2024 Ecommerce Holiday Marketing Strategy: The 7 Peaks + 1 Valley of H2

Achieving predictable, profitable growth will be dependent on maximizing the forthcoming 7 Peaks of H2 to offset the expected valley caused by the election.

The Overview

Here’s what we know:

1. The upcoming election guarantees higher advertising costs pre-BFCM
2. Leap year has created one less week to advertise before Christmas

The result …

2024 will be a more competitive, more condensed holiday season.

Before we dive into H2 strategy, let’s zoom out to lay the foundation for why we’re recommending what we’re recommending.

Coming off of 2020 new customer growth, brands saw returning revenue increase in ‘21 and ‘22, but had flat new customer growth in those same years.

The focus of 2024 has been to relentlessly build back up the new customer file, and Q4 is the time to realize the value from that work.

Squeezing the Sponge

Brands saw returning revenue increase from their 2020 new customer growth in 2021 and 2022 but had flat new customer growth in those same years.

The focus this year has been to relentlessly build back up our new customer file, and we’ve achieved this with a focus on new customer growth since Q2 2023.

Q4 is now our time to realize the value from that work.

We expect 2024 to look a lot like 2023, with returning customer revenue driving the majority of value leading into Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Holiday — the most impactful moments to realize value from new customers acquired throughout the year.

New customer revenue also skyrockets during BFCM, and holds at a higher level through December than it does in November, prior to BFCM.

Interestingly, Q5 (the period after Christmas) represents the third-largest spike in H2 new customer acquisition outside of Black Friday and early bird sales.

As of July, the Direct To Consumer Confidence Index (DTCCI) is in a healthier spot relative to last year. This is a good indication that there’s an opportunity to capture more revenue in Q4 2024.

However … we can't overlook the upcoming election.

With Election Year comes higher CPMs and drops in revenue during election week itself.

During the 2020 election season, there was a 30% increase in Meta CPMs from Oct 1 to Oct 22 vs. an average 11% lift in other years.

After the election, CPMs appear to level back out to average.

Election week tends to see a drop in sales, although they bounce back quickly afterward. This means October through the first week of November will present more challenges this year.

That’s not all — the holiday calendar this year is far different than last year, with Cyber Monday landing on December 2. This shortens our window to capitalize on revenue before the “Get it by Christmas” shipping cutoffs occur.

More expensive advertising costs in October, coupled with election week revenue drops, all while losing a week of pre-shipping cut off time in December, means brands must plan strategically to maximize every window of opportunity.

So, how should a brand plan strategically for the upcoming moment(s)?

Maximize all 7 peaks to offset the valley.

The 7 Peaks of H2

Last Holiday season we reviewed the best-performing brands from Q4 2022 and discovered a consistent theme:

Instead of viewing BFCM/Holiday as an individual marketing moment, the outlier brands viewed it as 4 separate marketing mini-peaks.

The data revealed 4 distinct revenue realization moments, which we dubbed:

1. Early Bird 🐦
2. Black Friday 🎄
3. Cyber Monday 🛒
4. Holiday Offer 🎁

This year, due to the complexities described above, we’re recommending 3 additional peaks to capture and offset the valley:

1. Labor Day
2. Lead Gen
3. Q5 Offer

Let’s take another look at the 2023 example above, to see how it breaks down …

Labor Day

It’s important to create a large acquisition moment in September (i.e. Labor Day) to “fill the sponge” prior to expensive advertising costs in October.

Lead Gen / Non-Paid Acquisition

When costs become more expensive in October (i.e. Election season), it’ll be important for brands to plan more organic revenue-generating opportunities such as partnerships, activations, lead generation, etc. to offset rising ad costs.

Early Bird

We recommend starting Early Bird sales after the election (around Nov. 8) to avoid election clutter.

Holiday Offer / Last Chance

After BFCM, lean into Holiday gifting behavior with a pre-shipping cut off offer, as this can be a heavy acquisition opportunity for your brand.

Q5 Offer

Finally, a Clearance Sale post-Christmas, allows you to take advantage of some of the cheapest CPMs all year. Once again, this moment can act as a heavy acquisition opportunity for your brand.

And for each of these peak moments, there are 6 core strategies that need to be implemented:

• ✅ Offer Strategy
• ✅ Paid Social Strategy
• ✅ Paid Search Strategy
• ✅ Creative Strategy
• ✅ SEO Strategy
• ✅ Email/SMS Strategy

Here’s how to do it …

Offer Strategy

The goal of your offer strategy is to maximize your Q4 margin outcome.

To do so effectively, here are some key pillars to consider when crafting your offer strategy:

1. Easy: Sitewide & No Coupon Codes
2. Valuable: Less Than 20% Is Not a Discount
3. Profitable: Stay “Black” All Through Q4
4. Stacked: Boost AOV & Margins via Bundles or “Tiers”
5. Exclusive: Best Offers via Email & SMS

How does this translate into the 7 peaks and what’s the role of each in the overall moment of Q4?

We’ve got you covered!

Now that you have your 7 Peaks of Q4 Offer Strategy dialed in, you're ready to begin crafting Paid Social, Paid Search, Creative, SEO and Email + SMS Strategies to pair with your irresistible offers.

Paid Social Strategy

To lean into the 7 peaks of H2, we’ll examine our recommended framework for executing media buying principles during this key window.

Enter: The 7 C’s of media buying the 7 peaks …

The 7 C’s: Our Media Buying Principles

In pursuit of predictable, profitable growth — Common Thread Collective's media team relies on these key principles, throughout all performance media channels.

1. Cost Controlled Bidding
2. Click-Only Attribution
3. Customer Exclusions
4. Clean Conversion Tracking
5. Catalog Campaigns
6. Calendar Campaigns
7. Core Campaigns (aka evergreen)

1. Cost Controlled Bidding (For Conversions)

There are always exceptions to the rule, but here’s what to consider:

MinROAS, Cost Cap, Bid Cap (bidding for purchase conversions) — all offer “cost control” functionality, effectively allowing you to limit downside risk.

Cost Control Methods

Leave nothing on the table:

Lowest cost, highest volume (and a constellation of other non-purchase related outcome objectives) — are engineered to drive traffic, and provide zero downside protection.

Utilizing cost control bidding allows you to set precise targets for products with different AOVs and margins. Setting a cost control allows you to tell the Meta algorithm when to spend and when not to spend. This leads to more efficient performance in the platform, and eliminates wasteful spend that is off target.

For example, one brand could range in AOV from $80-$800. By implementing a campaign for a collection product with an AOV of $100, one campaign with a product AOV of $150, and so on … you are able to tell the algorithm what your exact CPA target is and to not spend above that goal.

When these products are all included in one campaign, not using a cost control target, you are not able to give the account a clear goal to hit and will end up spending inefficiently.

Unit economics matter and cost controlled bidding is more incremental.

In fact, 30% more incremental, based on recent data from a $72M media buy with one of our clients.

Since moving exclusively to this methodology, we’ve found that ~⅔ of the campaigns we launch do not fully deliver in spend. We consider this a feature, not a bug. Rather than “flip it to lowest cost”, we use it as a signal that the Concept (i.e. Offer, Audience, Angle) that we’ve launched is not able to meet our unit economic guidelines.

2. Click-Only Attribution

Don’t take extra credit — drive the revenue that is most likely to convert as true backend revenue. Including view attribution in your marketing efforts can lead to an overlap between channels, leading to inflated results.

The ultimate goal here is to grow top line revenue and show how your social channels are supporting that.

Incrementality is the bridge between Growth Strategy and Paid Media. And what we know is that shorter attribution windows that do not include view attribution lead to higher % incrementality reads from Meta.

Put simply, if your business needs a 3:1 return on your media spend to make profit (Growth Strategy), and you’re using click-only attribution for your campaigns—you can feel confident that setting your minROAS target in Meta to 300% is aligned with your overall business goals.

It’s not that “view” attribution is wrong, necessarily.

It simply complicates and obfuscates the translation of “what is good?” between your growth and media operators.

Additionally, using click-only attribution holds media platform targeting algorithms to the highest possible standard of value creation. This is a good thing. There is nothing more powerful than the combination of Meta’s unprecedented reach and targeting paired with the highest standard of “good” for media performance.

3. Customer Exclusions

Through the use of the pixel and email, we have the power to segment through customer exclusions.

We break this down into 4 simple and effective categories:

1. Active = new customers
2. Active = returning customers
3. At Risk = no purchases within last 90 days (unique to each store, but a general starting point)
4. Churned = no purchase within last 180 (unique to each store, but a general starting point)

4. Clean Conversion Tracking

Media channel effectiveness is unequivocally contingent on the quality of your data signal. The idea is pretty straightforward.

Tactically, you want to be looking for strong signal (including browser and server) on 4 key events:

1. View Content
2. Add to cart
3. Initiate Checkout
4. Purchase

The setup can go from simple (i.e. enable Shopify Facebook channel connection) to very complex (i.e. other platforms, or headless sites, etc).

5. Catalog Campaigns

Catalog campaigns are the feed of information that your store pulls directly into paid platforms as an ad type.

It is important to monitor catalog match rates in the Meta Commerce Manager. A healthy match rate allows you to more efficiently target users who have already viewed or added a product to their cart.

Collections, DPAs and DABAs are all examples of catalog campaigns that should be considered as part of your tech stack in any ad account.

6. Calendar Campaigns

Calendar campaigns drive revenue peaks for you throughout a given month.

These can include marketing moments like BFCM, new product drops, products coming back in stock, etc. It is key to make sure you have enough creative planned out for these upcoming (7 Peaks) moments to ensure a splash on day one. You should scale budgets of these campaigns to meet the customer demand.

7. Core Campaigns (AKA Evergreen)

Unlike calendar campaigns, “Core” or evergreen campaigns are the ones that drive steady and consistent revenue for you and your business. These are your “always on” campaigns, through the 7 peaks and 1 valley of H2.

You’ll want to make sure you are refreshing your creative here as well as adjusting your spend caps to meet consumer demand. Just because they are a core campaign doesn’t mean you can’t scale them during a key calendar moment as well.

BONUS: Get Social Commerce Ready

On average clients see a 15% increase in revenue when including social commerce in their strategy.

By integrating the shopping experience within social media platforms, social commerce reduces the steps needed to complete a purchase, leading to higher conversion rates and less touchpoints.

Specialized campaigns drive revenue peaks and audience expansion.

Utilizing creator content you can drive additional revenue by launching shop-specific campaigns across commerce platforms. This also helps you reach a new audience more likely to convert in social platform.

Why social commerce?

1. In-platform checkout
2. No boundaries to purchase
3. Less pages to distract a user from completing the purchase
   • This is a different audience then the audience who would click an ad, navigate the site and then decide to complete a purchase
   • This is an audience that is more likely to convert on impulse

Why social commerce, ahead of holiday?

Social commerce helps you to drive additional traffic and revenue on top of your already existing marketing efforts.

It unlocks incremental revenue and untapped audiences when consumer buying behavior will be at a high.

If you’re looking for a practical way to leverage social commerce, in support of the 7 Peaks & 7C’s, consider the following:

Utilizing product drops and seasonal moments alongside your catalog to curate a shop on both Meta and TikTok. These moments will be key versus utilizing a full product catalog when driving users to a shop.

Curate your approach utilizing creator content to drive users to stay on the platform. Using creators to tell the story of your new product drop for example then driving a viewer to stay on Meta eliminates the multi-step process if you were to drive someone to your webpage.

Paid Search Strategy

Our approach to media buying is rooted in the "7 C's" framework. This proven methodology ensures your campaigns are both effective and efficient, especially during the competitive holiday season.

1. Cost Controlled Bidding
2. Click-Only Attribution
3. Customer Exclusions
4. Clean Conversion Tracking
5. Catalog Campaigns
6. Calendar Campaigns
7. Core Campaigns (aka evergreen)

Here’s what that looks like for Google …

1. Cost Controlled Bidding
(For Conversions)

Google’s best practice revolves around smart bidding, using value-based bidding strategy.

Value-based bidding is a sophisticated bidding strategy in Google Ads that leverages machine learning to maximize conversions based on your defined conversion goals.

Unlike traditional bidding methods, value-based bidding considers the value of each conversion, not just the number of conversions. This means that it can optimize for higher-value conversions, even if they occur less frequently.

Types of value-based bidding in Google Ads:

1. Maximize Conversions:
   Best suited when you're uncertain about average order values (AOVs) within a campaign. It focuses on quantity, while considering conversion quality.
2. Target CPA:
   Ideal for campaigns with high AOVs where you want precise control over costs per acquisition.
3. Maximize Conversion Value:
   Focus on maximizing the total value of conversions, rather than the number of conversions. Normally, a good starting point for new campaigns to gather conversion data and understand value metrics.
4. Conversion Value with tROAS:
   Perfect for advertisers seeking to maximize ROAS while unsure about AOVs but with a clear tROAS goal. It prioritizes conversions with the highest value relative to ad costs.

2. Click Only Attribution (DDA)

Google's transition from Last Click to Data-Driven Attribution (DDA) marks a significant advancement in attribution modeling.

DDA leverages machine learning to analyze campaign data and identify the most effective attribution model for your specific objectives. By considering user journeys, conversion values, and channel performance, DDA offers a more accurate assessment of marketing impact.

Currently, our default attribution setting is 30-3-1, reflecting a 30-day click, 3-day engaged view, and 1-day view-through conversion window.

To enhance incrementality—the bridge between growth strategy and paid media—we're considering a shift to a 7-1-1 attribution window. Shorter windows often correlate with higher incrementality readings from Google, suggesting a potential improvement in our campaign measurement and optimization.

While the 30-3-1 attribution window remains effective given Google’s algorithm, we're exploring a shift to a more focused window to potentially enhance incrementality. By reducing the attribution window, we aim to gain a more precise understanding of how our campaigns contribute to conversions, leading to more targeted optimizations.

3. Customer Exclusions

Google's NCA (New Customer Acquisition) with high-value optimization empowers advertisers to acquire new customers with the greatest potential lifetime value.

By excluding past purchasers, you can optimize your media spend, reduce wasted ad costs, and increase the likelihood of acquiring loyal, long-term customers.

NCA leverages advertisers' first-party data to identify existing users, analyze their characteristics, and then employs AI to predict and target similar, high-value potential customers.

This data-driven approach ensures that your campaigns reach the most promising audience segments.

4. Clean Conversion Tracking

Accurate conversion tracking is paramount for measuring the effectiveness of your Google Ads campaigns.

A robust data signal, encompassing both browser and server-side tracking as well as enhanced conversion, is essential for capturing conversion actions.

The setup can go from simple (i.e. using Google native tag, GTM) to very complex (i.e. other platforms, or headless sites, etc).

5. Shopping (Catalog) Campaigns

Given CTC's focus on eCommerce brands, we recommend allocating approximately 80% of your total account budget to Shopping campaigns, whether using PMAX or Standard Shopping.

To ensure optimal performance, it's crucial to maintain a high product feed health and approval rate in Google Merchant Center. Aiming for an approval rate above 90% guarantees accurate product representation in Google Search and Shopping results, increasing the likelihood of targeting qualified customers.

6. Calendar Campaigns

Calendar campaigns are crucial for driving revenue spikes throughout the year. By strategically aligning your campaigns with key marketing moments like BFCM, new product launches, or restocks, you can capitalize on peak (specifically, the 7 Peaks) customer demand.

Ensure you have a robust creative strategy in place for these events to make a strong initial impact. As demand fluctuates, be prepared to scale your budgets accordingly to meet customer interest and maximize results.

7. Core Campaigns

Core campaigns form the backbone of your account strategy, providing a consistent revenue stream year-round. Unlike calendar campaigns, they operate continuously through the 7 peaks and 1 valley of H2.

Regularly refresh creative and adjust bids and targets to align with evolving consumer preferences.

While core campaigns offer a stable foundation, they can also be scaled during key marketing moments to capitalize on increased interest and drive additional revenue.

Creative Strategy

As we embark on the back half of the year, it might feel like you’re strapped into a pretty wild rollercoaster. But it’s best to think of yourself as the person designing the coaster, not just a passenger on the ride.

Creative diversity was the key to scaling at a higher efficiency during BFCM last year.

Below, some things to consider as you plan …

The First Ascent: September

The first climb should be as steep as possible, to build momentum.

If you missed Labor Day sales, try creating another moment in the coming weeks. Are there any social media holidays that resonate with your brand? Could you spin up a Friends & Family sale or make the Autumnal Equinox a moment? Think along those lines.

When planning creative for a sale like this, take a look back at your previous top performers in sale periods. Iterate on what you already know works well.

Descending into the Valley: October

With the election approaching, media costs are going to increase, so now is the perfect time to get creative and think about ways to keep filling the sponge without media spend.

Influencer campaigns are a great option. Look at what’s worked for you in the past, and partner with previous winning creators. Or, think outside the box: an unexpected partnership could be just the thing.

Climbing Again: Post-Election Day

Once the election is over, media costs should rebound quickly, so it’s time to get Early Bird deals live.

Now is a great time to lean into messaging around scarcity, like variations on “Get Them Before They’re Gone,” or “Don’t Risk the Perfect Gift Being Out of Stock.” Above all, make sure your creative is clear and the message is snackable. Use text overlays strategically, or try bold, text-only creative.

The Big Loops: Black Friday & Cyber Monday

This is the period we’ve been waiting for all year: two big, exciting loops that come back to back.

Creative should be offer-forward during this time. Layer in frames for your dynamic creative–they do a lot of lifting on catalog ads during sales. But don’t neglect evergreen ads, either. They’re a secret super-power at this time of year. Just overlay eye-catching sales messaging on your best performing creatives, and get them live.

Holiday Twists & Turns: Early December

After Cyber Monday, you still have two great opportunities to capture demand: shipping deadlines and last minute shoppers.

In early December, create a sense of urgency with creative that drives people to order ahead of your planned shipping deadline. Post shipping deadline, lean in on messaging around last minute gift-card purchases for the latest shoppers, or those who forgot someone on their list.

One Last Hurrah: Q5

After Christmas, our data shows you’ve still got opportunities to close the year out strong.

This is a great time for clearance sales, but it’s also a chance to capture shoppers who’ve received gift cards or cash for Christmas. Speak directly to them in your creative, invite them to spend with you.

And if you’re in a business where “New Year, New You” messaging applies–start early! Don’t wait for January. As people get off the hectic, indulgent ride that is the holiday season, they’re already thinking about their New Year's Resolutions.

Bookmark this link as we will be adding to this post with a comprehensive breakdown of one strategy per week, over the next several weeks.

Until then, let the 7 peak offer planning begin …

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