US retailers are hiking up ad spend earlier this year in response to a growth in customer shopping ‘appetite’, which has seen holiday sales springboard ahead of Thanksgiving.
As compared to the 2012 and 2013 peak shopping seasons, which traditionally begin on Black Friday, predictive marketing specialist Kenshoo has released data which shows that paid search spending increased nine days ahead of Thanksgiving, a four-day jump compared to the last two years.
The study found that purse strings have also loosened this year with paid search spend exceeding 2012 figures by over 40% on each day prior to November 27, with the largest increase of 73% generated four days prior to the date.
With holiday promotions now in full gear by November 1 – dubbed as ‘Orange Saturday’ following Halloween – retailers are taking advantage of the extended window by widening their search ad strategies.
Within Google Shopping campaigns so far, retailers have invested over twice as much in Product Listing Ads (PLAs) since last year. An increase in spend took place 12 days ahead of Thanksgiving 2014, as shown in the graph below.
