HOLIDAYS 2016 INSIGHTS REPORT

Search is the ultimate Holiday giftHolidays are projected to hit $868 Billion in US retail sales in 2016.1

However, nearly two-thirds of the season’s YoY growth can be credited to ecommerce, which has surged with 13.3% growth. 1

Search plays an integral role, providing shoppers with their most preferred channel for gift inspiration:2

Search also provides advertisers with their most effective channels for acquisition: 3

14%

17%

19%

25%

27%

31%

38%

52%

55%

58%SEM/Mobile and desktop

SEO

Email

Affiliate

Online marketplaces

Remarketing/Retargeting

through online ads

Facebook

Comparison shopping

Direct mail

Offline (TV, print)

In 2015, retail marketers made search engine marketing and search engine optimization core tactics to their digital marketing strategy, indicating that they allocated 33% or 16%, respectively, of their budgets. 3

Tis the season to be planful.

Watch 3 Keys to Successful Holiday Planning

Shopping behavior differs across product categories

All holiday shoppers plan to purchase gifts that that surprise and delight their loved ones,1 but according to Bing internal data, the way they hunt and discover gifts depends on the product category.

60%Clothing or accessories

58%Gift cards or gift certificates

43%Books, CDs, DVDs, Videos

41%Toys

35%Food and candy

41%Consumer electronics

5

Apparel

According to the top searched keywords on the Bing Network during the holidays season, shoppers search categorically with terms like “handbags,” “dresses,” and “mens wrist watch”. 1 Additionally, nearly half of the top searched keywords included gender keywords “mens” or “women.”

82%Searches were non-branded

45%Clicks were branded

Be sure to include gender keywords in your product descriptions

in your Bing Shopping Campaign product feeds.

Branded terms, however play vital role in the customer journey for apparel. While a whopping 82% of searches are non-branded, branded terms are highly influential to garner clicks, accounting for 45%.

6

Consumer Electronics

Gift-givers had an overwhelming preference for browsing TVs and headphones during the holidays. The top ten searched keywords included: “TVs,” “TV,” “headphones,” “wireless headphones,” and “beats headphones.”

Additionally, 75% of searches were non-branded, but clicks were 48% branded.

Black Friday Week saw click volume double on mobile, but fall by 21% in Cyber Monday Week. On the other hand, PC/Tablet traffic continued the upward trajectory through both weeks, with 42% and 8% growth, respectively.

Mobile

PC/Tablet

+14% +7%+8%

+98% -21%

-32% +4%

-16%-4%

+10%+5%

+10%

+42%+8%

-24% -2%+14%

-10%

Weekly click trends by device

Marketplace engagement & competitiveness

Toy shopping starts to

pick up during mid-

October.

Shoppers are

engaged much earlier

than when advertisers

are bidding more

competitively.

7

Weekly CTR and CPC trends

Toys & Games

Shopping for toys & games occurs much earlier than advertisers think. Clickthrough rates (CTR) rise sharply starting at the beginning of November and last until mid-December, indicating shoppers are increasingly engaged in shopping. However, advertisers be place their bids for this category from Black Friday until Christmas, as indicated by the heightened CPC.

Start your Bing Shopping Campaigns at the end of

Octobers to capture engaged shoppers earlier than your

competition.

20%

35%

19%

5%2%

5%

41%

24%

11%14%

3-6+ Months

Before

1-2 Months

before

2-4 Weeks

before

1 Week before Day of the

Holiday

Christmas Hanukkah

8

Mark your calendars for a lengthier shopping season

As the days get shorter, the shopping season continues to lengthen. In fact, 1 in 5 Christmas shoppers in the US have noted that they plan to begin as early as August.

Shoppers research their

purchases ahead of time.

8 out of 10 of the highest

search volume days on

mobile on the Bing

Network occur in

November, and skew for

weekends.

Black Friday and Cyber

Monday are the only top

10 ecommerce to occur

in November.

9

2

6

16

10 5 4

6 7 9

10 3 1

Top 10 Mobile

Search Days

Top 10 PC/Tablet

Search Days

November is for window shopping on mobile

10

$1.48B

$1.95B

21

8 2

1 2 3

5 4 9

8 7

December is for clicking the buy button

Cyber Monday isn’t a

single day event.

Actually, it kicks off a 3-

day of marathon of huge

desktop search volume

and ecommerce

spending.

Don’t forget about

December 11, which

represents more

ecommerce revenue

than the celebrated retail

holiday Green Monday.

Top 10 Mobile

Search Days

Top 10 PC/Tablet

Search Days

SOURCE: 1Facebook IQ, “The M-Factor for Today’s Omni-Channel Shoppers,” February 4, 2016 2Deloitte, “Deloitte 2015 holiday survey,” October 2015.

Characteristics of an Omnichannel Shopper

1. Low attention span

Shoppers make tradeoffs among price, discounts, delivery

method, shipping costs, relative quality, ease of return, and

numerous other factors to determine what channel to

purchase from.

2. Channel-agnostic

The channel that offers the greatest combination of

convenience, value, and reassurance wins their business.

3. Spend more

Shoppers who visit stores, online and mobile destinations

expect to spend 75% more on holiday purchases than those

who shop stores alone. 2

Omnichannel shoppers research and buy

online and offline in various categories—

like clothing, consumer electronics, home

appliances, home goods and beauty—via a

variety of channels—like on mobile

phones, tablets, desktops or laptops

and in-store. 1

Omnichannelshoppers are the most valuable customers.

Search is the marketer’s secret weapon for enabling omnichannelshopping.

Grab attention on the search page.

1. Product Ads

2. Ad Position

3. Brand-term bidding

Compel action from the search page.

1. Ad Extensions

2. Shopping Campaigns

Product ads

Product Ads grab attention on the search page by putting searchers closer to the purchase decision.

Stand out.

Attract attention by sharing images of your products.

More real estate.

Show more than one Product Ad on the same search results page.

Get on mobile.

Bing Shopping Campaigns are opted-in to show on mobile devices.

Already have a Google

Shopping Campaign?

Import it directly into your

Bing Ads account.

Ad position

Position matters when it comes to ad efficiency.

Dominant ad positioning in the Mainline, and specifically Mainline 1, are more efficient at a marginally higher cost.

So be sure to bid competitively this year!

89% Clicks occur in the

Mainline

54% Clicks occur in

Mainline 1

1700% Higher CTR in the

Mainline than

Sidebar, while only a

7% increase in CPC

Source:Microsoft Internal data (O&O and Partner Network), Nov 2015 - Dec 2015, US only, All DevicesVertical Categorization: based on internal Bing Ads account categorization

Brand-term bidding

In a study of 25M clicks in the retail vertical, Bing found that brand-term bidding yielded a 64% lift in incremental paid and organic clicks than a search strategy that consisted of organic search alone.

Bidding on your own brand terms means fewer clicks for competitors. In the organic search only example, competitors won clicks about half the time. When brand-term bidding is introduced, advertisers earned 85% of the clicks against their competitors.

SOURCE: Microsoft Internal data, Bing Ads Brand Term Bidding Study, March 2016

Organic search only

Brand-term ads + Organic search

Ad extensions

Rich ad extensions earn higher CTR than text ads alone, because they expose the searcher to what they want during online shopping.

Whether they are researching products, honing in on specific products, looking to see products in-person, or ready to make a purchase, ad extensions reach omnichannel shoppers when they are at different stages of their decision journey.

Source: Microsoft Internal data (O&O and Partner Network), Oct 2015 - Dec 2015, US only, PC only Vertical Categorization: based on internal Bing Ads account categorization

June 6, 2016.

What shoppers want on a website when shopping online? 2

78%69%

46% 42%30%

22%9%

Images of products Product reviews Side-by-side

product

comparison

Customer

testimonials

Video product

demonstrations

Live chat with

shopping assistant

Links to media

coverage of

company/products

Video

ExtensionImage

ExtensionReview

Extension

Action Link

Extension

CTR performance increases with incremental ad

extensions adoption up to Text Ad +3 ad extensions,

adding over 20% CTR lift from text ads alone. 1

Shopping Campaigns

Take advantage of new shopping experiences on Bing this holiday season that engage shoppers directly from the search page. Comparison shopping, for example, is easy right at the shopper’s fingertips.

Clothing company, White+Warren, earned 6.6% higher click-through and 35% conversion rates along with greater targeting flexibility using Bing Shopping Campaigns.

Step one is to create a robust, keyword-rich product feed in your Bing Shopping Campaigns.

SOURCE: Microsoft customer story, White+Warren, November 2015

Watch how to optimize your feeds

White + Warren’s accessories

collection, fall 2015

@bingads

linkedIn.com/company/bing-ads

facebook.com/bingads

blog.bingads.com

instagram.com/bingads

slideshare.net/bingads

youtube.com/bingads

Getting started

Feeling the Holiday spirit?

Be there ahead of time

Optimize Keywords, Ads, and Bids

Manage your product ads with Bing Shopping Campaigns

Learn how to import your campaigns