that consumers are purchasing products and services through their phone more and more often. This combination of mobile devices and eCommerce is sometimes referred to as mCommerce.

Total mCommerce sales have been rising at a fast pace since 2014 and they are expected to surpass the $690 billion mark by 2019 in the US alone. Because of this, creating a mobile website and developing or perfecting your app should be close to the top of your priority list.

3. Step Up Your Promo Game

During Easter time, promotions can quickly become a huge moneymaker. Despite the fact that some advertisers are firmly against it, offering discounts or hosting a sale can help build a strong relationship with consumers.

On the other hand, promotions will allow you to stay competitive or set higher standards for your industry.

That being said, you have to make sure you use promotions to engage, rather than simply slashing prices. For instance, you can host a virtual egg hunt or have people play a short, interactive game to unlock individual prizes and discounts. Here, we have compiled a guide to launching an effective native push notifications campaign.

4. Dissect Your Target’s Purchase Patterns

Easter always falls on a Sunday, which means most people spend it with their families. So, it’s logical to think that they need to purchase their gifts beforehand.

Instead of going hard on Easter Sunday, you should launch a campaign at least a couple of weeks beforehand. That way, you’ll give your audience time to purchase your products and take advantage of your promotions before the big day.

Depending on the industry you’re in, you may even want to delve deeper into dissecting your target audience’s behavior. For instance, different genders have different online shopping habits, so you may want to create multiple campaigns to address them from this point of view.

5. Do an Early-Extended-Easter-Bash

If you take our advice and offer promotions, go all out and let your customers cash them in 2 to 3 weeks after you have awarded them. That way, you’ll give consumers a chance to take advantage of your promotion even if they were busy during Easter week.

This is also extremely beneficial for companies and apps that focus on betting, dating, finance, and any other type of online service or communities. Most people like to try free trials before signing up for one of these services. Make sure you give them time to test them out and apply their promotion code.

Don’t Miss the Eggscitement!

Easter Sunday is approaching quickly, so use the tips to boost your Easter eCommerce efforts and increase your sales at the same time.

Stay tuned for more information on seasonal advertising, easter sales tips, and the latest news in the world of digital advertising – follow us on Social Media!

And yes, the egg pun was extremely necessary!