2021 Powersports Digital Advertising Holiday Playbook
The pandemic caused a whole lot more people to go outdoors last year, leading to an 18.4% increase in new model sales in 2020 with an 11.4% increase in motorcycle and scooter sales alone as supply chain issues continue to cause inventory shortages. Take advantage of this year’s seasonal spike in demand with a smart seasonal advertising strategy to finish the year on a high note, no matter your inventory levels.
Make the Most of High Powersports Demand This Holiday Season
In this Holiday Playbook, we’ll share simple, advanced, and aggressive recommendations that can make your seasonal digital advertising campaigns a success.
The recommendations in this guide detail exactly where to put your time, attention, and dollars to see the highest return on your investment. From increasing ad spend to tailoring your ad copy, here’s how to use this guide:
- Start with Simple
- Layer in Advanced when you’re ready
- Switch to Aggressive when you’re want to dominate your market
Fill out the form below to download and print your own copy of the 2021 Powersports Digital Advertising Holiday Playbook:
Simple: Our Basic Recommendations
Search
| Update your ad text with seasonal language and keywords. | |
| Add holiday-specific keywords to your campaigns. Consider make and model variations on Black Friday Deals, New Year’s Savings, Holiday Specials, and 2021 Year-End Clearance Events. | |
| Make sure your ad copy features current pricing, availability, and incentives. | |
| Ensure you’re using a Smart Bidding strategy that allows you to generate the maximum number of conversions at the lowest cost per conversion. |
Display
| Update your ad creative and campaigns to run holiday or sales event-themed display ads. If you’re currently running a highly attractive incentive, make sure your assets feature it. | |
| Prioritize users who have shown interest before. Use remarketing campaigns to target and re-engage low-funnel customers. |
Video
| Create a holiday or sales-event-themed video. If you’re currently running a highly attractive event during this time, make sure your video prominently features it. | |
| Hone in on your remarketing audiences to re-engage low-funnel customers. |
Social
| Make sure you have adequate social media coverage across both Facebook and Instagram. | |
| Update your ad creative and campaigns to run holiday or sales event-themed social ads. If you’re currently running a highly attractive incentive, make sure your assets feature it. | |
| Use remarketing campaigns to target and re-engage low-funnel customers. |
Advanced: Recommendations to Take It Up a Notch
Search
| We expect to see a performance lift across all advertising efforts. Consider geo-expansion to reach farther out into new markets. | |
| Powersports sales will spike around the holidays, but lead actions will take place 1-2 weeks prior. Use additional ad spend to run a full campaign suite throughout November and December, and ensure you have enough budget to account for the increase in searches and clicks. Take a good look at your current budget and ask yourself whether or not bolstering the budget to support this effort is necessary. | |
| Make sure you’re capturing in-market searches across Bing as well. Ad space across Microsoft’s search network is far less competitive, which means you may experience lower CPCs. By transferring the same strategy from Google over to Bing, you can easily capture full-funnel coverage while still prioritizing low-funnel searches. | |
| Knowing Google will be removing expanded text ads next spring, get a jump on it during the holidays and replace them with responsive search ads. |
Display
| Supplement your Display targeting with Custom-Intent audiences, serving ads to users who have previously performed high-quality, low-funnel, in-market searches that demonstrate genuine purchase intent. |
Video
| Make sure you’re targeting Custom-Intent audiences and serving ads to users who have previously performed high-quality, low-funnel, in-market searches that demonstrate genuine purchase intent. |
Social
| Some of the best-performing social ad types include Facebook newsfeed carousel ads and Instagram collection ads. | |
| Be more specific with who you show ads to. Utilize customer match lists, lookalike audiences, or third-party in-market data to target specific, low-funnel audiences. |
Aggressive: Recommendations to Take It to the Max
Search
| Consider expanding geographical reach beyond the area you currently dominate and beginning to target neighboring cities. Conquest tactics, while expensive, can be fruitful when done correctly. Take a good look at your current budget and ask yourself whether or not bolstering the budget to support this effort is necessary. | |
| If you want to focus on a particular model or models during the holiday season, dedicate specific ad spend to each nameplate. Use your most popular model for a conquest campaign in addition to standard model-specific coverage. |
Display
| Leverage net-new placements across Google properties by developing Discovery campaigns featuring holiday or sales event-specific content. | |
| Continue expanding your reach across the display network. Place your ads on high-value websites such as motorcycle and ATV blogs, local news sites, or run dynamic prospecting campaigns to make sure that as soon as a searcher is ready to buy, your dealership is top-of-mind. | |
| Using a customer match audience list to re-engage past customers can be highly effective. Retargeting old vehicle purchases or expiring leases are prime options. Remember to check with your account strategist to determine account eligibility! | |
|
Leverage Google’s lookalike audience creation capabilities and target users with similar demographics to your highest-performing audiences. |
Video
| Expand your video reach beyond YouTube and leverage a Connected TV platform to feature your creative to in-market audiences across high-quality placements. | |
| Targeting in-market shoppers for specific models with highly relevant video creative assets can be impactful on the rest of your marketing efforts. | |
| Using a customer match audience list to re-engage past customers can be highly effective. Retargeting old vehicle purchases or expiring leases are prime options. Remember to check with your account strategist to determine account eligibility! | |
| Leverage lookalike audience creation capabilities and target users with similar demographics to your highest-performing audiences. |
Social
| Create and run lead form ads with CRM integrations to convert leads from Facebook and add them right into your sales process. |
Be in the Best Shape Possible for 2022
When you make the most of this holiday season, not only will you reach more interested motorcycle, snowmobile and ATV shoppers to generate more leads through the end of the year, you can also lay the foundation for success in the new year with user-level tracking.
Shopper interest is still expected to spike before and during the holiday season. When new leads feel scarce in January you’ll want to be able to continue working leads from the holiday months that haven’t yet converted — especially if inventory pressure starts to ease. With the right lead capture and sales enablement technology in place, you can continue to work and convert more leads from your existing pipeline into 2022.
Ready to get started? Fill out the form to download your own copy of the Holiday Playbook:
Celebrate a Strong Holiday Sales Season
As a full-service digital provider, we help powersports dealers generate high-quality, low-funnel leads year-round with a combination of technology, premium tracking, and a team that understands your business. If you like the sound of our recommendations, we can help you finish 2021 out strong. Get in touch and we can get started with a free digital analysis.
About the Author
Adpearance is the digital marketing company obsessed with generating quality leads. Our solutions combine cutting-edge technology, premium tracking, and an expert team to transform business results.
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