Harness the Holiday Spirit With Contextual Targeting

Marketers this year will need to be ready for uncertainties when planning their holiday campaigns. One way to prepare for an unpredictable Q4 is to broaden your digital advertising strategy. By experimenting with different tactics, holiday marketers can figure out what campaign tactics work best. One innovation to try in 2024? Contextual targeting. 

Holiday sales trends continue to normalize to pre-pandemic levels. In 2023, e-commerce increased 8.8% to reach $248.02 billion USD, per EMARKETER. Shopping online has now become a common consumer habit, and we can expect it to continue in 2024, with online sales expected to grow 7% to 9% year-over-year. 

With contextual targeting, you can target online shoppers based on the content they’re consuming. This ensures that you’ll capture them at the right moments. This strategy is valuable because the previous consumer behaviours of the year prior might not hold true to the current year.  

As buying habits continue to shift, so should your contextual advertising strategy. Adapting to your user’s behaviours will allow you to reach consumers in the right frame of mind at the right time.  

To help you get started with campaign planning, here are three contextual targeting strategies that will help you reach the right audience this holiday season. 

Tis’ the Season of Discovery 

During the holiday season, shoppers are more willing to explore new products and services. Whether they’re shopping for others or themselves, you can take advantage of this opportunity by using contextual targeting to reach their interests. 

You can start by analyzing your audience’s mindset. There are a couple of ways to gain insight into your audience’s frame of mind. For example, you can use analytics to understand your audience’s demographics, leverage creatives to encourage interaction, engage in social listening, and ultimately build customer profiles that provide factual information about the demographics and buying behaviours of your target audience.

These profiles will help you understand what content your audience is browsing and what frame of mind they should be in to be more receptive to your ads. By understanding your target audience, you can narrow down the best domains to target. Then, extend that customer profile with broader contexts by including consumers who haven’t encountered your brand before. 

Not sure of the right context? Ask them! 

With discovery display ads, you can ask the user questions to determine their interests or opinions based on the topics you choose.

Holiday Contextual Targeting Based on Life Stage 

A person’s life stage is a key demographic factor in campaign planning, as it influences the products or services they’re more likely to purchase during the holiday season. With contextual targeting, you can leverage the life stage of your target audience as a strategy for reaching the appropriate consumers. For example, parents of young children are likely to be looking for toys to give as gifts to their kids. 

To contextually target based on the life stage, use in-context phrases related to the interests and milestones of your target group. Continuing the example of parents with young children, you can use in-context phrases related to parenting and further narrow your focus based on the age appropriateness of your products. If you’re targeting parents of toddlers, use phrases related to toddler development so your ads appear on products related to that life stage. This ensures you reach an audience receptive to products meant for that age group.

Target Holiday Related Keywords and Content

The right keywords should hone in on the mindset of someone receptive at that moment to your product or service.

During the holidays, you have the opportunity to target consumers who may not be part of your target audience year-round. That’s because many consumers are interested in buying products as gifts, not for themselves.

When users skim through specific content about “the top holiday gifts of 2024” or similar articles, they signal to brands that they’re actively looking for holiday gift inspiration.

You can use a contextual campaign to highlight and position a brand’s products or services as the perfect gift by targeting phrases related to gift-giving. Target phrases like “holiday gift ideas” to have your ads appear alongside content users browse related to gift ideas to encourage them to buy something unique for that special someone in their life (even if it’s a co-worker looking for a change of scenery). 

Contextual Targeting is Home for the Holidays

With 2024’s unpredictable holiday shopping season, experimenting with a range of marketing strategies, like the ones mentioned above, will be the key to running a successful holiday campaign. 

Looking to start using contextual advertising for your holiday campaigns? Request a demo to learn more about StackAdapt.