We still have more to share from our holiday planning roadmap! Hear tips and advice from four more of our retail expert Account Directors and Managers.

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Jess Weisbrot, Account Manager, reminds us to be agile and forward thinking.‍

• #Selfcare – Historically, categories such as beauty, fitness, and electronics have been purchased as personal gifts, taking advantage of holiday season deals. Today with “treat yourself” hyper-relevant, all retailers should have fun highlighting select products that are a personal splurge and remind customers to buy for themselves.
• Communicate holiday shipping deadlines prominently and include a buffer for COVID-19 delays and holiday demand. Ensure these timelines are consistent throughout the customer funnel, including marketing and abandonment cart emails, Support, and FAQ pages.
• Given the financial impact of COVID-19 on select consumers, offering services like Klarna and AfterPay will be lucrative to create gift-giving opportunities with a payment plan and build customer rapport. Be sure to promote these services in Shopping Cart Abandonment or Inventory Alert messages to drive urgency, awareness, and peace of mind.
• Create a frictionless customer experience, reminding customers to use PayPal, Venmo, and highly mobile-friendly services, including Apple Pay and Android Pay, to make checking out straightforward and secure from any device.

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Client Services Director Nigel Piggot highlights two best practices for the win this Holiday.‍

• Personalize every message to make shopping easier. Messages should be dynamic, engaging, and helpful to customers. Personalize with content and products across all triggers and in broadcast.
• Keep shoppers shopping all season – link emails to a daily deal or gift guide page. Don’t risk linking to a sold-out item and the negative customer experience that creates.

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Rob Burkholder, Enterprise Account Manager, reminds us simple optimizations go a long way.

• Improve your acquisition offer and capture new site visitors with a holiday-themed popup and a free holiday-themed gift with purchase.
• Update triggered messages and conversations to move customers down the purchase funnel quickly. Add relevant links and content blocks to Welcome Series and Abandonment campaigns to highlight gift guides, shipping cut-off dates, special promotions, etc.
• Capitalize on intra-season trends. The Holiday buying season has milestones and is long enough to take advantage of intra-season activity. For example, send a reminder or offer on Cyber Monday to contacts who clicked or visited your site on Black Friday but did not purchase. As a shipping cut-off approaches, send messages to contacts who have been active during this year’s buying season but not yet purchased.

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Account Manager Jon Sanville reminds us of the power of automation.‍

• Use dynamic content to promote early engagement. Consider your ‘active audience’ those site visitors since March. Tease upcoming holiday deals and products to this audience.
• Utilize recurring automated campaigns throughout the holiday. Promote your top sellers by adjusting the product recommendations algorithms to promote your top sellers in the last seven days instead of the last 30 days.
• Convert non-purchasers post-holiday by creating an audience of site visitors during the holiday season who did not purchase, and create a recurring automated campaign with a small offer. Separate this audience in cart and browse abandonment campaigns to send offer sooner.

Stay tuned for one last check of your to-do list, plus a few fun campaign ideas your shoppers will love!