Halloween 2008 – Optimisation Tips

Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble……..

Halloween is now the third most lucrative trading period after Christmas & Easter & ahead of Bonfire Night & Valentines Day, so it’s well worth ensuring your campaigns are fully optimised to get the most from this valuable traffic season.


Be Creative: Halloween is about more than just fancy dress, parties for adults & kids means an increase in searches for alcohol, food, games & decorations. Think about whether something from your product line may fit into Halloween celebrations.


Start Early: We have seen that Halloween preparations starts earlier and earlier every year. Ensure your Campaigns are ready to go and budgets are tuned to capture the early traffic.


Leave Hide & Seek to the Kids: Let searchers know that you stock Halloween merchandise by including it in you Ad Text. Ensure you link directly to the page that sells your merchandise and include any important details such as last delivery times/ free delivery in your Ad Text.


Targeting: Halloween is even more of a traditional event in Ireland than in the UK, so it’s worth ensuring your ads are targeted to Ireland as well as the UK if you can deliver there. As the market is less saturated than the UK it is likely that your keywords well cost you less as well as help you reach a wider targeted audience.


Keyword Coverage: Ensure you have comprehensive keyword coverage to capture all relevant traffic. Use our keyword tool for relevant keywords & include all plurals & variations. Consider having a separate Halloween Campaign if you have a large range of products.


Use Negatives: Run Search Query Performances Reports to find negatives keywords to prevent your Ad from showing to irrelevant audiences. For example if you only sell Fancy Dress, ensure you add negative keywords like decorations and games.

Happy Halloween from Google!

Monday 20 October 2008 at 03:58