CHRISTMAS

MARKETING
GUIDE
2019
2019 CHRISTMAS
MARKETING GUIDE
The holidays are among the most magical times What is magical about Christmas is the amount
of the year. For shoppers, Christmas centres of opportunity to be found within the season.
around finding the perfect gifts for loved ones. The holidays are a great time to introduce your
This means marketers must obtain the right brand to new shoppers and attract new buyers
insights and employ the right tools in order to in volume. The season also presents the perfect
make this possible. opportunity to increase engagement with your
existing customers and boost their lifetime value.
The perfect gift may seem magical, but in
hindsight there’s never any real magic involved. So how can you create this kind of magic for
That “aha moment” came courtesy of a direct your business?
conversation on Messenger. That present
Grandma loved? Not unearthed by elves, but Just keep reading. We’ve created this practical
rather discovered on Instagram. And that gift for Christmas Marketing Guide to help make you the
dad? Found its way under the tree following a hero this festive season.
seamless social check­out.
You can also learn more about an
Though Christmas may appear to be dusted with insights based Christmas on our site.
magic, behind the scenes a different story is being
told. The truth is, all kinds of businesses are using
Facebook to get the right products to the right
customers throughout the holidays and year
round in all the moments that matter.

2
 Global Holiday Trends 4

Christmas Planning Calendar 9

TABLE OF Holiday Phases

Prepare
11
12

CONTENTS Build Momentum

Maximise Sales
21
27
Post-Christmas Sales and Retention 42

Peak Insights and Tactics 46

GLOBAL HOLIDAY TRENDS
Six global trends from Facebook IQ
to watch out for this holiday season
1 Christmas shoppers are going bigger, earlier

2 Shoppers won’t tolerate bad buying experiences

3 Window shopping is shifting to Stories

4 People are purchasing in-store

5 Major shopping events have gone global

6 Messaging is fueling loyalty

1. Christmas shoppers are going

bigger, earlier

In 2018
43% of shoppers started
shopping for Christmas
in November or earlier1

The whole of Q4, and into Q1, is now a shopping season. Last year, “...we absolutely see an uptick in
conversions visible to Facebook starting to increase as early as October.2
traffic and retailer promotional
By late-November, nearly 1 in 10 holiday shoppers had finished shopping.3
activity that starts November.”4
—Marissa Tarleton, CMO of RetailMeNot

Source: 1. Facebook Global Holiday Study—A Facebook IQ commissioned online study by Ipsos, Jan 2019, 2. Facebook Internal
Data, May 2019, 3. A Facebook IQ commissioned online study by Ipsos, Jan 2019, 4. eMarketer, “Holiday Shopping 2018”,
October 2018. 4
“Global shoppers buy earlier throughout 2. Shoppers won’t tolerate bad
Black Week*—50% of holiday shopping was buying experiences
complete by Monday, December 3 2018.”1
—Kate Walters, Executive Planning Director and Head of Strategy Shoppers are engaging with brands across multiple channels before
at digital agency Swirl McGarryBowen making purchases and are less willing to suffer any inconvenience,
* Black Week: Monday before Black Friday–Cyber Monday. or friction, when it comes to getting what they want. This is
especially true during the holiday season which, for many, is the
busiest time of year. Though mobile experiences may be improving,
businesses still have a long way to go: 85% of global holiday
shoppers have experienced at least one problem while seasonal
When people start and finish shopping on their mobile devices.3
their holiday shopping2

70% of consumers say

technology has made it
easier than ever to take
their business elsewhere4

Before October October Early November Mid November Late November Early December
“Convenience gave mobile shopping the
edge in 2018; brands and retailers are finally
Start Shopping Finish Shopping
removing the friction between inspiration and
purchase on the small screen.”5
—Kate Walters, Executive Planning Director and Head of Strategy
at digital agency Swirl McGarryBowen

Source: 1,3. Facebook internal data, May 2019, 2,4. “Facebook Global Holiday Study”—A Facebook IQ commissioned online
study by Ipsos, Jan 2019, 5. eMarketer, “Holiday Shopping 2018”, October 2018.
5
3. Window shopping is
shifting to Stories
During the 2018 Christmas season, 63% of Christmas shoppers either 4. People are
watched or posted videos in Stories across platforms, such as Instagram, purchasing in-store
Facebook or Snapchat. In that same time period, more than a third
of both millennials and parents said videos created by social media Even though global eCommerce grew by 18% last year,
“influencers” helped them choose what to buy.1 the $3 trillion made in online sales is slightly above 15%
of the total retail market.3

The top reason for shopping in-store during the

Christmas period was to see products in person, but
69% of people find Stories on Facebook and
Instagram to be a great way to discover
brick-and-mortar stores also provide emotional benefits
that are hard to reproduce online: 42% of US holiday
and become familiar with new products
or services2 shoppers said they shopped in-store for the holiday
ambiance, and 27% of US holiday shoppers said they
shopped in-store to spend time with family.4

62% of people become more interested

in a brand or product after seeing it
“Brick-and-mortar retail sales
in Stories2
strengthened throughout 2018 and
continued to thrive during the holidays,
especially for those that invested in a
“Social is the new shop window: the place better customer experience.”5
that consumers browse to find ideas —Kate Walters, Executive Planning Director and Head of Strategy
and inspiration.” at digital agency Swirl McGarryBowen

—Deloitte Retail Trends 2019

Source: 1. “Facebook Global Holiday Study”—A Facebook IQ commissioned online study by Ipsos, Jan 2019,
2. Facebook IQ, ‘Facebook Stories’ conducted by Ipsos Oct, 2018, 3. DigitalCommerce360.com, “Global eCommerce sales
grow 18% in 2018” Jan. 2019, 4. eMarketer, “Mobile Commerce Is Trending” Sept 2018. eMarketer, “US 2018 Holiday Season
Review and 2019 Preview” Feb. 2019. 6
5. Major shopping events
have gone global
Globally, shopping on Black Friday and Cyber Monday grew by 9% and
15%, respectively, between the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Singles’ Day,
which started in China and is now known as 11:11, grew by 25% in the
same period. The promotional season is spreading over a wider period,
with 11:11 growing across Europe (e.g. Turkey saw 6% growth yoy),
meaning brands risk missing out if they focus only on one or two
holiday peaks.1

To put these numbers in context, over $6.6 billion was spent in the US
alone on Cyber Monday in 2017, despite it globally being the smallest of
the three main holiday peaks.2 (11:11, Black Friday and Cyber Monday).

“There may well be room for a (fourth)

manufactured shopping holiday in the US, and
Singles’ Day (11:11)—with its spirit of treating
yourself—fits nicely with other behaviours we
see from millennial audiences.”3
—Kate Walters, Executive Planning Director and Head of Strategy
at digital agency Swirl McGarryBowen

Source 1. “Facebook Global Holiday Study”—A Facebook IQ commissioned online study by Ipsos, Jan 2019, 2. eMarketer:
“Shopping Holidays Around the World” Nov 2018, 3. Adweek: “Singles” Day Is the World’s Biggest Shopping Day, Nov, 2018.
7
6. Messaging is
fueling loyalty
More and more customers have begun reaching out via
messages. In fact, 20B messages are now being sent every
month between people and businesses on Messenger.1 That’s
a tenfold increase in just three years. And, 65% of Christmas
shoppers indicated they’d be more likely to buy from a
business if they could contact it through a messaging service.2

The top reasons why global Christmas shoppers

message business2

find out more details

48% about a product

43% purchase a product

find out store

37% information

Source: 1. Source, Facebook internal data, April 2019, 2. “Facebook Global Holiday Study”—A Facebook IQ commissioned
online study by Ipsos, Jan 2019. 8
HOLIDAY PLANNING CALENDAR
Keep key dates in mind and mark your Christmas campaign flight dates with this calendar.

November 2019

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

27 28 29 30 31 1 2
Halloween

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16
11:11

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Start Black Thanksgiving Black Shop Local
Friday Campaigns (US) Friday Saturday (US)

Black Week
*On shipping day mentions. ** Shipping day vary by location. 9
HOLIDAY PLANNING CALENDAR (cont.)

December 2019

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Giving Tuesday St. Nicholas Eve
(US) (Netherlands)
Cyber Monday

8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Last standard Free Shipping
International Day (mostly US,
post shipping day some UK & NL)
for Christmas

15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Last standard Last express Super Saturday
post shipping day post shipping day
for Christmas for Christmas

22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Hanukkah Christmas Eve Christmas Day Boxing Day Sales
Starts (UK, Canada,
Australia)

29 30 31 1 2 3 4
Hanukkah New Years Sales
Ends Eve Official Start
(traditionally)

*On shipping day mentions. ** Shipping day vary by location. 10

PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3 PHASE 4
Prepare Build Maximise Post-Christmas
momentum sales

Start planning and Kick off branding and Kick off sales campaigns Sales and Retention:
prep for the Christmas acquisition campaigns Gear up your cross-sell
and up-sell campaigns
June–August September–October
November–December
January

Pre-holiday Peak holiday Post-holiday

11
 Start planning and prep for Christmas
(pre-holiday)
• Prep your tech
PHASE 1 • Think mobile-first
June-August • Partner up

PREPARE
• Deep dive into measurement
• Build your audience
• Test your creative
• Build your catalogue

The key to a successful Christmas season is to get set up early.

In fact, we recommend you begin laying your foundation as early
as June or July. This means making sure you have implemented
the necessary tools you’ll need for measurement and optimisation,
beginning to think about your creative journey and assuring your
audience strategies are in place. Christmas shoppers are going big
and earlier—you should do the same.

We also recommend that you do a thorough review of last year’s

performance in order to ensure everything you learned is being
applied to this year’s peak planning.

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PREP YOUR TECH
Give your tech
a health check
• Ensure your Pixel and SDK integrations are working correctly
Learn more
• Implement Offline Conversions Learn more
• Develop a strategy and establish your presence on Messenger
Learn more
• Build toward a frictionless future Learn more
Pixel and SDK
integrations
When someone visits your website or app and takes an action
(such as buying something), the Facebook Pixel or SDK reports
this action. This enables you to know when customers take action
after having seen your Facebook ad, and allows you to reach
individual customers again with Custom Audiences. As more and
more conversions begin to happen on your website, Facebook
gets better at delivering your ads to people who are more likely to
take valuable actions.
Implement Offline
Conversions
If you have physical stores, Offline Conversions will help you
measure when transactions occur in-store after people have seen
or engaged with your campaign ads. By connecting your in-store
sales to Facebook, you can also build targeted Custom Audiences.
This enables you to reach specific in-store shopper segments—for
example, those who are your highest in-store spenders, your most
recent purchasers of a specific product category or even audiences
that are similar to those—with lookalike targeting. This can become
particularly useful for measuring and optimising campaigns for store
sales as you go into November and December.
Learn more
Establish your presence
on Messenger
Providing a personalised messaging experience for your customers
in Messenger has the potential to set your brand apart this festive
season. Beyond answering frequently asked questions, creating
a guided shopping experience in Messenger can help educate
customers on seasonal offerings through a series of automated
questions and prompts. Encourage purchases by sending coupons
or offers and or share the location of your local store to drive foot
traffic. Start talking to holiday shoppers at scale by partnering with a
platform developer who can build your Messenger experience.
Learn more
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Build toward a
frictionless future
Removing friction is no longer a nice-­to-­have option—it’s a must for every
business. Your ability to provide seamless experiences is what keeps you
relevant to today’s mobile­-first consumer, who has not only increased
expectations but demands value, speed and ease at every stage of the
journey. Businesses that successfully identify friction and remove it will
gain a competitive edge. Visit Facebook IQ Zero Friction Future to learn Think mobile-first
how you can lay the foundation for seamless shopping. Learn more

+22%
With mobile holiday research and shopping on the rise, you want to Mobile holiday
ensure that your marketing, measurement and shopping experiences are shopping has
fully optimised for mobile. increased globally
year on year by1
Customers’ paths to purchase are increasingly complex and now span
multiple channels.

The world is now omni­channel, which means your campaigns need to

follow suit. Omni-­channel campaigns allow you to deliver your message
consistently, over a variety of channels. So, if you’re shooting a Christmas
campaign for TV, why not adapt assets for mobile News Feed and
From the 2017 to the
2018 holiday season,
mobile-first shoppers,
+25%
grew by2
Stories? Expanding your reach into these types of placements will enable
you to reach millions of people on Facebook and ultimately give them
the opportunity to discover your work. It doesn’t have to be hard. Our
automatic cropping tool crops non­-vertical video to the aspect ratio of
the advertiser’s choice (e.g., 1:1, 4:5, 2:3)—all at the push of a button and
within minutes. Learn more

Source: 1, 2. “Facebook Global Holiday Study”—A Facebook IQ commissioned online study by Ipsos, Jan 2019. 14
PARTNER UP
You can choose from a range of partner
platforms to help you work on a variety of
specific areas. Everything from optimisation and
creative automation, to adding scale and reaching
new audiences, to buying media more efficiently.
Learn more
Deep dive into
measurement
Whether or not you’re working with a partner, we
recommend taking the time to familiarise yourself
with our measurement basics. Particularly how
(and why) we use Sales, Brand and Audience
outcomes to help you measure the effect of your
campaigns on real people across all devices
and channels. Learn more
Leverage Facebook Analytics for insights into
consumer behaviour across your website and app.
Use this to help you optimise your campaigns in
later phases. Learn more
Consider Facebook Marketing
Partners for
• Campaign management—scale and optimise your
Facebook ad campaigns
• Collaborative ads merchants—run ads that drive sales of your
products on a merchant partner’s website or app, then measure impact
• Community management—help manage your community via Pages
and conversations
• Creative platforms—help with creating, curating or delivering content
• Feeds and integrations—simplify the integration of your product
catalogues or feeds for use in ad products like Dynamic Ads
• Lead ad platforms—store and manage first-­party consumer
information from lead ads in order to cultivate relationships
with customers
• Measurement—track performance of your Facebook campaigns
• Messaging—manage conversations with your customers at scale
• Offline Conversions—connect your transaction data to Facebook in
order to easily enable Facebook Offline Conversions
• Website platforms—build and maintain the pixel directly on the
platform that houses your website
• Tag Manager—install the Facebook Pixel and events on your website,
then select and deselect various pixels in your site’s code
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BUILD YOUR AUDIENCE
Identify audience segments
Tips
Determine who you want to reach during the
holidays, and how you want to connect with • In order to assure optimal
them. For example, you may want to set up
performance, include some site
different campaigns for potential customers
visitors in your audience configuration
versus existing high value customers or
category purchasers. Once you’ve properly • Combine male and female audiences;
segmented your audience, you can tailor our system will optimise accordingly
your ad campaigns, creative and messages to
Consolidate audiences across multiple
resonate with each group. Consider leveraging
languages (leverage dynamic language
last year’s sales data to build an audience likely
optimisation to automate language
to be interested in hearing from your brand.
selection across a multilingual audience.)
This can be used as an initial seed for this
Learn more
season’s prospecting campaigns. Learn more

Build your CRM audiences via

other channels Learn more
Automated audiences
Use the marketing API to add these to
Dynamic Ads for Broad Audiences (DABA) your Custom Audiences. Learn more
targeting allows you to reach people who’ve
expressed an interest in your products even
if they haven’t yet visited your website or app.
When you target a broad audience, people in
this segment will automatically see products
from your catalogue that are likely to be of
interest to them. Learn more

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Create Lookalike Audiences
• Chances are, you already have campaigns running on our platforms.
We recommend you look to your current campaigns in order to gain
further consumer insights that you can use to enhance your upcoming
Christmas campaigns.
–– The Facebook Pixel can help you with this by enabling you to understand what
good conversions look like for you, based on customer behaviour. Consider using
these insights to build Lookalike Audiences based on high value purchases, so that
you can broaden the targeting of your Christmas campaign. Learn more

–– By connecting your in-store sales to Facebook, you can also build targeted
Custom Audiences to reach specific in-store spenders, and also create Lookalike
Audiences to target, including those that spend above a certain threshold or on a
particular product category. Learn more

Cross border business

Don’t limit yourself to regular markets. Holiday peaks are global events,
with potential clients everywhere. The Facebook IQ Cross Border Insights
Finder is a great tool for targeting potential new markets. Learn more

• Use Lookalike Audiences to sell anywhere in the world. Learn more

• Advertise to people in more than one language and create one
campaign in multiple languages. Dynamic language optimisation
automatically optimises your budget, enabling you to deliver your
ads to the right people, in the right language, at the right time.
Learn more

Commit and book

Use the Campaign Planner to build and test your media plan and reserve
your core audiences in advance with Reach and Frequency buying. Unlike
bidding in the auction, Reach and Frequency can help you secure a fixed
price that’s not likely to change, even as demand rises in the run up to
Christmas. Minimum audience sizes apply. Learn more
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PREPARE YOUR CREATIVE Video ads

Design mobile-first Christmas branding and performance campaigns

•

•
Know your ads

Video ads
Viewers
retain 95% of a message delivered
via video compared to
10% delivered via text1

• Video creation kit

The rise of cameras on phones means that communicating

Know your ads with video has never been easier. However, the abundance of
content also means that attention has never been so scarce.
Our platforms allow you to both create and run campaigns using
We understand this paradox and have designed our video
simple self-service tools and track their performance with easy-to-read
advertising options to reflect the way people actually consume
reports. Facebook ads can be as simple or sophisticated as you want
video. We can help you with everything from bite-sized videos
them to be. However, no matter what you choose to do, the important
watched on the go to longer, ‘lean-back’ video styles meant for
thing to remember is that over two billion people use Facebook every
the sofa.
month. So, no matter what kind of audience you want to reach, you’ll
find them there. Learn more
Try it out by testing new videos, images and overlays. Be sure
to refine your creatives with each holiday peak in mind, keeping
them both fresh and appealing. Learn more

Source: Forbes.com “How To Incorporate Video Into Your Social Media Strategy” July 2017. 18
Video doesn’t have to be complicated Video creation kit
• Creative tips Learn more
• Optimise for mobile Learn more Campaigns using static plus
lightweight motion video achieved a

17%
higher conversion
lift vs. static
images alone1

The Video Creation Kit is designed to allow advertisers to quickly and

easily adapt images and text into mobile optimised videos.
Learn more We’ve recently launched some new features, including
holiday and event-specific stickers and an Auto Cropping tool, which
optimises videos to different aspect ratios with a single click.

Split testing

• Optimisation is key to campaign performance. Split testing ad formats

and strategies allows you to identify your best performers, which
in turn can influence your budget allocation. (Ensure they meet
guidelines with Creative Hub). Learn more

Source: 1. “Create to Convert MetaAnalysis” by Facebook, Mar 2018. 19

BUILD YOUR CATALOGUE
Uploading your product catalogue enables us to pull product information like images, price or
supply levels automatically from your catalogue into News Feed ads on Facebook and Instagram.
This enables you to be sure that you’re showing the right products to your audience and is
especially helpful when using Dynamic ads for retargeting or Collection ads for prospecting with
broad audiences. Learn more

Upload your
Christmas catalogue

Tips Tips

• Maximise performance by including • For up-to-date product information,

product category information, rich consider updating your catalogue
product images and descriptions based on recent pixel fires (this
requires microdata tags) Learn more
• Check which products outside of your
Christmas offering have resonated with • Bring your Christmas catalogue to
your audience and be sure to include life on mobile. Target shoppers who
these too receive your Christmas catalogue
by connecting your CRM data to
• Make sure your Pixel and SDK are set
Facebook. Use the collection ad format
up to capture key shopping signals
with Tabs for Canvas so that you can
on your site/app and have the correct
introduce your Christmas catalogue to
content ID as included in the catalogue
mobile shoppers
• If you would like to update your feed
based on recent pixel activity, add the
correct microdata tags

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 Kick off branding and
acquisition campaigns
PHASE 2
• Ignite discovery
September-October • Scale your audience

BUILD
• Final health check
• Know your Instagram

MOMENTUM • Campaign templates

Take advantage of the change in season to begin laying

down the tracks for success. The end of summer can be
a great time to grow your customer base by introducing
your brand and products to early shoppers who have
already begun to make their gift-giving lists. This can
help you increase your remarketing audiences during
the peak holiday shopping months.

21
Ignite discovery with
Christmas shoppers
• Kick off omni-channel branding campaigns
in order to stay top of mind in the run up to
the Christmas season. Branding campaigns
on Facebook also feed into your Custom
Audiences and prime consumers for
conversion further down the funnel.
–– Create buzz around your brand online in the
build up to Christmas
–– A video-first focus will engage and wow your
audiences. Be sure to use engaging content for
better brand recall
• Christmas shoppers do not fit typical audience
demographics as many of them are gifting.
Ensure your branding drives awareness for
uninitiated audiences.
• Use mobile to drive store traffic. People love
to shop in-store, but not all digital ads provide
the information shoppers need to find and
visit a store. The Store Traffic objective helps
shoppers discover new products and find the
nearest store to purchase them. Learn more
• Influencer marketing is a great way to increase
brand awareness. Engage influencers to help
spread your brand message.
Tip
In general, most organisations begin
their advertising efforts around Black
Friday, the Christmas season’s kickoff
at the start of November. This causes
a jump in most key cost metrics.
However, by beginning prospecting
campaigns at an earlier time (for
example, late September) it may be
possible to keep relevant costs (CPM,
CPC, etc) lower, while still increasing
the size of your prospecting pool.
Tip
Take over the new storefront.
Stories ads are incredibly valuable
because they allow you to reach
your audience in a fullscreen,
vertical environment where they’re
already highly engaged, immersed
in content and ready to shop.
Today, Stories ads are available on
Facebook and Instagram, and on
Messenger for select objectives.
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Scale your audience
• Use back-to-school campaigns to help build Custom
Audiences for your Christmas campaign.
• Use Dynamic Ads for Broad Audiences to reach people that
are interested in products similar to yours.
• Build Lookalike Audiences based on (a) purchasers and (b)
high value purchasers. These audiences will dynamically
update in real time based on pixel, offline events and app
event activity.
• Increase investment in prospecting to build Custom
Audiences. Prospecting campaigns will have a lower ROAS;
however, this will lead to overall lower costs with a higher
ROAS when retargeting closer to the holiday peaks.
• Remind people about the products that they’ve browsed
on your website or in your mobile app but didn’t purchase,
with retargeting for Dynamic ads. When you retarget
people with Dynamic ads, they’ll automatically see the
products (or similar products) that they saw on your
website or in your app.
Final health check
Avoid unnecessary downtime by giving
your website a pre-peak health check
• Check that your Pixel and SDK’s are
working correctly
• Verify that your Facebook API
integrations are up to date
• Ensure capacity meets predicted
demand, as site speed and traffic
volumes are essential over the
Christmas season
• Make sure you have enough liquidity
to meet needs over Black Week
–– Campaigns stalling over the holidays can be
disastrous. Check that your account is up to
date and that contingency funds are available
so you can scale and adapt to demands over
the holiday peaks.
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Know your Instagram
Instagram is the best place for brands to turn inspiration into
action. The festive season is the ideal time to do this, with
the percentage1 of Instagrammers who say the platform is
influential for Christmas increasing from 39% last year to
45% this year.
Shopping on Instagram
From the moment of discovery to making a purchase,
every part of the mobile shopping experience should
be seamless. Enable easy discovery, consideration,
saving and purchase of your products on Instagram
through product tags and stickers in Feed and Stories.
Doing this means that once a shopper finds the right
item, they are just a few taps away from being able to
make a purchase.

39% 45%
Shopping on Instagram gives
people a simpler way to shop
2017 2018

Ready your Instagram assets for maximum

impact by ensuring that you include Stories
in the mix
130M Instagram users click
on a shopping story
every month2

With 500M accounts using Stories daily, Instagram is the perfect place to
reach a huge Christmas audience2. Learn more

Instagram Stories Ad templates automatically transform your images into

attention-grabbing vertical ads for Instagram Stories. This means you can
reach your audience on Instagram Stories without having to invest a lot of
time and effort in designing new ads. Learn more

Source: 1. Facebook internal date, May 2019, 2. Instagram data, March 2019.
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PRE-HOLIDAY BRAND AWARENESS CAMPAIGN PLANNING
Campaign name Campaign goal

Objective Ad format Placements

Brand Awareness Video ads Facebook Feed

Reach Stories Facebook Marketplace
Video Views Collection (Facebook, Instagram Feed only) Instagram Feed
In-stream (Facebook and/or Audience Network) Stories
Carousel Messenger
Audience Network
In-stream video

Target audience Optimisation goal Measurement plan

Ad recall
Video views
Reach

Campaign launch date Campaign end date Estimated budget

Buying type Reach and frequency TRP

25
BACK-TO-SCHOOL DEMAND GENERATION CAMPAIGN PLAN
Campaign name Campaign goal

Objective Ad format Placements

Traffic Video ads Facebook Feed

Messages Stories Facebook Marketplace
Collection (Facebook, Instagram Feed only) Instagram Feed
Carousel Stories
Audience Network
Messenger

Target audience Optimisation goal Measurement plan

Landing page views

Conversions
Message replies

Campaign launch date Campaign end date Estimated budget

26
 Kick off sales campaigns
Remember that conversions happen on Facebook year-round
but may accelerate in Q4. Since Christmas is a major focus for
retailers, this is a highly promotional period on our platforms.
To help maximise Christmas sales and make the most of your
Christmas marketing budget, consider switching your focus to
sales campaigns at the beginning of Q4.

PHASE 3 To help maximise sales this festive season, we have six primary
levers you can pull when setting up campaigns and improving
November-December performance.

MAXIMISE •

•
Inventory

Targeting Tip

SALES •

•
Bidding

Optimisation
Tick the box for
Placement Optimisation.
When combining
• Creative Facebook and the
• Campaign template Audience Network, some
advertisers have seen,
on average, 11% more
Crunch time is approaching for
conversions and 16%
demand generation and acquisition
more video views.
campaigns. If you have your final
creative, schedule time to get it Learn more
uploaded into Ads Manager.

Source: Facebook Audience Network internal data, ‘Analysis on the difference

between adding/removing Audience Network’, March 2018. 27
INVENTORY
Build flexible campaigns to increase ‘supply’ for delivery.
Fewer constraints allow the delivery system to explore more opportunities and
find the best value according to the advertiser’s optimisation and bid strategies.
We offer three key products that provide
flexibility for your campaign
Automatic placements.
When you enable automatic placements
during campaign set-up, you elect to run ads
across the entire Facebook Family of Apps
and Services. This enables you to deliver ad
content on the platform most likely to drive
campaign results at the lowest possible cost at
any given time. Furthermore, it gives you more
opportunities to reach more people while at
the same time maximising your results.
Campaign budget optimisation.
Campaign budget optimisation (CBO) asks
you to set one central campaign budget
and then allows our system to continuously
distribute budget to the top performing ad
sets in real-time.
Without campaign budget optimisation, your
campaign-level budget is spent evenly across
ad sets. However, if you choose to enable this
feature, Facebook will allocate the campaign
level budget to the best performing ad set in
real-time, thus maximising your value.
Lowest cost bidding.
Our most flexible bid strategy type that offers
the most scale. This strategy will always bid the
amount to minimise your cost per result while
maintaining your budget. This allows us to get
the most results for your budget, even as costs
may rise through the duration of the campaign.
CBO and automatic placements
work together.
CBO works by giving Facebook the flexibility to
let each pound of your campaign flow to the
ad set that’s providing the best outcome at any
given moment in time. Automatic placements
work the same way but at the placement level.
Within each ad set, the delivery system doubles
down on the winning placements. In some
cases this means relatively little delivery on a
given placement. That’s fine, and in many cases,
to be expected. The goal isn’t equal spend, it’s
best possible spend. The key here is that by
enabling both CBO and automatic placements
you’re allowing Facebook the most flexibility to
move your advertising spend to where it will
provide the most value.
Top tips to prevent
underdelivery
• Consolidate into fewer ad sets.
Meet the minimum conversion
optimisation requirement of 50 ad
sets per week
• Add more placements or switch
to automatic placements. Consider
using Marketplace, Messenger
or Stories
• Choose a longer
conversion window. Improve
average costs per conversion for the
same budget or drive more delivery
• Use accelerated delivery.
Spend a full budget quickly
without any cost constraints
• Please note: costs can be higher than
standard delivery
28
TARGETING
Maximise audience size, but balance with quality.
Similar to inventory, larger audiences remove
constraints and allow our system the flexibility to
find the best opportunities.

Use broad audiences

With broad audience targeting, you can reach
people who’ve expressed interest in your
products, even if they haven’t visited your
website or app. When you target a broad
audience, people in your audience segment
automatically see products from your catalogue
that are likely to be relevant to them. Target
people beyond your usual client base and go
even further by employing Dynamic ads with
broad audiences (DABA). DABA helps your
products find consumers, instead of the other
way round. Combine male and female audiences
and our system will optimise accordingly.
By scaling your campaign through the
implementation of a broad audience,
you’ll gain
• Higher intent. Reach people with intent,
even if they have not yet visited your website
or app.
• Ability to scale across borders.
Broad audiences will find potential
customers across different regions.
• Effortless audience creation. Facebook
will do the heavy lifting in order to determine
who is most likely to convert.

29
Use value-based lookalikes from your
web, app, catalogue or offline events
Value-based Lookalike Audiences are powered by the Facebook
pixel or Offline Conversions. While setting up your campaign,
tell us the value of each desired action or event. We’ll use these
values plus Facebook Pixel signals and your offline conversion
data to calculate the LTV (lifetime value) of your customers and
to create new audiences. These new audiences will be made up
of people who resemble your most valuable existing customers.
Your value-based Lookalike Audiences are continuously updated
based on new transactional data supplied by the Facebook Pixel
and Offline Conversions.
By implementing a value-based Lookalike Audience to
scale your campaigns, you’ll gain
• Higher ROAS. Get more for your ad spend by reaching people
who are most likely to spend more with you, both online and
in-store.
• Effortless audience creation. Facebook does the heavy lifting
by determining who your highest value customers are and
how to find more people like them.
• Dynamic audiences. Lookalike Audiences are continuously
refreshed, based on conversion events and transaction value
data in realtime.
Optimise retargeting campaigns
By now, you should have rich audience insights and strong intent
signals from the campaigns you ran earlier in the year, as well
as from the retargeting campaigns you ran in the first phase of
Christmas activity using Custom Audiences and Dynamic ads.
We recommend that you constantly optimise these campaigns
based on recency windows and bidding strategies. Learn more
Top tips to prevent
under-delivery
• Expand existing targeting. Use expanded
interests and increase the size of your interest
based audience
• For Website Custom Audiences, leverage
detailed targeting (if WCA targets <1M people).
For example, add in additional behaviours or
interests to expand the audience size
• Add Custom Audiences from a customer file.
Upload your customer list directly to Facebook in
order to expand your overall audience size
• Use Lookalike Audiences. Further expand the
group of people who may be interested in your
business’s products or services
30
BIDDING
Under bidding can limit our algorithm’s ability to maximise your
exposure, engagement and return on investment. By bidding the true
value (what you earn from an average order for a particular item) of
a conversion from the beginning of the campaign, our system will be
able to connect your product with the right audience at scale.

An important step in maximising your results is properly combining

your customer signals and brand content with our insights. This allows
you to reach the right audience across the Facebook Family of Apps
and Services.

Bid higher than in non-holiday seasons

• Conversion rates increase—so do CPMs

• Bid higher to win the auction at key peaks
• Increased conversion rates will likely offset higher CPMs

Maximise delivery at any cost

• Lowest cost (no bid cap) allows our system to bid as

needed to spend full budget
–– Although bidding is flexible, there is a ceiling to the internal bid
so as to prevent unreasonable pricing

• Highest value (for value optimisation only)

31
Achieve maximum delivery with
minimum ROAS goal

• Set minimum ROAS at least 25% below historical average ROAS.

Delivery will stop if we can’t achieve this.
• Achieve predictable delivery at a specified cost.
• Target cost. Maintain a stable average CPA as costs increase.

Top tips to prevent

under-delivery

• If using lowest cost with a bid cap, switch to a

lowest cost bid strategy without a bid cap. This allows
for more flexibility to spend the full budget
• If using lowest cost without a bid cap, it is
possible our internal auto bid is not high enough. We
recommend switching to a bid cap with a ‘high’ value
• If using a bid cap, increase it. This is likely to increase
delivery—it will allow us to bid more
• If using minimum ROAS, adjust it. This provides
a degree of control to ensure we meet or exceed
specific business objectives

32
OPTIMISATION
Meet minimum conversion requirements and optimise for your
success metric. The delivery system needs a minimum amount of
data to reliably predict conversion rate and maximise value. The more
closely correlated the optimisation goal is to the actual business goal,
the better performance the system can deliver.
Targeting + Optimisation = Audience
Once you have shared your objectives and targeting preferences,
our machine learning algorithm factors your inputs along with the
engagement and actions of people on Facebook in order to deliver
your message to the audiences most likely to take your desired actions.
Choose the right optimisation to
help you hit your goals
It’s important to weigh the considerations of each ad
delivery optimisation to ensure you’re selecting the
right one for your business goals. App event, value,
conversion and Store Sales optimisations are all
powerful tools; however, they differ in the outcome
they are trying to achieve.
• App events optimisation is best suited for app and
game goals such as installs, inapp purchases, or
driving more use
• Value optimisation is best suited for marketers
seeking to maximise their return on ad spend or
value per purchase
• Conversion optimisation seeks to drive more volume
without regard to transaction value
• Store Sales Optimisation helps your Facebook
campaigns reach people more likely to
convert in-store
• Store Visits Optimisation helps your Facebook
campaigns reach people more likely to visit your
stores (to use when Store Sales Optimisation is
not available)
33
OPTIMIZATION OPTIONS
App Events Conversions Value ThruPlay Store Sales Store Visits
(completed view)

Drive volume for the Maximise volume of Maximise ROAS or Allows advertisers to Reach people around Reach people around your
in-app actions you website or offline highest purchase value optimise and choose your store locations and store locations and optimise
care most about at the actions you care most per sale to pay only for ads optimise towards people towards people more likely
Goal
lowest possible cost about at the lowest that are watched to more likely to purchase to visit your stores
per outcome possible cost per completion, or for at in-store
outcome least 15 seconds

Requires mobile SDK, Requires Facebook Requires Facebook Video content Requires that business Requires that business
large target audience Pixel Pixel or mobile SDK. locations be setup, locations be setup, and
Requirements 2M+ audience size or and store sales data is businesses are eligible for
~3% Lookalike shared through Offline Store Visits reporting (speak
Conversions to your Facebook partner)

Higher CPI/CPM and Easier to scale than Eligibility requirements Available for feed/ When joined with Pixel If data can be passed back
lower volume. Consider value optimisation for VO. Consider stories/In-stream. Likely and SDK, provides cross- via Offline Conversions, then
testing for eComm, testing for eComm, will have higher VTRs, device visibility optimise for Store Sales
Considerations
gaming, retail, or travel gaming, retail, or travel. but lower reach and
Higher cost higher CPMs
per outcome

34
Case Study
Driving Holiday sales in-store with
Store Sales Optimization

Ashley HomeStore wanted to drive incremental sales

by attracting more shoppers to its physical locations increase in
and enticing them to make a purchase. Learn more 35% sales among
prospecting
audience

higher return

8x
on ad spend
among
prospecting
audience

increase in
13% sales among
retargeting
audience

Source: Ashley HomeStore, April 2019, Case Study. 35

Top tips to prevent
under-delivery

• Change the conversion event. Start with

the conversion event closest to the true KPI
and move up the funnel as needed
• Consider landing page optimisation.
This optimisation is ideal if website visits
are a key objective, and requires a base
pixel code and “page view” event to
decrease the drop off rate from clicks

36
 Danish luxury footwear brand Roccamore
ran a conversion campaign using the highly
engaging collection ad format.
CREATIVE Learn more

Make content that is relevant to the people you want to reach in order
to achieve your desired outcome. Creative can have a significant impact
It increased sales by
on conversion rates, and a low conversion rate may result in campaigns
under-delivering.

3.7x 3.6x
Create to convert
at around a third increase in
of the cost per revenue from
Adding lightweight motion to static assets creates more compelling
acquisition of in-store sales
and effective performance ads previous campaigns

• Campaigns using static plus lightweight motion achieved a higher

conversion lift vs. static images alone
• Campaigns that combine both static and video assets achieved a
higher conversion lift vs. static images alone

Custom assets for placements

Select ‘edit placements’ to ensure your ad displays where and how

you want it to appear, according to your strategy across placements.

Advertisers who choose to manually select their placements can use asset
customisation to specify which ads are shown in specific placements as well as
to ensure that their ad displays in the manner they desire. Asset customisation
allows organisations to easily choose the ideal image or video for specific
placements within one ad set. This option may also work best for them if they
have a particular content strategy that requires particular assets to appear in
specific placements.
37
Instant Experiences

Give people immediate access to your catalogue through Instant

Experiences within Facebook and Instagram. This format captures
people’s attention by virtue of being fullscreen, easy to create,
immersive and fast loading. Learn More

Tips
• Use Instant Storefront to showcase products in
a grid layout so people can browse more of your
products in one place
• Add a store locator card and relevant
call-to-actions such as “get directions” to make
it easy for people to find your nearest stores
when using the Store Traffic objective

38
 Promote a product Describe a product
or service

Holiday templates

We are introducing a set of four holiday specific

templates. Whether you want to promote a product,
describe a product or service, show product benefits
or highlight a message, our holiday templates help
you create mobile-optimised videos—all with a
holiday twist.

Stickers. Stickers are a great way to quickly add

visually impactful messages and call-to-actions
within your video.

Show product benefits Highlight a message

Top tips to prevent

under-delivery

• Add new creative to ad sets.

When a new ad is uploaded, our
system will explore it and assign a
predicted conversion rate, possibly
one that is higher than the existing one.
This allows the ad set to spend
more budget
• Try a new creative approach.
Try mixing video or different images
or play around with the copy

39
Estimated budget
End-to-end solution
Use Dynamic ads to promote relevant items from your Christmas
catalogue by either retargeting your recent website visitors or
reaching new shoppers with broad audience targeting.
Poland’s leading online fashion platform
successfully ramped up its marketing activity
after Facebook Marketing Partner ROI Hunter
helped it automatically create dynamic ads for
a prospecting campaign.
Learn more

Tips
9.5% increase in
conversion rate

• Create Christmas-themed ads and highlight

limited-time offers in order to create the
urgency to buy
• Set your budget to account for anticipated
conversion rates during the peak shopping days

40
DRIVE ONLINE CHRISTMAS SALES
Campaign name Campaign goal

Objective Ad format Placements

Conversions Video ads Facebook Feed

Catalogue sales Collection (Facebook, Instagram Feed only) Facebook Marketplace
Carousel Instagram Feed
Audience Network
Messenger
Stories

Target audience End-to-end solutions Optimisation goal Measurement plan

Conversion optimisation
Value optimisation

Campaign launch date Campaign end date Estimated budget

41
DRIVE CHRISTMAS SALES IN-STORE Tip
Campaign name Campaign goal Add a store locator card and relevant call-to-actions
such as “get directions” to make it easy for people
to find your nearest stores when using the Store
Traffic objective.

Objective Ad format Placements

Store traffic Video ads Facebook

Collection (Facebook, Instagram Feed only) Instagram
Carousel Audience Network
Stories

Target audience Optimisation goal Measurement plan

Store sales optimisation

Campaign launch date Campaign end date Estimated budget

42
 Keep the offers coming

While the Christmas shopping frenzy may be over, your

opportunities aren’t. This gives you an opportunity to boost sales
among your Christmas customer base.

Many customers will continue to shop into the first month of the
PHASE 4 year to take advantage of seasonal sales, with 44% of the people
citing these deals as their main reason for shopping in January.1

January Highlight your product lines for the new year and use special
offers to entice people to visit your website as well as your

POST-
physical stores. Facebook offer ads are a great way to create and
extend timely discounts and promotions to the people who you
want to reach and encourage.

CHRISTMAS Stay connected to customers with

SALES AND •

•
Related offers

Post-purchase-only discounts on related products

RETENTION •

•
Customer feedback services

Branding campaigns
• Messenger

Gear up for your cross-sell and up-sell campaigns (Post-holiday)

• Keep the offers coming

Source: 1. “Facebook Global Holiday Study”–A Facebook IQ commissioned online

study by Ipsos, Jan 2019. 43
Case Study
Elise the Personal Shopper

Shop Direct wanted to drive awareness and

engagement for their Very.co.uk Christmas
holiday brand campaign and boost purchases
during their most competitive time of the year.
£4.9M in incremental
sales
They developed a friendly bot for Messenger,
based on the character name Elise from their
Christmas brand ad, to help customers and
potential customers find the perfect gift.

38x return on
investment

point lift in
5.7x campaign
awareness

44
POST HOLIDAY SALES CAMPAIGN PLAN
Campaign name Campaign goal

Campaign objective Ad format Placements

Conversions Stories Facebook

Catalogue sales Video ads, Instagram Stories
Store Traffic Collection (Facebook, Instagram Feed only) Marketplace
Carousel Instagram Feed
Audience Network
Messenger

Target audience Optimisation goal Measurement plan

Conversion optimisation
Value optimisation

Campaign launch date Campaign end date Estimated budget

45
 The Christmas season now stretches from late October all the way through
to the January sales. And, while it’s true that the season is a time of fierce
competition, it can also be an incredibly lucrative period—if you’ve plan
well and start early. As the season has grown, so have the main holiday
shopping peaks. These peaks give us new and exciting ways to reach people
and influence their Christmas shopping habits.

PEAK Online Conversion Data Visible to Facebook

During the 2018 Holiday Season (internal data)

INSIGHTS
Black Friday

11:11 Cyber Monday

AND
Last shipping day

TACTICS
18

18

18

18

18

18

18

18

18

19
8

9
7/

4/

1/

/1

4/

1/

8/

/1

2/

9/

6/

4/

19

/1

/1

/1
/1

/2

/3

/7

/1

/2

/2

/5

/1

/1

/2

/2

16

23

30
9/
10

10

10

11

11

11

11

12

12

12

12

10

1/

1/

1/

1/
46
THERE ARE MANY PEAKS ACROSS THE CHRISTMAS SEASON
AND EACH PEAK HAS ITS OWN UNIQUE CHARACTER

Peak Dates Region Priority

11:11 11 Nov Global High

Black Monday 25 Nov Global Low

Black Friday 29 Nov Global High

Shop Local Saturday 30 Nov Global Low

Global
Cyber Monday 2 Dec High

Giving Tuesday 3 Dec Global Low

Last Shipping Day 16 Dec Regional Mid

Christmas Eve 23–24 Dec Global Low

Boxing Day 26 Dec Regional Mid

New Year Day 1 Jan, 2020 Global Low

3 Kings 6 Jan, 2020 Regional Low

January Sales 1–31 Jan Global High

47
The percentage of people
who shop on the holidays

Source: 1. “Facebook Global Holiday Study”—A Facebook IQ commissioned online study by Ipsos, Jan 2019. 48
GENERAL PEAK STRATEGIES
• Extend each peak as much as possible by
starting early with big offers
• Create sense of urgency with ‘limited
time offers,’ etc
• Flash Sales
–– Massive flash sales can drive conversions and grow
your audience for retargeting over the rest of the
Christmas season
–– Hourly item sales over peak periods help keep
customers coming back and exploring your
sales offering
• Threshold Sales
–– Tiered threshold sales drive increased average order
value (AOV). Encouraging consumers to spend a
little bit more in order to receive a larger discount
on their order enables you to drive incrementality
–– Offer threshold free gifts or free shipping to
encourage sales. Everyone loves ‘free’ gifts
and shipping
–– Offer discounts on bundled products.
Bundle similar or complementary products
together to increase AOV
• Retail
–– Drive clients in-store with personalised ads focused
on each of your retail outlets
–– Offer an extra discount for ‘order and collect’
shopping experiences (order online, collect in-store)
to cut down on shipping logistics
• Loyalty
–– Use early offers for loyal and repeat customers
–– Use remarketing discount code offers to entice
Black Week shoppers to return
–– Offer a strong returns policy to build
customer loyalty
• Run campaigns through your
Messenger bot for lower costs and
a guided shopping experience
• Tackle cross border markets
(US/CA, EU, Asia): Black Friday
is everywhere
• Avoid frequent changes to budgets
and strategy—everything should be
locked down one month prior to
going live
• Be flexible with successful offers—
continue offers past peak if they
are performing
• Keep a consistent discount message
across all sales channels
• Ensure discounts are competitive
All of the major shopping
peaks grew in popularity
globally in 2018.
49
PEAK AD STRATEGIES
• Switch to performance campaigns with your
tested holiday creatives
• Increase your budgets to maximise
conversions over the holiday peaks
–– Target dates before and after main peaks for
high ROAS

• Ensure your creatives are reflected on

your landing pages
–– Are you using dynamic language ads? Is your landing
page localised?

50
Set up campaign assets for
performance objectives

AD OPTIMISATION
• Maximising liquidity (CBO, AP, PAC, DLO, MMDA)
–– Consolidate audiences across languages (leverage Dynamic
Language Optimisation and multi-country language feeds)

–– Leverage all placements to gain efficiency in a crowded auction

market place

–– Try to leverage Campaign Budget Optimisation and use it to

streamline targeting (easier to manage and less budgets to adjust)

–– Include warmed up audiences (Page engagers, Instagram engagers,

time spent on website, Custom Audiences of discount users)

• Bidding and optimisation

–– Switch to 1-day click optimisation over Black Week

–– Optimise towards your true business goal

–– Value optimisation can work well for driving ROAS

–– Avoid reach and frequency buying (auction is cheaper and much

more reliable)

–– Don’t cap your bids and rely on automatic bidding

–– Test different funnel event optimisations to gain higher volume

(VC vs. ATC vs. Purchase)

–– Run automated campaigns to personalise your marketing efforts

51
HOLIDAY PEAKS
11:11
11th of November, previously known as Singles’ Day, originated in
China. 11:11 is about buying yourself a gift. It’s popular throughout
Asia and is growing in importance in EMEA and NA.

Alibaba start celebrating 11:11 as a shopping day in 2009, and with a

turnover of about $6 million it’s now the biggest shopping day in the
world. In 2018, Alibaba did over $30 Billion in sales, with transactions
coming from over 230 different countries.1

• 11:11 starts gaining traction at the start of November and peaks

hard on the 11th
• 11:11 is singular in terms of the variety of goods sold; it hit records
in everything from phone sales to powdered milk and diaper sales

Over
40% of Alibaba’s 11:11
sales went to
international brands2

–– MAC sold 3,700 11:11 special edition lipsticks in one second

–– Buick, the US auto manufacturer, sold over 7,000 vehicles on the day

–– Apple iPhones outsold models from China’s major smartphone brands,

Huawei and Xiaomi

Source: 1. Salesforce Blog: ‘ Singles’ Day Stats You Won’t See Anywhere Else ’ November 2018), 2. Forbes, ‘Alibaba’s Singles’
Day Hits Another Record: 3 Takeaways Beyond The Big Number’, November 2018). 52
 Global
Online Conversion Data Visible to Facebook
During the 2018 Holiday Season (internal data)
18
18
18
18
18
18
18
18
18
18
18
18
18
18

11/ 8

18
18
18
18
18
18
10/17/18
10/18/18
10/19/18
10/20/18
10/21/18
10/22/18
10/23/18
10/24/18
10/25/18
10/26/18
10/27/18
10/27/18
10/29/18
10/30/18
10/31/18

11/10/18
11/11/18
11/12/18
11/13/18
11/14/18
11/15/18
8
8
8
8

8
8
8

11/ 8
11/1/18
11/2/18
11/3/18
11/4/18

11/6/18
11/7/18
11/8/18
11/9/18
1

/18
1/5/18
1/1
2/1
3/1
4/1

6/1
7/1
8/1
9/1
17/
18/
19/
20/
21/
22/
23/
24/
25/
26/
27/
27/
29/
30/
31/

10/
11/
12/
13/
14/
15/
1/5
11/
11/
11/

11/
11/
11/
11/
10/
10/
10/
10/
10/
10/
10/
10/
10/
10/
10/
10/
10/
10/
10/

11/
11/
11/
11/
11/
Global
Global

The spikes in conversions we see globally on 11:11 are being

driven by East Asian eCommerce websites pushing the new sales
day. There were more eCommerce conversions on 11:11 than any
other peak over the season.1

11:11 strategies
• Kick start your Christmas campaigns with this important cross border
business shopping day
• 11:11 is growing in importance; check its regional popularity and
set campaigns to match local knowledge of the newest date on the
holiday calendar Break from tradition
• Leverage the popularity of 11:11 in Southeast Asia, Australia, Spain Beat the pack with significant 11:11 creatives
and Brazil to maximise ROI and performance campaigns and bolster
what is quickly becoming a staple peak of the
Christmas shopping period

Source: 1. Facebook internal date, May 2019 53

Black Week
There are three major shopping peaks over Black Week with Black Friday
and Cyber Monday taking centre stage. The week kicks off the Monday
before Black Friday, a good date to begin pushing online sales and events.

This year Black Friday falls on November 29th (it was the 23rd last year).
This shift significantly shortens the Christmas shopping period; moreover,
and in many markets, Black Friday will correspond with most people’s final
pay day before Christmas. Both of these signals indicate that Black Week
2019 is shaping up to be a big hitter.

Online Conversion Data Visible to Facebook

During Black Week (internal data)
Black Friday

Cyber Monday

Last shipping day

18

11 /18

11 18

11 18
11 /18

11 18

11 18
11 /18

12 8

12 8
12 8

12 8
12 /18

12 /18
12 /18

12 18

12 /18

12 /18
12 /18

12 /18
18
1
/1

/1
/1
4/

8/

0/

4/

6/

0/

4/

4/
6

/2

/4
/6

/8

0
2
/1

/1
/1

/2

/2
/2

/2

/2
/3

/1

/1
/1

/1

/1

/2
/2

/2
11

11

Black Friday is the most popular shopping day of the holiday season.1

Source: 1. Facebook internal Data, May 2019. 54

Pre-Black Week strategies
• The run up to Black Week is the perfect opportunity for branding and
teaser campaigns. (This is especially important for products with a
longer conversion cycle).
• Early shoppers are usually considerate gift purchasers and will
generally have a longer consumer journey; they will also be looking for
value for money.

Break from tradition

Do a ‘Pre-Black Friday’ old stock clearance sale the weekend
before Black Week for lower CPAs, a quick jump on the
sales period and to build your client list.

Black Monday
• The first day of Black Week switch all budgets to performance ads
• eCommerce companies usually kick off on Monday, with retailers
joining on Thanksgiving or Black Friday
• To keep your advertising fresh, start your campaigns with stacked
discounts that increase over the Monday-Thursday period or simply
expand the range of discounted goods as the week progresses

Break from tradition

Start with a larger discount between Monday and
Wednesday to try and clear your stock before CPAs
pick up towards the end of the week.

55
Black Friday
• The top conversion day of the holiday period.
• All campaigns should be up and running. While there is a noticeable
increase in CPAs, increased conversion rates more than offset any
change in costs
• For a smooth day, ensure you have completed all of your
pre-campaign checks. Retailers should use Offline Conversions
measurement tools
• This year Black Friday falls on the last pay week before Christmas

Break from tradition

Experiment with newer markets embracing
Black Friday for some quick wins at lower cost.

Shop local Saturday

• This shopping initiative is designed to allow smaller local shops to
take advantage of the Black Friday bonanza

Break from tradition

Work with smaller retailers who sell your products in order
to direct in-store traffic. This can be an effective PR strategy
for eCommerce businesses and brands. Smaller eCommerce
stores should also brand creative for Shop Local Saturday.

56
Cyber Monday
• The final day of Black Week is focused on eCommerce sales and is
the second largest peak of the week.
• Campaigns will end today and it’s a good time to consider whether
it’s worth extending them to clear more stock (Be flexible)
• This year Cyber Monday falls on the 2nd of December, meaning the
shopping period to last shipping date is very short (2–3 weeks)

Break from tradition

Continue sales into the following week to take advantage
of the ‘after-glow’ effect created by Black Friday

Giving Tuesday

#GivingTuesday is a global day of giving, fuelled by the power of social

media and collaboration. Celebrated the day after Cyber Monday,
Giving Tuesday kicks off the charitable season, when many focus on
their Christmas and end-of-year giving.
Last year Facebook online
Break from tradition
fundraisers raised $125 million
Work with local charities to make sure what you give back
for charities on Giving Tuesday;
this year makes the biggest impact possible Learn more Facebook mirrored $7 million
in contributions1

Source: 1. Facebook.com/help, What is Facebook doing for #GivingTuesday 2018?, 2019. 57

Last Shipping Day
• The traditional Christmas shopping period for eCommerce clients
ends on Last Shipping Day. This varies by region; be aware of when
each of your campaigns should end and create a sense of urgency
as Last Shipping Day approaches.

of US internet users said free

96%
shipping affects their purchase
decisions. The maximum number
of days a shopper will wait for a
package with free delivery to
arrive has shrunk, from 5.5 in
2012 to 4.1 in 2018.1,2

Break from tradition

• Target shoppers in regions with long shipping timeline
expectations (Australia, APAC) early so as to capitalise on
the sense of urgency that Last Shipping Day creates
• eCommerce brands should focus on ‘digital gifts’ like gift
cards or downloads to extend the Christmas season past
Last Shipping Day

Source 1. eMarketer, ‘Online Shoppers Want More Control Over Deliveries ’, November 2018, 2. eMarketer, ‘Shoppers
Increasingly Impatient with Delivery’, March 2018. 58
Final Retail Week
• Retailers have a distinct advantage over eCommerce businesses on the
final week before Christmas
• Consumers buying last minute gifts are also less price conscious and
are willing to pay more for convenience

Break from tradition

• Retail—Consider which demographics are more likely
to be last-minute shoppers and who they gift shop for.
Offer them in-store Click and Collect services for a
frictionless experience.
• eCommerce—Start your post-Christmas sales early to
take advantage of self-gifting.

Boxing Day and 3 Kings

• Many regions have localised celebrations and sales dates. Knowing
which dates are important in each market is key to your cross border
marketing strategies.

Break from tradition

For lower CPAs and brand building, refocus global peak
budget to take advantage of localised holiday dates with
personalised content

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January Sales
• Sales dates vary by region
• The post Christmas period not only offers
discounts, but is a good time to follow up
with customers on products purchased and
build relationships
• In the UK, sales start on December 26th, Boxing
Day, while in Spain it’s the 7th of January
• eCommerce businesses can start sales much
earlier than retailers (Last Shipping Day)

Break from tradition

Offer your pre-Christmas clients a free gift or
special offer for participating in your January
sales in order to help strengthen relationships

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QUICK LINKS
Helpful information to make sure you’re
ready to go for Christmas

Fundamentals
Beginner’s guide
Budgets
Creative tips
Facebook’s Guide to Zero Friction Future

Optimisation

Interpret your results

Ad delivery
Bid strategies
Metrics
Campaign experiments
Conversion tracking

Ads
Ad format
Ad placements
Audiences
Campaign objectives

Cross border business

Overview
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 LET’S WRAP IT UP
Christmas is an incredible opportunity to connect with shoppers and assure that your products
and brand rise to the top of their wish lists. While the peak Christmas season may be November
through December, successful Christmas campaigns start much earlier, and not just in terms of
planning. Successful retailers start their tests in July and take advantage of the back-to-school
season to kick off their holiday branding and customer acquisition campaigns.

As shoppers use their mobile phones to make their Christmas shopping decisions, you have an
amazing opportunity to give them inspiration, remove friction from their shopping journey and
help them complete their purchases online or in store.

fb.com/itsinsights

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