Omnichannel shoppers collide with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, setting new records

Black Friday and Cyber Monday continue to gain cultural significance across the US and the globe as shoppers and retailers deepen their relationships through enhanced technology, stronger/more personalized deals and a singular online-offline approach. As for 2017, all major metrics trended up, including click volume, mobile purchases, foot traffic and overall sales. Cyber Monday 2017 marked the biggest shopping day in US history, with over $6.59B in sales, including a record-breaking $2B in mobile sales.

Bing (my employer) also saw strong positive trends, with a YOY jump in clicks across Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the entire month of November. In the US, clicks were up 9 percent (cross-device) between Black Friday and Cyber Monday when compared with the same time period in 2016, and we also saw clicks up 12 percent YOY for the month of November. The rise in clicks is likely due to large retailers who extend Black Friday deals earlier and later — a trend US consumers have come to expect as retailers like Walmart and Toyota offered week-long Black Friday deals.

This increase in clicks YOY wasn’t just a trend we saw in the US, but also around the world, as Black Friday and Cyber Monday become a global phenomenon. Bing’s international clicks across all devices were up over 17 percent for Black Friday and 20 percent for Cyber Monday.

The holiday numbers also support a strong omnichannel approach throughout the 2017 season. According to Matt Shay, CEO of the National Retail Federation (NRF), 51 million Americans shopped exclusively in stores throughout the holiday weekend, 58 million Americans shopped exclusively online, and a majority 65 million shopped both, representing the new sweet spot for leading retailers.

The online, mobile and in-store experience needs to work in harmony if retailers are going to continue in the new economy. The NRF reported that over 174 million Americans showed up in stores over the holiday weekend as retailers wooed consumers with free coffee bars, foot massages and cosmetic samples. As the numbers show, these same shoppers went home to buy online, many of them making purchases on their phones. The Home Depot even reported seeing more mobile traffic than desktop.

Black Friday deals also popped up in some new places, such as the Amazon Alexa, where users could find early deals starting November 22 through voice shopping. In classic omnichannel form, Amazon leveraged their Whole Foods brick-and-mortars to promote their Alexa devices. Every retailer should be following suit, combining their online and offline forces for maximum impact.

Bing’s Black Friday to Cyber Monday search trends

I love digging into the query reports post-Black Friday and Cyber Monday to highlight a few trends and see what has changed in consumer behavior as users search for deals this holiday season. Here are the insights I uncovered based on search trend data from the 2017 Black Friday to Cyber Monday shopping period:

Don’t forget to add year-modified keywords

We continued to see the trend where consumers are adding the calendar year to their search queries when looking for specific deals and offers. The top Black Friday and Cyber Monday intent-related keywords can be summarized in the following query combinations:

‘Tis the season for tech and entertainment

As in previous years, we saw a surge in tech-related queries as consumers searched for the latest phones and gaming consoles. It’s no surprise to me that the most-searched-for tech items are the two that are almost impossible to find with a discount: the iPhone X and Xbox One X.

We’re also seeing search trends that point to this year’s hottest toys. Last year, Hatchimals were the toy du jour; this year, Fingerlings have taken over. There was also a surge in searches for Yu-Gi-Oh! Dueling Nexus.

It’s also the time of the year to be entertained, so it wasn’t a surprise to see the movie “Bad Moms Christmas” as one of the top new queries over the holiday weekend.

It’s not too late

There’s still time to make the most of the 2017 holiday season. Here are five quick ways you should be using search to leverage your omnichannel strategy:

1. Get ready for Green Monday. The 2016 comScore data rated the second Monday in December, or Green Monday, as one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Be sure your campaign budgets are high enough to accommodate a likely spike in traffic on Monday, December 11.
2. Watch your budgets: Make sure you account for high-traffic shopping days. 2016 comScore data showed a string of 27 consecutive billion-dollar shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, up from nine consecutive billion-dollar days in 2015. If this trend continues, it is worth keeping an eye on campaign budgets between Thanksgiving and Christmas, paying special attention to your top traffic days for the 2016 holiday season to make sure you don’t run out of budget before the end of the month.
3. Know your shipping cutoff dates. Make it easy for your customers to understand the deadlines for ground shipping, two-day shipping, next-day shipping, or even same-day shipping, so their gifts can make it on time. I pulled together the dates from USPS, UPS and FedEx for you in the graphic below:

4. Use ad extensions to call out shipping cutoffs and promotions. No one likes buying holiday presents only to miss the cutoff by a single day. Be sure to clearly communicate your shipping requirements with customers, including placing it in ad copy and site extensions. It’s not too late to use countdown ads customizers in your ad copy to call out shipping cutoffs or to call attention to those last-minute holiday promotions.
5. If available, advertise free store pickup. Most of today’s leading retailers are offering free store pickup as a solution for busy holiday shoppers. If applicable, advertise free store pickup in ad copy and site extensions, especially after shipping cutoff dates pass.

[Article on Search Engine Land.]

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Christi Olson

?Christi Olson is a Search Evangelist at Microsoft in Seattle, Washington. For over a decade Christi has been a student and practitioner of SEM. Prior to joining the Bing Ads team within Microsoft, Christi worked in marketing both in-house and at agencies at Point It, Expedia, Harry & David, and Microsoft (MSN, Bing, Windows). When she’s not geeking out about search and digital marketing she can be found with her husband at ACUO crossfit and running races across the PacificNW, brewing and trying to find the perfect beer, and going for lots of walks with their two schnauzers and pug.