Cyber Weekend is one of the biggest weekends of the year for online retail businesses. Cyber Weekend 2021 in particular was crucial for businesses that were forced to adapt to online shopping due to Covid-19. Businesses that use our retail ads management services were no different. Read our results and takeaways below.
Cyber Weekend 2021 Predictions
Leading up to this year’s cyber weekend, Google was predicting a 120% growth in searches year on year. In the first 24 hours of Black Friday, Google saw significant increases in traffic for key retail categories:
This uplift in search volume shows the importance of Cyber Weekend in 2020 for online retail.
Dynamic Creative Results from Cyber Weekend
The majority of our clients saw significant increases in both traffic and sales over Cyber Weekend. Black Friday for most customers had the highest amount of traffic and sales when compared to Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
We also noticed this year that the sale period seemed to start earlier. A lot of our clients had high performance throughout the week leading up to Black Friday. In particular the Thursday before Black Friday saw strong results.
When looking at customer results in two of the key retail categories (apparel and electronics), we saw significant uplifts in performance year on year for Cyber Weekend. Apparel saw a 19% increase in revenue year on year. Electronics saw an even greater increase of 60%.
Note on Competition in Google Ads
Although we saw an increase in performance, we also saw that competition across most industries was high. In order to stay competitive, many saw an increase in CPCs and overall cost. However, this increase was not linear with the increase in sales and revenue.
The below chart shows the increase in Average CPC across our Fashion Customers YoY.
Average CPC Rise over Cyber Weekend
We found for those that did not increase their budgets and reduce their targets, they were outbid in the auctions completely. The chart below shows how much more spend was required to compete.
Change in Cost Over Cyber Weekend 2020 v 2019
Overall, search volume in November was almost double what is was in 2019. It seems that this sale period has had substantial growth year on year, making competition fierce.
Cyber Weekend 2020 Case Studies
Equestrian Retailer
This Equestrian retailer was able to scale their spend towards the end of November in Google Ads. Dynamic Creative tripled the retailer’s average daily budget across Cyber Weekend and were able to increase their average daily Revenue by 5x.
This customer came to Dynamic Creative because they were unable to scale their campaigns in Google Ads. Over Cyber Weekend and the week leading up to Cyber Weekend, we increased their paid traffic by over 8x year on year and increased Revenue by over 13x.
Accessories Retailer
Over Cyber Weekend, this accessories retailer spent $18.4k which resulted in revenue of $152k and a return on ad spend (ROAS) of 8.2 or 820%. Comparing the Cyber Weekend week of 2019 with 2020, spend increased $12.8k and revenue increased $170k.
Over Cyber Weekend this customer had a flexible budget so we were able to increase spend and capture the increase in demand. As you can see, this resulted in significant increases in both sales and revenue for the customer.
Our Takeaways From Cyber Weekend 2021
Based on our learnings from Cyber Weekend 2020, our 3 top tips for online retailers going into key sale periods are as follows:
- Reduced Targets – In order to stay competitive in the market you may need to consider reducing your targets during key sale periods. This will help ensure you are competitive when entering the auction and increases your chances of showing ads to those who are searching. Read more about setting an online advertising goal.
- Flexible Budgets – Ensure that you have sufficient budget and that it remains uncapped during peak periods. If you run out of budget then your ads won’t be able to show. If you are not showing ads, then you are missing out on the opportunity for customers to purchase from you over your competitors.
- Single Keyword Ad Groups – Single keyword ad groups will help to ensure that your ad copy and landing pages are relevant. They also allow a more granular level of optimisation. In turn, this will save you money on your clicks, allowing you to advertise more for your budget, and generate more sales!
