Yet another Valentine’s Day is approaching, and millions will be interested in buying the most special gift for their significant others. As February 14 approaches, you can imagine what this means for the e-commerce ecosystem: a new wave for the rush of gift searching, but this time specialized around roses, teddy bears, diamonds, reds, pinks, and all things love. In a way, anything can be a Valentine’s Day gift if your significant other is interested in it. So, it can never be not wise to think of a Valentine’s Day campaign for your e-commerce business. But how can you create such a campaign? In this post, I will be focusing on some ways to create effective Google ads for Valentine’s Day. :)
Google Display Network (GDN)
Google Display Network (or GDN for short) is a network of 200+ million websites, videos, and apps. The ads in this network will be shown to your desired target audience among millions of people who visit these sites and apps daily. This network is powerful as it reaches 90% of the world’s internet users. But how to target people when creating such a campaign?
Targeting for a GDN campaign
Targeting for a Valentine’s Day campaign can especially be tricky as love knows no boundaries, and a middle schooler
with his weekly allowance,
as well as a businesswoman whose love language is giving gifts, can be likely to convert to customers once they find
that one special gift for their sweethearts.
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Relationship filter
We know that Google GDN has a filter to separate singles from those in a relationship. But relationships are dynamic, and unless it is registered, Google might not be aware of some of the relationships out there. Still, it would be a good option to start. -
Interest and demography filters
Other options include interest and demographic filters. You can use them as you wish, just as you use them in your other campaigns. -
Targeting bid
You can always adjust the bid for a particular targeting setting if you have a little more to spend for your Valentine’s Day campaigns. If you produced a heart-stamped tennis ball and you especially want tennis-player couples to see your ads, then you can always bid for tennis-playing men and women for your campaign to ensure better that such people will see your ads. -
Contextual targeting & placement targeting
Another targeting option allows you to show your GDN ad on the websites which contain your desired keywords or topics. This is called contextual targeting. For contextual targeting, Google’s system analyzes the texts on websites based on various factors like text, language, link structure, and page structure and decides if your ad is eligible to be shown on that site. You can also add specific websites or GDN placements while targeting, which is called placement targeting.
Love is blind. But so are we. Avoid banner blindness!
Banner blindness is our ability to ignore the display ads. Though they may be scattered all around a website,
we may professionally not see what they want to show us.
The most important factor in avoiding banner blindness is to select the right target audience.
Having selected the right audience, now proceed to select a placement most suitable for your ad.
After these two are accomplished, the rest is up to your creative team.
Do not forget to delve into the wide UX library on the internet to see how people interact with visuals and what
sorts of ads can go unnoticed.
Google Search Network (GSN)
Google Search Network (GSN) allows companies to show their ads to their audience the moment they start searching for
some product or service.
This is different from GDN, as with GDN, internet users come across the ads in a wider time span and on different
sites.
Through GSN, you can show your ads on Google search sites and in Google search partners. Just as with GDN, it is
important
in this network to select the best target audience and create an efficient campaign. But with GSN,
what differs is that your ad will be shown when specific keywords are searched for by your target audience.
Keyword selection
You can create target audiences based on interests or demographic info. But, how exactly will they be displayed?
There can be many different ways to search for a Valentine’s Day gift. But most of them are likely to include the
keywords “Valentine’s Day”,
“Valentine’s Day Gifts”, “Valentine’s Day gifts for men/women”, “cute Valentine’s Day gifts” etc.
You can select such keywords, then specify the keywords in the most suitable way possible.
For example, if you want to advertise your heart-stamped tennis balls through GSN, you can try “Valentine’s Day
gift for tennis lovers/enthusiasts”.
Then, your ad will be shown to your target audience when they use such keywords.
Create different ad campaigns for Valentine’s Day
You may be selling a wide variety of products or services on your site, but only a little that is suitable to be a Valentine’s Day gift. Separate your regular ads and Valentine’s Day ads. This will allow you to optimize and make changes in the latter campaign in a better way.
Discovery Campaigns
Google Discovery campaigns are shown on the feeds on the YouTube app, the Google app, and the Gmail app.
Google’s intent with Discovery ads is to show the ads to the audience when they are most ready and willing to
discover new things.
Discovery ads allow you to display visually engaging ads while reaching new customers and reconnecting with the old
ones.
While creating a Discovery ad, you select your target audience as well as your bidding strategy.
The entire ad creation process is followed by a two-week learning duration where Google Ads optimizes your bidding
strategy.
So, if you wish to create a Valentine’s Day ad using Google Discovery campaigns, it’s better you start preparing
earlier.
Endnote
Google is an incredibly fruitful area for any business owner there is. So, it is important to use it effectively.
This effective use becomes ever more important when we approach special days. These times, people engage more than
ever with what you sell and provide.
If you think that your products or services are what some sweethearts out there might be looking for, then you are
necessarily in this game, too, and
Google is never a bad place to start advertising. Happy Valentine’s Day!
