Cyber ​​​​Monday: Planning for visibility and value ahead of the season

Cyber ​​Monday is a critical day in the e-commerce calendar. Together with Black Friday it marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.

According to the Adobe Analytics report, US consumers spent nearly $204 billion during the 2021 shopping season. This date is not only crucial to attract new customers, it is an opportunity to increase sales from existing ones, and an opportunity to raise brand visibility, increase ROI and foster brand loyalty in sectors where they do not yet have it.   

Cyber ​​​​Monday is one of the most critical days in the e-commerce calendar, next to Black Friday.

Cyber ​​Monday is an informal name for the Monday after Thanksgiving Day.

Marketing departments coined the term in the middle of the 1990s as part of an effort to create a new buying event that could compete with Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving).

Why "Cyber ​​Monday"? In 2005, the New York Times published: "The name Cyber ​​Monday stems from the observation that millions of American workers, feeling renewed after a weekend of Thanksgiving Day and Christmas shopping, returned to their jobs on Monday, where they would connect to high-speed Internet to buy the things they were interested in." The trend marked an increase in sales on the Monday after the American holiday - especially during working hours - since at-home connection, at that time, was still very slow.

Over time, many marketers began using other names, such as Green Monday (in reference to ecology) or Small Business Saturday, but these terms never caught on.

Visibility: before Cyber Monday

Before focusing on new clients and sales, we need to take advantage of our existing customer base. That's why Email marketing continues to be a valuable tool: the first people to receive our offers should be those that have already purchased from us as they have already demonstrated interest in our products. They are more likely to pay attention to what we have to say via this channel. 

Moreover, email marketing can be measured: you can track how many people have opened your emails, clicked on the links, and what products they are interested in or purchasing. This provides valuable insight into what works and what doesn't, so that when Cyber Monday rolls around next year, we'll know exactly which promotions will encourage people to buy from us again.

Offers and discounts have started early for the last few years due to the uncertainty of Covid, post-covid economy, and other factors.  Early offers give you the opportunity to capture those who are already looking.  This is a good moment to work on pre-sale advertising strategies, communicating your offers ahead of time so that your clients know to look out for them. This helps create anticipation for the actual sale date and drive more sales from customers who want to be among the first to get their hands on the product. It also helps you establish credibility within your niche, showing consumers that you're an established company with something new to offer for the holidays.

It is at times like these, when you have a high number of products for sale and a limited time to distribute them, when pre-sales comes in handy: plan inventory, promotions, and outreach channels (email, PR, influencers, ads) before Cyber Monday to make sure everything is ready for sale to can save a lot of time and headaches during the season.

It is also key to work well in advance with publishers who advertise industry-related promotions, such as tomsguide.com, TechRadar.com, etc.

Talking about planning, a marketing channel which tends to be left out for Cyber Monday strategies is SEO Positioning. 

SEO ("search engine optimization") is a way to maximize the visibility of your website on search engines like Google. It's important to understand that SEO isn't a one-time thing: it's an ongoing, long term process that requires planning and ongoing work to deliver results. You'll need to make sure that you continue to use keywords that are relevant to your business, that you create content that users can easily find, and that you optimize your website for mobile users.

SEO is like any other aspect of marketing: the more effort you put into it, the more value it brings to your business. The opportunity in this case is to build in advance, over the year, so that Google has indexed your content by the time people start searching for Cyber Monday and similar related content. An alternative for ecommerce sites that don’t publish content is to partner with publishers, of course. 

Cyber Monday and Black Friday are big sales weekends and you need to plan ahead and leverage that big sales window with a Paid Media Advertising plan.

Regardless of the size of your organization, the first step to creating a successful advertising campaign is to narrow who you will be reaching and where, as budgets are always limited and you want to maximize your ROAS (Return On Advertising Spend). Media Planners analyze where and how people find and purchase your product. This includes keywords people will use when looking for an offer or product comparison and reviews. Make sure your keywords connect with how you are promoting your products or services (the copywriting, creative), to allow consumers to quickly connect the dots. This will help ensure that potential customers see your ads when they search on Google or other platforms, and click and interact with your offers instead of scrolling past them. 

Your ad position will depend on how much you're willing to pay per click as well as the rating or quality of the experience for users clicking on the ads. You may consider optimizing it by increasing your cost per click (CPC) bid, but a good media buyer will focus on optimization of purchasing intent as well as the consumer journey.  

A paid retargeting and look-alike strategy will usually be a key part of the optimization process, as a way to stay top-of-mind with people who already interacted with your brand or who are similar to those that purchased.

That's precisely how brands like Amazon are able to get so much traffic right before major holidays like Black Friday or Cyber Monday: their ads will track users, repeatedly reappearing (retargeting them) until they finally engage with it or make a purchase.

The ever growing importance of Gen Z consumers in the digital universe brings our focus to TikTok. The video platform has grown substantially in the past two years as other traditional networks like Meta or Instagram are experiencing a sharp slowdown in growth. 

So, when faced with the challenge of effectively impacting this audience with your products during the sales season, it is worth asking whether to do it through influencers, content creators, paid media, or other partnerships.

Generating Awareness and Consideration

Developing awareness and consideration campaigns throughout the year can increase your brand's value during special dates, like Black Friday or Cyber Monday. 

For example, on Thanksgiving and during the Holiday season, many people travel to visit their families or for vacation.

At InPulse Digital, we developed a campaign to generate awareness about travel safety for TSA lock technology company Travel Sentry. 

Always focus on creating value around any special date or event by bringing information that contains humor, advice, or entertainment through storytelling that helps translate your brand's culture.  

Website Checklist for Cyber ​​Monday

Before promoting your Cyber ​​Monday sales, ensure your website and other digital channels are ready: 

Here is an essential checklist of topics to check:

• Is your website ready for Cyber ​​Monday?
• Check the speed of your website with Google Speed Insights.
• Check the security of your site and make sure you have an SSL encryption certificate installed.
• Is your website navigation, images, and speed mobile friendly with devices such as phones or tablets?
• Is your site optimized for search engines (SEO)?
• Do you have enough inventory in stock to meet demand and a plan to track sales and adapt promotions?
• Do you have a plan to deal with shipments, or do you need more suppliers?
• Is your analytics set up correctly, tested, and someone is in charge of looking at traffic and conversions? 
• Are you capturing email leads through a promotion, landing page, or pop-up? 

Cyber ​​Monday is an excellent opportunity for brands to gain visibility, increase their ROI and build customer loyalty.

But with so many offerings at once, businesses need to create an engaging experience that resonates with customers.

For example, by encouraging users to share their Cyber ​​Monday experiences on social media, you can create buzz around the brand and get people to talk about it.

In short, if you increase sales and visibility of the brand during Cyber Monday and the entire holiday season and have greater customer loyalty, commitment, and satisfaction, you can say that you have been successful in your management and strategy.