Christmas 2010 & Valentine's Day 2011 Retail Trends

Looking back on Christmas 2010, we've completed query analysis for four key retail areas: apparel, consumer electronics, home and garden and groceries. Download or view the presentation below to see the daily peaks in user queries and discover the year on year growth by category.

Also, with Valentine's Day only a week away there's still time to maximise your campaign strategy. The Google Retail and Travel teams in Dublin recently recorded this webinar with practical advice and key insights into what consumers are looking to buy on Valentine's Day this year.




Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

Alcohol Policy Changes - Hard Alcohol Available Online Through AdWords

As these query volumes for liquor and wines show, the holiday season is the main time when people search for their tipple of choice.

Three weeks ago the AdWords policy on advertising hard liquor was changed in the UK. Previously, hard alcohol suppliers could only use search advertising to promote their brand. Now, provided that they abide by strict restrictions, advertisers can promote the sale of spirits and liquor on search. Advertising these products on the GDN remains prohibited.

Some interesting facts:

• Liquor and wine queries are up 39% and 33% YoY respectively

• Out of the top 100 drinks related queries within the Liquor category, 60% of the queries were whiskey related and 10% liquer related

• Queries for alcohol are predominantly done for specific brands rather than using generic keywords, indicating a high level of brand loyalty

Like alcohol itself though, these new ads are best enjoyed responsibly and a full list of the new restrictions on alcohol can be found here


Posted by Anuj Ghaghada, UK Retail Team

The Twelve Days of e-Christmas: Day 12 Always On

The final part of the “Twelve Days of e-Christmas” concludes our series by looking at “Always On”. Limiting your daily budget reduces the number of times customers see your ads, effectively closing your shop to Christmas customers. Managing your spend through bids – rather than budgets – can give you many more clicks for your money. Find out more in the slides below!



Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

The Twelve Days of e-Christmas: Day 11 Bids Strategy

Day 11 of the “Twelve Days of e-Christmas” focuses on bid strategy and how crucial it is to get it right over the festive period. Discover the tools that can help you boost market share, while remaining profitable and the best ways for you to test altered CPCs while encountering minimal expense.



Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

The Twelve Days of e-Christmas: Day 10 Seasonal Creatives

It’s part ten of the “The Twelve Days of e-Christmas” and this time we’re dealing with the benefits of seasonal creatives. Ensure that your ad text is as up-to-date and capitalises on the seasonal search terms users will include in their searches this Christmas. We also outline some of the techniques and best practices you can easily employ to produce the most effective ad text possible. View or download the presentation below to find out more!



Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

The Twelve Days of e-Christmas: Day 9 Sitelinks on Desktop & Mobile

Read about the value of sitelinks and how they can increase your CTRs, conversion rates and opportunities for brand messaging in the ninth part of “The Twelve Days of e-Christmas”. We also examine how this ad format can be even more effective on mobile devices.



Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

The Twelve Days of e-Christmas: Day 7 Pre-roll on YouTube

Continuing with the theme of YouTube advertising, day seven of “The Twelve Days of e-Christmas” examines the impact Pre-roll advertising can have on your advertising campaigns this quarter. Read or download the slide show below to discover how online video advertising can complement your traditional media strategy and the features of running a successful Pre-roll campaign.



Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

The Twelve Days of e-Christmas: Day 6 Promote Your Video

Day six of the “Twelve Days of e-Christmas” focuses on Promoted Videos. This YouTube ad format is a highly cost effective way of engaging with your customers and surfacing your content at the top of the UKs second largest search engine.



Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

The Twelve Days of e-Christmas: Day 5 YouTube Homepage

Day five of the “Twelve Days of e-Christmas” looks at the YouTube homepage. Use YouTube homepage advertising to create powerful brand awareness or as part of your remarketing strategy this Christmas.



Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK retail Team

The Twelve Days of e-Christmas: Day 4 Contextual Targeting by Keyword

The fourth part of our “Twelve Days of e-Christmas” series looks at the benefits of Contextual Targeting on the Google Display Network. With 140% more reach than retargeting or audience campaigns, contextual targeting should be an essential part of any marketer’s strategy when looking to fully realise the potential of Christmas this year.



Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

The Twelve Days of e-Christmas: Day 3 Target by Category on the GDN

Day three of the “Twelve Days of e-Christmas” covers the benefits of category targeting on the Google Display Network. Marketers can realise their direct response and branding goals this Christmas by serving ads to customers as they browse the web, based on our categorisation of thousands of sites.



Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

The Twelve Days of e-Christmas: Day 2 Remarketing

The second instalment of our “Twelve Days of e-Christmas” is out now. This time we’re focusing on Remarketing and how you can capitalise on its benefits as part of your seasonal marketing strategy.



Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

The Twelve Days of e-Christmas: Day 1 Brand Bidding

With Christmas just around the corner, the Google UK Retail Team has started its “Twelve Days of e-Christmas” activity. These daily industry insights and best practice suggestions are designed to help marketers get the most out of their advertising campaigns as we head into the holiday season.

Day 1 covers brand bidding and how to best ensure that you are found at the right moment with the right message when customers are searching online.

Each daily update will be posted here so remember to check in regularly for new installments. Please email us or leave a comment if you have any questions.



Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

Tracking Christmas Traffic

After you spend the time building Christmas specific campaigns, you want to know about the trends and spikes in Christmas traffic. If you are using Google Analytics, you can set up Intelligence Alerts to closely monitor important holiday shopping events. On November 27th, the Westend of London is being transformed into a traffic free zone for all of the Christmas shoppers to concentrate on shopping! This is a huge opportunity for potential customers to Research online purchase offline. Or they might see something in a store but it’s not available on that day so they return home to buy online.

It is really important to track these interesting traffic trends. Once you’ve set your code and tracking goals, you can set up proactive alerts to monitor spikes in traffic. With Google Analytics Intelligence Alerts you can not only track important shopping holiday events but Christmas specific keywords as well as an increase from new visitors or from a certain source.

If you receive an alert regarding a spike in Christmas keyword traffic, for example, you can really analyse this data even further to identify traffic trends.

Top Tips:

1. Make sure you are running ads for high traffic Christmas keyword terms.
2. Run an advanced segment report to obtain insight about the visitors. You can see if they are new or returning visitors.
3. If you have a number of new visitors it would be interesting to run a special promotion for new site visitors. 10% off your first purchase, for example. Always remember to use any special promotions in the ad text for a unique selling point.
4. To get your AdWords Campaigns ready for Christmas please visit our ‘Jingle All The Way’ Christmas site

Posted by Trish McGinty, Dublin Retail Team

Act Early For Christmas Traffic

The days are becoming progressively shorter and it’s time to vacuum pack your summer clothing to make way for the warm winter woolies. Consumers are beginning their Christmas shopping earlier than ever before. 48% of shoppers buy gifts in September to spread the cost of Christmas shopping.The interest in searches for ‘christmas gifts’ has risen in the UK within the last 90 days. The Christmas shop has opened at Selfridges, putting consumers in the Christmas spirit. Taking all of this into consideration, it is time to start planning your Christmas AdWords Campaigns.

With some great help from our Christmas Site, you will be ready to target your Christmas market effectively and make the most out of this wonderful season.

There are 4 simple steps to guide you through building a successful Christmas Campaign strategy:

1. What is happening in your market?
2. Why this is a huge opportunity for you.
3. How to create Christmas focused Campaigns.
4. When do you need to do it?

Don’t get caught up in the December rush to reach traffic. Act early to ensure the money is jingling and not just the bells this Christmas!

Posted by Trish McGinty, Dublin Retail Team

Christmas Day Sales on the Rise

One of the dominant trends that we’ve seen in online activity over Christmas is that popular interest in shopping is higher on Christmas Day than during many of the traditional shopping days preceding it.

Insights for Search for Christmas 2008 shows that web search interest in shopping first peaked around Cyber Monday (07-08th Dec) but compared to the rising trend on Christmas Day, that was at least 10% higher and over 20% higher than online interest on the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th.

Retail related searches rise dramatically in December but pick up incredible momentum over the 24th and 25th and into the traditional Boxing Day sale period. This year, however, the ramp up in seasonal activity appears to be taking place without the prevalence of deep discounting that was so commonplace last year. Arguably, this means more inventory for many top retailers and a longer sales period that can be expected by consumers.

To date, Christmas 2009 appears to be defined not just by the lack of 2008’s fire-sale panic but by online retailer’s improved organisation. Many businesses have extended delivery windows for pre-Christmas Day shopping with cataloguers and pure-play retailers the like of Amazon taking orders for Christmas delivery up to and including December 23rd (or the 24th if you’re within the M25 [1]).

We also believe that there is better and more widespread industry understanding of the size of the opportunity presented by Christmas Day itself. Certainly, few if any, major retail clients have neglected to build their Christmas and Boxing Day sales campaigns in anticipation of increased consumer demand and stock availability. In our opinion, businesses are more adept than ever in targeting consumers with the most relevant and timely offers during the peaks of the holiday period.

A recent Uswitch study found that the average British broadband user now spends an average of 30 hours online each week [2]. With the high levels of search interest in retail and shopping searches before, during and after Christmas Day it seems that a disproportionate amount of this time - if not many more additional hours - will be spent over Christmas in search of great deals and insatiable retail therapy.

[1]Internet Retailing December 18, 2009
[2]Uswitch Study



Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

The Return of Mega Monday?

Last year “Mega” or “Cyber Monday" (December 08) gave UK online retailers a sales lift to the value of £320 million [1] despite an unforeseen shortfall in internet traffic. It is anticipated that the biggest Monday for eCommerce before Christmas this year will be today (November 30) and is forecast to deliver 1,750 online sales a minute [2].

If this year’s "Mega Monday" lives up to expectations then it gives more evidence of the re-growth of consumer confidence following the economic downturn. This comes when in the wider industry the view of Christmas retailing has been typically short on optimism with predictions of small or zero growth. In an interview with the Telegraph, Andrew Higginson Tesco’s second-in command considered that at best Christmas sales would be “flat”[3].

Previously, the dominant theme in many of the predicted best selling items for Christmas was one of affordability for consumers and lower margins for retailers. In October, the Toy Retailers Association’s annual list of the top twelve Christmas toys [4] didn’t feature any items above £50 and focused on relatively inexpensive toys such as Go Go Hamsters/ Zhu Zhu pets.

By the end of November, however, things seem slightly different. The demand and consequent price of the must have Go Go Hamsters has more than quadrupled. Meanwhile, new video game release Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 received a West End premier and smashed all previous sales records.

We have also witnessed trends in relevant search queries on google.co.uk that would seemingly underline a more optimistic view of Christmas 2009. Interest in Christmas gift and shopping related queries has been growing since September while terms typically associated with the slowdown have declined in popularity. For example terms like “Recession” have dropped over 20% from the same period in November 2008.

Searches for “Christmas gift ideas” have risen in popularity by some 26% this year while other generic terms like “gift ideas” have increased by 12%. Shoppers, it would seem, are as interested as ever - if not more so - in researching and finding inspiration for their Xmas purchases.

Online retailers looking to fully address the seasonal opportunity need to account for a more engaged if perhaps equally indecisive Christmas shopper. They also have to be able to differentiate in their strategy between those looking for inspiration when it comes to gift ideas for partners or family members and those who are eager to discover the availability or prices of specific items.

Tweaking ad texts to mention gifts by recipients or competitive price points are effective suggestions for advertisers. Also and as recommended by our colleagues in the US, optimising your website for indecisive shoppers so that they can easily search by recipient, price or interest are advised. Read more about their research and recommendations here.

[1] Retail Week 09 Dec 2008
[2] NMA 27 Nov 2009
[3] Telegraph 21 Sep 2009
[4] Toys Association 28 Oct 2009


Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

Online Shoppers Can’t Get No Satisfaction

More consumers are turning to the web to shop for and purchase products. As we head into the festive season online retail is expected to account for 20% of all Christmas sales this year [1]. Unfortunately many retail websites haven’t matched the increase in traffic with better site usability and speed. Recent research conducted by Forrester Consulting in the US found that a mere two seconds is the new threshold of an average online shopper’s patience with website loading times. While 40% of shoppers will wait no longer than three seconds before abandoning a retail or travel site [2].

More surprising perhaps than just how elusive online customer engagement has become is the fact that many pure play retailers, those with their bedrock firmly entrenched in the world of eCommerce, are now seen as lagging behind their multichannel counterparts in delivering good online performance. The eRetail Benchmark study conducted by eDigital Research identified traditional retailers as “consistently outperforming their pure play and catalogue rivals online, using multichannel technology and customer service expertise to their advantage” [3].

As reported by Internet Retailing, traditionalist retailer John Lewis was the study's top performing website followed by Marks & Spencer and Next with New Look moving into the top ten sites on account of its “best in class” shopping basket function [3]. The Retail Bulletin and specialist website testing company Sitemorse study of October’s top 50 Retail websites also confirmed similar findings. They noted the lack of pure plays at the upper end of their rankings and gave special recognition to traditional retailer, HMV for their newly overhauled website [4].

The message to all online retailers must surely be that regularly changing, testing and evolving their site is imperative. However, the scale of these changes need not be too drastic, on paper at least. Econsultancy and Red Eye found that relatively straightforward practices such as aligning keywords, calls to action and landing pages plus using compelling and effective calls to action are associated with high levels of customer satisfaction and conversion [5]. Good web analytics can also play its part with segmenting customers, removing bottlenecks and blockages to conversion and identifying key performance indicators being other beneficial actions for online retailers to take [5].

With Christmas just round the corner and for some eCommerce marketers regarding their current online stores with some slight concern, only minor modifications would seem prudent or potentially necessary. Meanwhile those looking to address specific pain points such as the effects of a poor onsite search facility for example, might read about products such as the newly announced Google Commerce Search with some interest. More details were posted by our colleagues in the US here

[1] NMA November 13, 2009
[2] Internet Retailing September 22, 2009
[3] Internet Retailing November 06, 2009
[4] The Retail Bulletin November 02, 2009
[5] Internet Retailing October 09, 2009

Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

A Tale of Two Octobers

October has often been a month of economic turmoil; it is the month when both the stock market crashes of 1929 and 1987 took place. Last year, it looked like the global economy was on the precipice of financial meltdown. It was during October that various governments were forced to take shares in numerous large financial institutions.

Refreshingly, 12 months on and October appears to have passed without major incident. The banks look like they will survive, the FTSE 100 is up around 30%, and GDP is expected to be positive in the next quarter.

After a very tough year for retailers, the story seems the same. According to the CBI optimism from UK retailers is the most positive it has been in 2 years. High Street sales have grown modestly in the year to October[1].

However online retail presents a much stronger picture, and is the channel driving growth for a lot of retailers. Argos have reported that 'Check & Reserve' orders have grown 50% and represent 18% of all orders; 42% of orders are now 'multi-channel' [3]. John Lewis reports website sales growing at 29% vs 5% for the overall business for the 12 weeks ended 24th October[4]. It seems there is no stopping UK consumers embracing the internet to browse and shop for products. At Google, UK searches for popular categories such as clothing and Home Entertainment are up 36% and 26% respectively Y/Y. The charts below show how four popular categories are trending as we head into the seasonal peak. In some cases search activity is already greater than peak levels of Christmas 2008.





All this should provide some optimism for retailers on the verge of the busy Christmas trading period. As we look to the festive season, it is seems that ~30% Y/Y growth is the benchmark to set.

Amazon's recently reported third quarter results. International sales (which include UK, DE, FR & JP) were up 33% on the same period last year. The company has forecast growth next quarter to be between 21-36% compared to 2008[2].

What targets have you set for your website this Christmas? And how can you capitalise on the growth opportunity presented by online (eCommerce) over the festive period? For those new to online advertising a Google Adwords account can be set up in minutes and will allow you to place a targeted message alongside search results. Go to www.google.co.uk/Adwords to learn more.

For those already well versed in paid search advertising, Google tools such as Insights for Search can show what new terms users are searching for, and help you target your marketing activity. While the Search Based Keyword Tool can help identify gaps in your keyword coverage. Get in touch with your Google representative for more help.

[1] “UK retailers’ optimism at two-year high” Norma Cohen, FT.com, October 27 2009
[2] Amazon Investor Relations
[3] “Half-year results for the 26 weeks ended 29 August 2009” Home Retail Group, October 21 2009
[4[ John Lewis Partnership


Posted by Jonathan Marsh, UK Retail Team

Close the Gaps in Your Christmas Campaigns with GCN

With only three pay days left till Christmas and the economic recovery still at a fledgling stage, shoppers have already started to think about what to fill their Christmas stockings with. Christmas search queries tend to start early and with bargain hunting also driving interest this year, their frequency has started growing as early as September.

Retailers looking to get ahead of the curve and roll out their Christmas campaigns early shouldn’t overlook the opportunity presented by the Google Content Network (GCN). Using the Content Network can supplement your search campaigns and stimulate extra demand and awareness. Many of the thousands of shopping sites available on the network have CPCs lower than search, which can drive your conversions at a more desirable CPA.

GCN serves more than 6 billion impressions a day globally which provides fantastic volume for advertisers, but the key questions are how does GCN convert and how cost effective is it? Google’s study [1] indicates that the median content/search CPA ratio for advertisers in all sectors was 97.4% and for average advertiser, GCN clicks are 28% cheaper than search. The discount CPC effect is due to Smart Pricing which automatically reduces CPC bids for certain pages depending on how likely they are to convert.

Conversions and volumes in retail subcategories differ. These metrics, however, are often augmented as shoppers start to browse for gifts and visit sites devoted to key Christmas product areas such as toys, games, music and jewellery.
With GCN’s targeting modus operandi being fundamentally different to search, and with GCN awareness being lower than that of search, here are our top tips for advertising on the Google Content Network - an opportunity to expose your brand to 29 million unique UK users:

1. Build a common theme in each ad group. With contextual targeting, we analyse all of your keywords and ad text in an ad group, then match the ad to sites in our network. Having very specific keyword lists in your ad groups avoids targeting ambiguity. You should also ensure that your ad text closely matches the theme that you have outlined in your keyword list.

2. Create direct and complementary ad groups. If you are selling glasses your direct ad group could contain keywords such as glasses or frames while your complementary ad groups could target related sites about glasses cases or other accessories. Many ad groups ensure that you target larger pools of potential buyers.

When brainstorming for complementary ad groups the new Wonder Wheel tool can help you discover other related themes. This tool is available in the left sidebar on Google Search.

3. Include negative keywords at set up to ensure that your ads are not showing on irrelevant sites. This will ensure high quality of traffic and good CTR, which is critical for achieving good performance history and building your GCN Quality score.

4. Exclude sites and categories that you do not want your ads to appear on.
Categories would be groups of websites with a common theme such as ‘Crime & Emergency’.

5. Bidding is a crucial factor in GCN. In order to enable our system to work out which sites are the most suitable for your ads, set bids relatively high to begin with and then lower them after history has been accrued. Most content sites and products display only two or three contextual ads per page, so monitor your CPC and average position as it has an impact on CTR. If you set bids too low on the Content Network, it will take a long time for your ads to reach the right sites.

6. As a rule of thumb allow at least 2 weeks before checking results as the system needs time to accrue performance data. The first few days of data may not reflect the campaign’s full potential and may provide you with misleading data.

7. After the initial few weeks of your campaign, pull a Placement Performance Report which will give you data on the sites where your ads are appearing. This report can help you to identify sites which are performing well and those which perform poorly or are irrelevant. Exclude sites where you do not want your ads to show with the Site Exclusion tool.

Once you find your high-performing sites, you can control and adjust your bids on them directly. Test if by increasing volume on these sites (i.e. increasing bids), the corresponding increase in conversions justifies a proportionately higher CPC.

8. If you do not use a bid management solution to manage your bids, consider testing Conversion Optimiser, a CPA bid management solution enabling advertisers to maximise their ROI. Although its entry threshold is 15 conversions in 30 days, launch it on a campaign which has accrued a high volume of conversions. Higher volume gives the system more substance and room to manoeuvre.

Whichever retail category is your focus, a GCN campaign can be a cost effective way to drive incremental conversions. GCN targeting is also fundamentally different from that of search. As an auction model, the system requires time to accrue the relevant data needed to optimise your campaign. Implementing these suggestions is the first step to making your GCN campaign a success. Not unlike other digital media outlets, GCN campaigns require testing. We recommend starting your GCN campaign early, so that you can begin testing and have a well-optimised campaign prepared for the peak Christmas season. Starting soon will ensure your brand’s exposure as people are likely to browse and spread their shopping between now and Christmas.

We hope that you found these tips useful. Please email us if you have any questions or feedback.

[1]Google Whitepaper November 2008


Posted by Anna Prolejko, UK Retail Team