12 Holiday Ecommerce Tips for Your Best End-of-Year Sales Yet

From creating personalized shopping experiences and prioritizing customer service to leveraging omnichannel marketing, these tips will help you crush your Q4 goals.

I know, I know — you’re still in autumn mode.

You’re making Thanksgiving plans and Googling the best pumpkin pie recipes, and here I come talking about holiday sales and end-of-year goals. Cue the eye-rolls.

However, experienced marketers know that now is the time of the year to start EOY campaign planning.

With more active ecommerce businesses operating online stores than ever before, you’ve got to get creative — and strategic — to connect with your customers and successfully beat the competition during the holiday shopping season.

Getting your ecommerce marketing initiatives in order now can keep you more organized as we barrel through Q4 while taking some stress off you and your team. Let’s get into it.

A Christmas email from clothing and lifestyle brand Anthropologie. (Image: Screenshot)

Holiday shopping predictions for marketers

A forecasting report from Salesforce powered by last year’s data and this year’s emerging trends highlights key holiday shopping predictions, and marketers would do well to take notes. Among the important takeaways:

• AI will likely shape digital sales this year, as consumers engage with marketing, buying, and services powered by artificial intelligence
• Many buyers have shifted to prioritizing affordability over quality, with Chinese shopping apps like Temu poised to take a major market share.
• Consumers will continue to favor the ease of online shopping versus shopping in-store on Black Friday, thanks to factors like the prevalence of free shipping and even same-day delivery options.

Overall, “2024 is going to be a really tough year for ecommerce advertisers,” says Nick McDermott, an SEM manager here at HawkSEM with extensive industry experience.

“With the election, ad inventory is going to be at a premium on video and social channels as they get flooded with ads from both parties.”

On top of this, Thanksgiving comes at the very end of November this year, truncating the shopping experience for consumers. (For the first time since 2019, Cyber Monday is in December.)

“We are losing one week between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year,” he adds.

Now that you know what to expect from these last few months of the year, here’s how to turn that knowledge into action.

Make your shopping ads stand out

1. Create a personalized shopping experience

Ecommerce stores can approach personalization in a handful of ways. Of course, there’s remarketing, wherein you retarget visitors who have previously viewed an item or even put it in their shopping cart but abandoned it before checking out.

If you can make it happen, now is the perfect time to ramp up your prospecting ads. This way, your retargeting pools will be primed and ready for purchase when the holiday ecommerce promos kick into high gear.

Some apparel brands will have a pop-up on their site letting the visitor choose the category or size they want to browse for, helping them narrow their options and create a more customized shopping experience.

You can also leverage heatmapping or page journey tracking (or what Google calls path exploration) to follow a customer’s cursor at every stage from shopping all the way to the checkout process.

This helps you identify strengths and weaknesses on your site (like design issues affecting customer experience or poor site functionality).

You can also use these details to reveal different information and products to holiday shoppers based on their browsing history and content interaction.

Pro tip: Add a call to action (CTA), reduce page length, or insert an exit-intent popup to help engage potential customers more effectively. 

2. Prioritize customer service

As the number of shoppers and online sales increase, so do the questions. You don’t want to run the risk of an unhappy customer — or a negative online review.

Especially since we know that research shows it’s cheaper to retain existing customers than attract new ones, ecommerce customer service is especially important around the holidays.

Here are just a few FAQs to be prepared for:

• How many days does it take to ship a product out?
• Do you offer gift cards?
• Are there any additional promos or deals going on?
• Will my purchase be here by the holidays?
• How can I find or track my purchase?
• What’s your return policy?

Live chat and automated chatbot options can often help answer common questions or link new customers to a frequently asked questions page. You can also consider outsourcing after-hours phone calls to a virtual assistant service provider.

Speaking of FAQs, make sure this page is updated with all the necessary information shoppers might wonder about.

You don’t want broken links or outdated info, since this will just frustrate your customer and could lead to the dreaded cart abandonment.

Pro tip: Loyalty programs and other incentives for loyal customers will be as crucial as ever if Salesforce’s prediction is correct that 40% of holiday purchases will come from repeat buyers.

Athletic apparel brand Outdoor Voices offers a discount in exchange for signing up for emails and lets shoppers personalize their shopping preferences. (Image: Outdoor Voices website screenshot)

3. Create holiday email campaigns

Email is one of the most effective digital marketing methods you can leverage, so it’s certainly worth a spot in your holiday ecommerce marketing plan.

“Email marketing is crucial to a successful holiday season,” McDermott explains. “[It helps in] building rapport with consumers as well as direct messaging.”

He recommends offering secret email-only promos as a fun way to get consumers engaged. Additionally, having a strong email marketing cadence will help post-holiday to ensure all those new customers from Q4 become strong loyal repeat buyers.

While Black Friday may get lots of hype, Cyber Monday drives billions of dollars in sales each year. Email marketing that highlights holiday promotions and offerings can be a great way to boost sales. But to stand out in an overflowing inbox, you’ve got to get creative.

When crafting your emails, we recommend you:

• Keep the message short and include eye-catching, themed visuals
• Create a “holiday countdown” email that tells recipients how much time they have left to place an order for overnight delivery, free shipping, etc.
• Always include a clear CTA, such as “buy now,”  that leads back to a landing page on your site
• Add a limited-time offer (LTO) — customers are more likely to take action when they know the deal won’t be around for long
• Segment your email lists so you can send the most relevant products to each group (returning customers, abandoned cart, etc.)
• Optimize for mobile, as the percentage of people purchasing straight from their phone continues to rise

Is your company participating in any philanthropic initiatives during the holidays, such as Giving Tuesday in November?

Whether it’s donating to a nonprofit organization or volunteering, highlight this in your email. Consumers tend to favor brands that give back over those that don’t.

Pro tip: Some brands create holiday promo landing pages ahead of time. They use these pages to generate more subscribers to their email list with CTAs like “Get alerts when our Black Friday deals go live.”

4. Use assets and sitelinks

Because pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns encourage targeted traffic, they’re on the top of most ecommerce brands’ wish lists.

When your company ad comes up, you can give customers the option to click on sales products, holiday gift guides, coupons, bonus offers, and similar promotions.

Using Google ads assets and sitelinks lets you add more context to the ads you publish. When a brand is searched for on Google, sitelinks can appear below the ad’s main URL.

Similarly, Google Ads can include assets that provide more info about whatever your ad is about through copy.

These sitelinks and extensions reduce the amount of work shoppers have to do, which can encourage them to click the link. You can also use review ad extensions to mention price reductions, special holiday shipping information, and more.

5. Focus on video marketing

Video ads on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok can produce better results than a text advertisement in some instances.

Especially when it comes to social media, the younger (and powerful) generation of shoppers today mostly prefers video ads.

So it’s no surprise this type of ad can be a better way to engage consumers, especially through user-generated content (more on that below).

“Having strong video assets makes all the difference,” McDermott says. “Social platforms like Meta are serving video ads way more often. TikTok is also here to stay and is a crucial platform to be on if your product’s target audience [is under] 35.”

Along with paid ads, you can leverage video content throughout your site to boost search engine optimization (SEO) as well.

These videos could show your apparel on a variety of body types or walk viewers through the easiest way to set up and use your product.

When publishing SEO-minded video content, it’s helpful to keep best practices in mind, such as:

• Adding captions
• Optimizing titles and descriptions
• Creating a video sitemap
• Exploring rich snippet SEO for videos
• Choosing the right hosting option

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Clothing brand Madewell allows you to shop via their Instagram posts. (Image: Instagram)

6. Take advantage of UGC

User-generated content (UGC) is becoming a major driving force behind successful ecommerce marketing campaigns, thanks in big part to social platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

(Just scan the #tiktokmademebuyit hashtag for proof — this hashtag is mentioned with nearly 10 million videos on the app… and counting.)

Some user-generated content comes from an organic, unprompted post that the brand then reaches out and asks the original poster to reuse. Other UGC comes from content creators and is created in partnership with the brand.

User-generated content is different from influencer marketing because content creators and influencers are not one and the same.

Content creators usually have a smaller following, and they’re creating content in exchange for products from a brand. The brand then owns that content and can post it directly onto its social media pages.

“The benefit of UGC is more authentic content at scale,” says Magnolia Dueull, associate director of social media at HawkSEM.

“Influencer content is typically more polished, and when done within a brand deal, typically extends the reach of a brand campaign to the influencer’s following.”

Coupled with stellar online reviews, UGC can make a great case for your brand during the holiday season.

Pro tip: Plan to launch your holiday campaign before Black Friday. Data shows Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the highest-grossing sale days of Cyber Week for holiday ecommerce sales.

7. Explore influencer marketing

If you haven’t explored partnering with relevant industry influencers yet, the holiday season is a great time to start. If this is your first influencer rodeo, you can look into nano- and micro-influencers first.

Micro-influencers (those with follower counts in the lower-to-mid thousands) have a higher conversion rate than their counterparts with more followers.

Plus, micro-influencers are often more affordable, making it easier to market your products to your target audience without breaking the bank.

Pro tip: Don’t make the mistake of a weak promotion. An offer of 10% off or free shipping simply isn’t going to attract customers like 20% off will.

8. Leverage social — and mobile

Online shopping through social networking platforms (aka social selling) continues to grow in popularity, according to eMarketer.

That’s why it’s crucial for your site to offer an equally pleasant and easy user experience on mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, and desktops.

“We expect the advertising trends to be more heavily dictated by consumer buying trends,” McDermott says. “As the cost to run ads is higher and the window is shorter this year, we highly recommend brands start focusing on awareness channels.”

He says getting in front of consumers and building that brand rapport is critical this year. As soon as a consumer thinks of buying a product similar to yours, your brand should be top of mind.

Another great way to capture those who mainly search and scroll on their phones is by creating timely organic and paid social media marketing content.

Explore all that m-commerce (that’s mobile commerce) and social selling have to offer — these budget-friendly tools can bring about big sales.

Pro tip: With a truncated holiday season this go-round, it’s wise to focus on early sales. Don’t be afraid to run a limited-time offer in early November or even late October. 

9. Focus on review sections

When nearly half of consumers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, you know they’re incredibly valuable.

Online shoppers tend to pass over products with no reviews or too many negative ones.

You can beef up your credibility through your holiday ecommerce plans by adding review sections, making them more prominent on your product pages and paid search ads, or asking previous satisfied customers to provide reviews via an email campaign.

Retail and outdoor recreation services brand REI has a thorough section on its website detailing the brand’s sustainability practices. (Image: REI)

10. Ensure your site is speedy

Oh, what fun it is to shop on a site with an average load time of under two seconds! (…Right?) Experts note that most people will abandon a site if it doesn’t load within 3 seconds.

There are ways to minimize your site’s loading speed, but working with a developer or your existing dev team is your best bet.

You can speed up your website through actions like:

• Minimizing HTTP requests
• Compressing your site’s files
• Scaling down images
• Reducing server response time
• Enabling browser caching

Pro tip: Don’t forget to engage consumers post-holiday. “Leverage email marketing to thank customers for purchasing in 2024,” McDermott advises. “Offer them a small discount in January so they continue to come back.”

11. Keep the eco-consumer (and the planet) in mind

As BigCommerce reports, there’s been a growing call from customers for more eco-friendly practices for brands. Customers value sustainability more and more — and it can affect a purchase decision.

Get creative with your holiday ecommerce efforts by highlighting any eco-conscious efforts you have at your company.

If you don’t have any, it’s a good time to revisit the topic at the top of the year — and perhaps partner with an eco org or donate to an eco-benefiting nonprofit in the meantime.

Not only do sustainably-minded business practices benefit the future, but it can help give you an edge over less mindful competitors.

Consider (and, of course, follow through with) some of these ways to comfort shoppers concerned about the environmental impact of their purchases:

• Biodegradable or compostable mailer sleeves
• Creating products with recycled materials
• Recycled packing materials
• Eco-friendly package transportation
• Mailing a multiple-item order in as few packages as possible

Warby Parker’s app offers virtual try-on options. (Image: App Store screenshot)

12. Consider AR & VR

One of the biggest hurdles to online shopping is that you simply can’t gather as much info about a product as you can in person. This includes what a color looks like in different lights, how a fabric feels, or the quality of the material.

More and more brands are working to mitigate this through augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).

Think: a virtual fitting room (as Shopify suggests), an eyewear brand that lets you upload a selfie to “try on” different styles, or furniture purveyors who let you digitally add their products into an existing photo of your living room.

If it makes sense for your brand, budget, and audience, adding these virtual elements to your holiday marketing strategy could bring about impressive returns (as in ROI, not refunds.)

Pro tip: And then, of course, there’s AI. Ecommerce brands can leverage this booming technology by using it to offer personalized recommendations, automate certain customer service questions, and brainstorm campaign or ad copy ideas.

The takeaway

The holidays should be a time of cheer, not a time to run yourself and your team ragged trying to keep up.

Having a solid ecommerce holiday strategy in place that maps out your holiday planning this busy season can help you and your team push through together without too many last-minute shenanigans — and come out profitable in the new year.

This article has been updated and was originally published in November 2019.