As Thanksgiving approaches, you should be thinking about how to refine your ad strategies to appeal to as much of your audience as you can. Thanksgiving marks the start of the holiday season, which means customers will be prepared to spend. In fact, a survey by Deloitte found that consumers are on track to spend an average of $1,778 this holiday season, which is up 8% year-on-year.
Recent trends show a strong shift towards programmatic ads, with advertisers increasingly using data-driven automation to effectively reach their target audiences and drive engagement. The benefit of programmatic is it allows you to optimize ad placements in real-time, based on data insights and trends.
This has, ultimately, changed how Thanksgiving campaigns reach consumers, giving brands the chance to stand out against holiday noise. Here, we’ll go through the various ways you can build out ads to drive engagement.
Thanksgiving Ad Strategies
Identify target audiences
Pinpointing your ideal audience is crucial — especially when Thanksgiving follows the politically charged election season. After a flurry of political-based ads, you should take advantage of the shifting social season, and create something that speaks to the audience you want to connect with.
Consider where your audience is spending its time, and how you can quickly connect with them. This could be through online display ads, social media, streaming, or gaming. Just ensure that your messaging is tailored to your audience.
Create optimized content
Now you’ve identified your target audience, you can create content to capture their attention. Consider eye-catching headlines, relevant images, and clear, concise messaging to make your ads stand out. You want to ensure your audience is actively engaged, so don’t be afraid to add a spark of creativity to stand out from the crowd, rather than following the trends of your competitors.
Craft a Thanksgiving-themed narrative to create an emotional connection with your audience which can, in turn, strengthen their loyalty to your brand. When content feels genuine and emotional, it’s more likely to attract the attention of your audience, and stand out from the holiday ad noise.
Increase bids
With major holidays, like Thanksgiving, it’s important to stay on top of your bidding strategies. You need to make sure you’re spending effectively to gain the most engagement with your ads, especially around the competitive ad landscape that comes with the holiday season.
To stay competitive, consider the following ideas:
- Increase your bids early: As well as evaluating your current bids rate, you can incrementally increase your bids to improve win rates. Or, you could consider applying a bid rate multiplier if there’s a lower-funnel KPI at play.
- Apply dayparting: Ensure you’re serving ads at a time when your audience is most actively engaged online.
- Revamp mobile campaigns: Shopping increases during the holidays. If your audience is on-the-go, or shopping from their mobile devices, you should be tailoring the messaging accordingly.
Enable cross-device targeting
We’re increasingly entering a multi-screen society. More than 70% of adults use a second screen while watching TV, whether this is a smartphone, laptop, or tablet. Cross-device targeting means that you’ll be serving your ads across all devices owned by your audience.
As well as this, campaign tracking is more effective when deploying cross-device targeting, as you’ll be able to see which devices are generating the most conversions. This allows you to optimize this part of your ad strategy to boost conversions further.
Leverage high-buying signals
By tracking high-buying signals, you have the chance to capitalize on effective strategies and better understand your consumer. With that being said, it’s equally important to evaluate engagements such as email promotion, social media, site traffic interactions, and free trial signups.
Take a deeper look into what resonates with your audience, and optimize the creatives accordingly.
Why Focus On Thanksgiving Ads?
Thanksgiving is the unofficial/official start of the holiday season. This means that customers are primed to start shopping, creating a valuable period for businesses. In 2023, Thanksgiving Day alone broke records with $5.6 billion spent in online sales.
According to eMarketer, total retail sales for the 2024 holiday season are forecasted to reach $1.372 trillion, growing 4.8% year-on-year. Building out effective programmatic Thanksgiving ad campaigns is crucial for capturing a share of this increased consumer spending.
Building Programmatic Ads With Grapeseed Media
Creating impactful programmatic ads requires thoughtful planning partnered with reliable support. For brands looking to launch effective Thanksgiving campaigns, Grapeseed Media offers programmatic advertising solutions tailored to holiday and seasonal marketing needs.
In 2023, our team helped JW Marriott increase reservations to the Stompin’ Grounds Restaurant on Thanksgiving Day. As a modern cafe located in the hotel, the Stompin’ Grounds Restaurant wanted to increase visitors for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
By optimizing landing page visits to the restaurant website, we generated a 704% increase in page views month over month, with an efficient CPA of $0.99.
With strategic, data-driven ads, we can help you communicate with and engage new consumers, making the most of the Thanksgiving holiday season.
Get in touch with our team to learn how we can support your advertising goals, with tailored programmatic ad solutions.
