Dive Brief:
- The average American shopper will spend $900 on holiday gifts this year, and a new report by Strike Social made available to Marketing Dive found that parents spend 61% more on online shopping than non-parents. Strike Social compiled the data for the report from global YouTube campaigns it managed during Q4 2016, with analysis and cost-per-view determined by its proprietary data science tools.
- Parents also have a 309% higher clickthrough rate on YouTube campaigns across all five key retail holidays — Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Despite these factors, YouTube advertisers actually budget more in advertising to non-parents during the holiday shopping period and, when marketing to parents, focus their strategies too early in the season. The National Retail Federation found 68% of people don't start making holiday purchases until after November.
- Advertisers also try to reach parents on Thanksgiving and Black Friday with YouTube ads, but from Cyber Monday through the remainder of the season, the focus goes to non-parents for more than half of ad budgets even though view rates on YouTube for parents and non-parents alike peak on Cyber Monday.
Dive Insight:
Marketers are clearly missing the ball with some of their YouTube holiday strategies based on Strike Social's findings, losing out on revenue. This is a fairly egregious gap, as the period is a critical one for sales, especially for those in the retail category that are weathering tighter competition from e-commerce brands and companies like Amazon.
Why advertisers aren't budgeting more for parents, who are likely planning to buy more gifts for their children, is unclear, but it's not too late for marketers to adjust their strategies and capitalize on some undervalued shopping periods as well.
Beyond the discrepancies in audience targeting, the report uncovered interesting insights into campaign timing. Seventeen percent of all households plan on some holiday shopping after Christmas Day, so the New Year's window offers a lot of bang for the buck, as view rates increase while cost-per-view drops. Advertisers are missing out by not marketing on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, which each have a 20% higher view rate than Cyber Monday, Strike Social found.
New Year's Day reported the highest view rates and lowest cost-per-view for the entire holiday season, per the firm's analysis.
