With Black Friday (Friday 27 November) fast approaching, Google has looked at foot traffic patterns in stores across the US during last year’s shopping event to help marketers better connect with shoppers in and near their stores.
Mobile searches were 11% higher in electronic stores and 8% higher in department stores on Black Friday last year compared to other holiday season weekends, according to Google’s Adwords Blog.
Google intends to share geolocation and key search term data with advertisers on Black Friday to make it easier for them to reach real-time buyers more efficiently through improvements to AdWords’ store visit tracker.
The service, which previously only allowed advertisers insights for a given campaign, will now allow spending to be tweaked at any moment based on customers’ search keywords.
The data shows that Black Friday shoppers typically visit stores between 2pm and 4pm, with peak traffic on Thanksgiving evening between 6pm and 7pm.
With this in mind, AdWords recommends that retailers allocate sufficient budget across the campaigns to support the rise in shoppers, perhaps by increasing mobile bids using a bid adjustment simulator.
The blog goes on to discuss how not all US retailers will see their biggest crowds on Black Friday. Dollar stores, for example, see the most foot traffic on Christmas Eve, and some department stores, shopping malls, superstores and discount stores will see numbers swell the Saturday before Christmas.
The blog recommends the use of location extension targeting to encourage shoppers in close proximity to “choose you”.
“If you already run local inventory ads, which trigger if your product is in-stock at a store nearby, you can add location extension targeting and reach customers who are anywhere from 0.4 to 40 miles from your store,” it recommends.
However, shoppers are now turning to their mobile phones at hundreds of micro-moments throughout the day, all season long rather than rely on day-long mall marathons Black Friday weekend.
In a previous blog, Google found that 54% of holiday shoppers say that they plan to shop on their smartphones in spare moments throughout the day like walking or commuting.
