Temperatures may be cooling down but the holiday shopping season is only heating up. By Thanksgiving Day, half of all consumers will have begun their holiday shopping excursions. Let that be a wake up call (or jingle bell) for brands — if you haven’t already started planning your holiday season campaigns, then you’re already falling behind.

How to Reap Silver and Gold with Your Holiday Advertising Campaigns

The holiday season presents one of the biggest opportunities for brands to drive sales, but it also comes with intense competition. As more businesses compete for the same holiday shoppers on the SERP, ad prices surge and performance can plateau. Advertisers often find themselves facing diminishing returns, especially during peak shopping periods like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the lead-up to Christmas.

In tandem, consumers are increasingly beginning their holiday shopping journey on the open web — 58% are starting their search off the SERP. In fact, nearly 60% of Americans spend their time on the open web but less than half of advertisers allocate their budgets to this burgeoning ecosystem.

Diversifying media budgets is essential for advertisers to adapt to evolving consumer behavior and overcome the challenges from the hectic holiday shopping season. By moving beyond the legacy SERP, advertisers can more effectively reach the modern consumer on the open web. At adMarketplace, we prioritize unique media opportunities across three distinct, valuable open web channels.

1. Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) Apps: BNPL shopping apps are an increasingly popular channel on the open web due to their convenience, often catering to younger generations. In fact, 40% of Americans have used at least one BNPL this year alone. It’s no wonder then that total BNPL holiday sales this season are expected to increase 11.4% year-over-year to hit a record $18.5 billion.

During peak shopping events like the holidays, many consumers enjoy being able to split their payments with these apps to extend their buying power, especially on larger purchases. adMarketplace’s media placements on this channel leverage consumer engagement and dynamic relevancy algorithms to facilitate product and brand discovery to shape intent in real-time. As a result, many advertisers see increases in average order value (AOV) well above industry norms when advertising with us on this channel.‍

2. Influential Editorial Sites: Consumers are becoming more selective about when and where they engage with ads. Media channels like editorial and review sites provide a more personalized and trusted experience for users, often resulting in higher engagement rates. Review sites are particularly popular during the holidays, as 78% of online shoppers use them for price and feature comparison to snag the best deals.

Through our dynamic integration, adMarketplace serves product ads via a competitive auction on these channels that are highly relevant to the products consumers are already engaging with. This increases yield as merchants can increase their bids to effectively beat out their competitors and maximize their campaigns for efficiency.

3. Privacy Browsers: Browsers are a cornerstone of search advertising campaigns. Advertising on privacy-centric browsers in particular can help brands reach more privacy-minded consumers who aren’t as easily captured or swayed by traditional search ads. adMarketplace places unique ads on privacy browsers like Firefox and Opera to drive upper funnel awareness that capitalizes on open intent. 

Additionally, advertisers tend to see strong performance on privacy browsers during promotional periods like Cyber 5 with campaigns that lean into elevated demand and leverage our open intent media placements to facilitate conversions. By tailoring media strategies to your promotional needs during the holiday season, our exclusive placements on this media channel can be customized with creative assets to reap higher engagement levels.

In combination with traditional platforms, embracing these media channels can help you create more efficient and robust holiday campaigns that perform much better than relying on the SERP alone.

Journey into a Search Advertising Wonderland with adMarketplace

adMarketplace offers exclusive access to consumer intent before and beyond the SERP. With unique media opportunities on high-intent channels, we increase relevance through diverse placements on the open web across the entire consumer journey.

Here's how advertisers can gain a sizable competitive advantage during the holiday shopping season with AMP:

1. Custom Search Experiences: With strong partnerships across unique media channels, we help create bespoke, next-gen search experiences that engage the modern consumer.
2. Shape the Consumer Journey: Our exclusive media opportunities on the open web capture consumer intent and drive higher-quality traffic that’s more likely to convert.
3. Transparent Measurement: Validate your media lift accurately with 1st-party performance data and gain crucial insight into your media performance with transparent reporting and measurement.
4. Managed Service: We act as an extension of your team, partnering with every advertiser to set up, launch, and optimize your campaigns while ensuring seamless integration with your preferred platforms for improved conversion tracking.

To maximize your media performance and efficiency during the holiday season, it's essential to diversify media spend beyond legacy search platforms. adMarketplace can best position your brand to reach high-intent consumers across the open web, boosting your ROI and empowering you to leapfrog over your competitors.

Download our free 2024 Holiday Insights Guide for even more insights and best practices on creating and executing holiday campaigns that will captivate and delight consumers throughout the entire season. 

And if you’re ready to start engaging and converting high-intent consumers to sleigh the holiday season, contact us today to learn more about our unique media opportunities on the open web.