Reimagining Holiday Shopping Success for Non-Giftable Brands

Let’s start with the harsh reality...  (source)

• Three out of four U.S. consumers believe the country is in a recession or headed there, and a similar number have cut or steadied their overall spending heading into the gift-giving season. 
   

• To compensate for that, consumers are saying they are buying less cleaning supplies, over-the-counter medicine, beauty & personal care products, vitamins and dietary supplements, and home and kitchen products.

While none of that is great news for non-giftable brands, there are still opportunities baked into this holiday shopping season. including consumers still prioritizing online shopping on Amazon, the hunger for deals and discounts on both gifts and non-gifts alike, and the opportunity for lower advertising costs due to some brands pulling back on media budgets.  

The silver lining is there. Here's how you can take advantage of it: 

Increased Consumer Traffic Creates Opportunities to Drive Awareness

While more than half of consumers say they are planning to adapt their holiday shopping due to inflation, consumers are continuing to utilize online retailers with 72% saying their online shopping will either stay the same or increase. Additionally, brands on Amazon have the advantage of 63% of online shoppers starting their research on Amazon even if they don’t intend to purchase through Amazon (source).  

For non-giftable brands, that combination of heavy traffic—from browsing for research to the highest intent to purchase—creates an opportunity to speak to new consumers and focus on broader awareness strategies.  

Here are 3 other audiences you can focus on: 

• Lifestyle: Positioned for awareness campaigns, these audiences reflect a variety of aggregated shopping and viewing behaviors identified through a wide variety of sources, including shopping on Amazon, browsing on IMDb, streaming on Prime Video, or streaming on Twitch. These behaviors reflect shared preferences and map to lifestyle segments such as “foodies,” “sports enthusiasts,” “tech enthusiasts,” and more. 
   

• Interests: Interest-based audiences allow you to help raise awareness with prospective customers based on what they frequently browse and buy. Examples of these audiences include “interested in Canadian history” and “interested in interior design.” 
   

• Life events: Life events audiences give you the opportunity to drive awareness and consideration for relevant products based around life moments, such as “traveling soon” for shoppers going on vacation. 

Don’t forget that advertising now creates remarketing opportunities for New Year New You.  

If your brand participates in New Year New You, your investment during the holidays could pay off in a big way. By driving consumers to your product detail pages now, you’ll be able to remarket to those audiences through Sponsored Display and reengage with them for early January promotions.  

BONUS TIP FROM OUR BRAND MANAGERS:

“Bring the festive feeling to your A+ content!”  

Our Brand Managers give a great reminder to make sure your PDP content is on-point and seasonally relevant with some holiday imagery. These kinds of updates can help build and strengthen connections with consumers during this holiday season.  

Consumers are hunting for deals.   

Consumers are planning to fight inflation in a number of ways (source): 

• 56% say they are planning to buy items on sale 

• 40% say they are planning to use coupons/discount codes 

• 29% say they are planning to buy in bullk 

With this in mind, adding the visual support of the green flag from a coupon or lightning deals for a handful of ASINS will help create opportunities for non-giftable brands to catch the eye of this season’s deal-hunters.  

This is another chance to reinforce loyalty by setting up Subscribe and Save to offer even more long-term savings for your current customers.  

Lean In When Others Step Out. 

Let’s zoom out for a minute and recognize that consumers are not the only ones facing big financial challenges this holiday season—a lot of brands are having to navigate significant choices related to reducing costs and focusing budget only on the essentials. In this reality, some are deciding to pull back significantly on their advertising.  

While every brand is trying to make the right choice for them, it’s important to recognize that challenging moments like this also come with opportunities.  

When brands choose to stop advertising, they can create a vacuum that another brand can exploit in order to speak to their customer. At the same time, advertising costs can be reduced when there are fewer brands competing. Those two opportunities are enough to at least explore the impact of your brand choosing to lean in rather than step out.  

BONUS CONTENT:

Revisit the interview, “When Brands Stop Advertising”, with VP of Partner Marketing Cody Tusberg.  

IT’S GO TIME. 

With all the challenges your brand is facing this holiday season, you need a partner who can help you imagine every possible way forward. That’s where we shine. Our core model is built around full-service support that builds brand equity, profitability, and market share by working cross-functionally in all areas of your business. Let’s connect and explore if we might be the right fit for you.