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How Consumer Technology Advertisers Can Build an Informed Campaign Strategy Using Past & Present Trends
According to the National Retail Federation, holiday sales grew 8.3% in 2020, with online and other non-store sales growing by 23.9%.
This means that, for online retailers and eCommerce brands, it’s more important than ever to get an early start on Black Friday and Cyber Monday planning.
We’re going to show how you can get started today, including:
Our 2020
trends & Predictions
In last year’s Black Friday article, we predicted that working and schooling from home would be key drivers of consumer tech purchases for Black Friday 2020. Turns out this prediction was only partially right — by November, everyone was already well-suited with all the gadgets they need to be productive from home.
Our data showed that top keyword trends included terms like ‘cloud,’ ‘gadget,’ and ‘photos.’ For image trends, we found that images:
With food had higher click-through rates (CTRs) than images without food
Without text performed better than images with text
With a woman performed better than images with a man
Without a person performed better than images with a person
What Consumers were buying in 2020
Black Friday
- Hot Wheels
- Super Mario 3D All-Stars
- Animal Crossing
- Airpods
- Apple Watch
Cyber Monday
- Super Mario 3D All-Stars
- Airpods
- Vtech Toys
- HP & Dell Computers
- Chromecast
Source: Adobe Analytics
A look back at last years trends
According to research from Adobe Analytics, the majority of the season’s hottest sale items were in consumer tech. From the day before Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, the top products included:
Apple products: AirPods and the Apple Watch
Games: Super Mario 3D All-Stars, Madden NFL 21, FIFA 21, Animal Crossing
Gaming systems: Xbox Series X/S and Playstation 5
Computers: HP and Dell
TVs and accessories: Samsung and TCL 4k TVs and Chromecasts
Huge Gains for
prime day
From a readership perspective, we here at Taboola saw the highest increase in pageviews around Amazon Prime Day for tech items — up by an incredible 784%. Last year’s Prime Day also generated the highest revenue totals Amazon has ever seen during a sales event.
Why do we mention Amazon Prime Day? Because of the pandemic, many consumers didn’t want to shop in stores. This is why we found a better comparison for our network around Amazon Prime Day (a purely eCommerce event).
And because Prime Day was held in October last year — just one and a half months before Black Friday — we can likely glean a more accurate reflection of what a “normal” Black Friday would look like.
What We Predict Will Be Popular This Year
For 2021, we predict that consumer technology will be one of the most — if not the most — popular Black Friday and Cyber Monday categories.
According to a National Retail Federation survey asking which gifts consumers planned to give in 2020, all categories decreased — except for electronics, which increased by 1%. We expect this trend to continue in 2021.
In terms of specific items, we believe it comes down to two major trends:
- Items that are typically expensive, like TVs, gaming systems, and computers. High prices mean that consumers are more willing to wait for a good deal (cue Black Friday).
- Items that rarely go on sale. This is demonstrated by the fact that Apple product sales jump when they're discounted.
In addition to these products, TechRadar predicts that we’ll also continue to see significant discounts on Amazon’s own products.
New Trends for Black Friday in the Consumer Technology Category
According to Taboola Newsroom data, this chart shows the top US news trends in the consumer technology category from January 1, 2021 to June 9, 2021.
This data confirms Amazon, Apple, and Google continue to be powerhouses, garnering continuous attention and curiosity about what’s coming next.
Consumers are also interested in other topics, like hardware and business software (and what’s going on in the Gates household).
Taboola Publishers That Support These Trends
How to Build an Ad Campaign Strategy Using News Trends
As you start to build creative and plan campaigns, there’s plenty of data to tap into to help make sure you’re maximizing your opportunities.
Let’s look at some creative trends and best practices for tech ad campaigns. The below shows US data that was pulled on June 22, 2021 from Taboola Trends.
Creative Trends: Images
Image trends data shows that color photos are getting significantly more clicks than black and white photos, so add a splash of color.
Close-up photos of people are performing better than distance photos, which can be easily accomplished by cropping your existing photos.
Historically, photos without text tend to perform better than photos with text, but current trends are showing this isn't the case. Try overlaying a keyword or phrase over your images to catch more attention.
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Image trends data shows that color photos are getting significantly more clicks than black and white photos, so add a splash of color.
Close-up photos of people are performing better than distance photos, which can be easily accomplished by cropping your existing photos.
Historically, photos without text tend to perform better than photos with text, but current trends are showing this isn't the case. Try overlaying a keyword or phrase over your images to catch more attention.
Previous
Next
Creative Trends: Videos
Video trends data shows that winter photos have a 100% completion rate, meaning that 100% of viewers who start a winter video are watching until the end.
Like images, color videos are performing better than black and white. Keep your colors in across all campaigns, whether the creative is static or moving.
Unlike images, videos without text have a higher completion rate than videos with text, so keep this in mind when designing multimedia campaigns.
Previous
Next
Like images, color videos are performing better than black and white. Keep your colors in across all campaigns, whether the creative is static or moving.
Like images, color videos are performing better than black and white. Keep your colors in across all campaigns, whether the creative is static or moving.
Unlike images, videos without text have a higher completion rate than videos with text, so keep this in mind when designing multimedia campaigns.
Previous
Next
Creative Trends: Headlines
Here are three sample headlines for an ad discussing video games, run through Taboola Title Analyzer. As you can see from the results, the headline that the analyzer predicts will garner the highest CTR is “Even the Grumpiest Kids Will Love These Video Games.”
When developing your creative, consider using headlines with a stronger emotional appeal and intrigue that entices users to click.
Holiday Ideas for Kids Who Love Video Games
3 Playstation Games to Buy This Black Friday
Even the Grumpiest Kids Will Love These Video Games
Predicted
CTR
Putting Trends Into Action
Putting all these trends together, here are a few examples of what a high-performing ad might look like.
Even the Grumpiest Kids Will Love These Video Games
Technology Brand
Checkout 2022’s Hottest iPhone Accesories
Technology Brand
Say Hello to the Best Laptop Deals of the Year
Technology Brand
Taboola Products to Fuel Your Black Friday Campaigns
We’ve compiled the top products and strategies marketers like you can use to shape campaigns during high-performing seasons like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Creative
Strategies
Video ads
Static images
Descriptions and calls to action (CTAs)
Repurposing social media content
A/B test multiple creatives with Taboola’s expedited learning, which lets our algorithm predict your highest-performing creative assets in less than 24 hours.
Targeting
Solutions
There’s no better way to learn someone’s interests than to learn about what they’re reading online. We’ve built a wealth of targeting solutions to connect audiences and brands, including:
- Contextual Targeting: Show ads alongside content your ideal customers are already reading, with the help of machine learning and contextual intelligence that scans content and analyzes audience behavior in real-time.
- Audience Targeting: Tap into an editorial marketplace with a deep, ongoing understanding of your audience's interests and behaviors.
- Taboola Audiences: Our platform offers hundreds of pre-packaged and custom interest segments to choose from.
- 3P Audience Targeting: Reach consumers based on work profiles, age and demographics, unique behaviors, and the types of consumer tech products they might be looking to purchase using 3P cookies.
- First Party Targeting | Direct CRM Onboarding & Lookalikes: Onboard your CRM data into the Taboola platform, to deliver personalized customer experiences. Build lookalike audience segments and suppress or target specific customers.
Bidding
Solutions
SmartBid auto-optimizes your bids at scale. This tool does the heavy lifting for you, automatically identifying your ideal audience and adjusting your bids for the right opportunities. Fixed Bid lets you manually adjust your bids.
Learn more about Taboola’s bidding strategies here.
Essential
Recommendations
Install the Taboola Pixel
The Taboola Pixel maximizes your ad performance by illuminating audience’s behaviors and the impact your ads are having. Discover new site visitors or interact with your content the way you expected.
Re-engage them with the help of customized click actions or targeting based on their time spent, length of sessions, or how far they’ve scrolled down a page.
Targeting Strategies
Implementing the Taboola Pixel will be beneficial for retargeting users:
- Pixel Audience Targeting: Re-engage users with custom messages based on actions they've taken across your sites. You can track actions such as "Add to Cart" and "Learn More." For example, retarget 'add to cart' users with a new offer or marketing message.
- Attentive Audiences: A group of users that have spent a significant amount of time on your website, but haven't yet converted. Retargeting these audiences enables you to re-engage users based on the attention they've paid to your brand.
Proven Results: These Consumer Tech Brands Saw Incredible Results with Taboola
CE TVs Triples Returns and Slashes Cost-Per-Session
CE TVs is a leading HDTV retailer that wanted to drive sales and maximize the bang for their online marketing buck during the holiday shopping season.
The company partnered with Taboola to promote its latest 4k and UHD TVs, reaching new audiences and widening their prospective customer base — all in a cost-efficient way.
The result: a 3x higher return on advertising spend (ROAS) and an 11x lower cost-per-session.
Goodgame Studios Multiplies Userbase
Goodgame Studios, a free-to-play, online games development company, began working with Taboola to support their performance marketing efforts. The company was in search of new users and higher engagement of their existing users around the world.
The campaigns ran on the Taboola discovery platform, driving quality traffic to special Goodgame Studios landing pages.
The result: a 300% boost in new player growth.
Start Your Black Friday and Cyber Monday Campaign Today
As the past tells us, the holiday shopping season continues to bloom — especially in the consumer technology category, and especially for online shopping. This means, when you’re gearing up to sell these products, there’s no such thing as preparing too soon.
You’ve seen the research. You have loads of tips on how to develop your campaigns and creatives. The only thing left is to get started!
Interested in learning how Taboola can help expand your reach and achieve your holiday revenue goals?