Holidays 2021: How to Reach New Shoppers This Holiday Season

After a year unlike any in recent memory, consumers are eager to return to normal and more open to new shopping experiences. U.S. holiday retail is forecasted to rise nearly 3% and e-commerce sales are predicted to jump 11.3% to $206.88 billion.² On top of that, 40% of customers predict they will shop more this year than in 2020.³

According to our research, 57% of people say they are not tied to shopping with their usual brands and more than 60% say they want to try new brands and new stores.⁴

The 2021 holiday shopping season provides a golden opportunity to connect with savvy shoppers open to new products and experiences. Here are seven ways brands can seize this moment.

1. Engage customers with new experiences

Your customers are looking for new things to buy and new ways to buy them. More than 80% of shoppers would like to see 360-degree views of products before buying, and nearly 75% want to discover new products by window shopping at virtual storefronts.⁵

From AI-driven content feeds to shopping experiences enhanced by augmented reality (AR), technology can help transform the customer journey and make brands stand out. More than 63% of shoppers see the benefit of being able to place objects in their space virtually, which helps drive consideration for your products.⁶ In 2020, AR ads produced a 38% engagement rate and a click-through rate of just under 4%.⁷

A powerful example of how brands can engage customers in a new way is RYOT Studio's fully 5G-powered campaignfor Verizon's 5G Holiday Market. Shoppers used their mobile devices to step into a holiday-themed Verizon store where they could interact in AR with phones, watches and speakers. Guests tapped, spun, rotated and purchased products on the spot. As part of this special digital engagement, RYOT developed a gift guide article and custom videos.

2. Entice shoppers with great deals

While 44% of shoppers say they'll be spending more around the holidays this year, they remain price sensitive.⁸ Nearly half identify themselves as bargain shoppers and 57% say brands that offer the biggest discounts will earn their loyalty.⁹ When it comes to saving money, 83% of shoppers say finding deals and budgeting are important this holiday season.¹⁰

Offering budget-friendly options this holiday is a smart strategy for turning shoppers into buyers. Brands can stand out during the holidays by offering discounts in creative ways that draw attention. There's no beating content when it comes to connecting with viewers. According to research, two thirds of users would rather learn about products through content rather than through traditional methods.¹¹

A new study by Verizon Media, MAGNA and IPG Media Lab finds interactive ad formats engage hard-to-convince audiences. Interactive ads grabbed significant attention with Native advertising formats, leading to a +6% increase in brand favorability and purchase intent versus standard video ads, which only increased +3%.¹²

The more relevant, helpful and beautiful a native ad is to a platform's audience, the more engaging it becomes.

Work with a partner that can help you develop, remix and amplify your message using your assets all within the DSP. Integrate your products and resurface viewed items that a shopper has browsed, reminding them of what they've been looking at and giving them an incentive to buy. Verizon Media's in-house creative team can help you reach the customers you need this holiday season. Check out the showcase.

3. Capture attention on screens at home and in-store

Including omnichannel screens for holiday promotions is crucial to reaching and influencing new shoppers. Tap into these customers through premium CTV supply that can be enhanced with audience engagement through shoppable QR codes that drive audiences to take action.

Through Verizon Media and partnerships like VIZIO, brands can maximize performance and access unique insights to drive targeting, incremental reach, optimization and measurement across platforms.

As the world moves forward, reaching shoppers out of their homes will be more important than ever. Digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising is a marketing channel where advertising is run digitally and dynamically in public spaces such as on billboards, in waiting rooms, movie theaters, bus depots and stores. According to eMarketer, DOOH marketing spend is expected to increase by almost 20% next year, yet over half of the advertisers we recently surveyed said buying DOOH is difficult.¹³ Verizon Media's omnichannel DSP provides an all-in-one platform for DOOH forecasting, re-engagement and omnichannel measurement. With our exclusive partnership with Cooler Screens and other premium screen owners, you can meet your customers when they're primed to buy, like in shopping plazas and grocery stores. Check out even more DOOH insights here.

4. Make it easy for shoppers to discover new products

People need help making the right gift choices for their loved ones. More than 40% of shoppers surveyed say brands that make it easy to discover the perfect gift and simplify the purchase process will earn their dollars.¹⁴

High-impact commerce content promotions such as editorial sponsorships help drive awareness and brand sentiment, while gift guides can boost discovery and move your products from awareness to consideration. Recently, we helped bring Walmart's "Days of Deals" campaign to life. Featuring the best home upgrades of the season, our RYOT Studio created branded shoppable articles and custom sponsorships that turned these household items into must-haves.

Consumers are also more interested in shopping at smaller businesses, while 69% want to buy from brands that align with their values.¹⁵ Your brand can expand its reach and gain millions of impressions through your Shopify store. Now available for Shopify merchants, connect your account to millions of impressions with Yahoo Product Ads. Now you can run Verizon Media Dynamic Product Ads (DPA) that regularly deliver 9x ROAS vs. standard native ads.¹⁶ For a limited time, new merchants can receive a $100 ad credit. Click here to learn more about this customer engagement tool.

5. Boost ROI through personalization

Despite increased concerns over personal privacy, nearly 60% of shoppers aged 18-to-34 say personalized ads help them make purchase decisions.¹⁷ Smart and personalized shopping experiences captivate consumers, shortening the path to purchase across every stage of the purchase funnel.

Personalization leverages data to control the conversation and experience of content being delivered to customers throughout their journey, across all digital channels — and even beyond. A great way to engage and personalize messages for each shopper is through DPA, enabling brands to target audiences based on their unique shopping patterns at key moments throughout the customer journey.

DPA powered by the Verizon Media design team are intuitive shopping experiences built for creativity yet are mindful of a user's specific interest. DPA dynamically pulls creative from a brand's product feed and serves it based on each user's unique online shopping behavior. This enables advertisers to display relevant ads to prospects based on interests or re-engage high intent audiences like cart abandoners.

In 2020, the mattress retailer Purple incorporated DPAs, resulting in a return on ad spend of 70% above its target benchmark across display, video and native ad formats. Purple now counts money instead of sheep.¹⁸

6. Encourage safe in-store shopping

More than 75% of shoppers will buy both in-store and online this year, up +25% vs. last year, and consistent with 2019.¹⁹ But with COVID-19 concerns, brands need to make sure consumers can shop safely.

Technologies that enhance contactless experiences are taking off. Verizon Media's Mobile Wallet

transform mobile ads into dynamic coupons, offers, or lightweight branded content saved directly into your consumer's mobile wallet.

When New York City reopened, PUMA turned to us to help welcome back shoppers. We started by creating a Tap-to-Map digital unit, which consumers used to learn about the store's opening and could view a direct route to their nearest store location. Through our mobile wallet, PUMA offered a 10% discount code to a shopper's digital wallet. With a CPM 10x more efficient than past display campaigns and an 88% reduction in cost-per-click relative to benchmarks, PUMA created a relevant, value-add experience that ultimately—and safely—drove customers through their doors.²⁰ Check out the case study for more details.

7. Measure effectiveness

Whether you're a CPG brand, retail, tech, or auto, measuring your impact throughout the campaign is crucial.

Commerce campaigns typically have goals of awareness, brand building, new customer acquisition, sales, and retention. The best way to determine whether your ads are achieving these objectives is to tie them to relevant metrics. A fully unified, cross-device customer profile in your customer data platform is essential.

Differentiated by 240M direct consumer relationships, Verizon Media's ConnectID solution enables advertisers to buy, measure and optimize ads while enabling publishers to manage, monetize and navigate audiences—all without third-party cookies.

Through our Inflight Sales Analysis, brands get near real-time purchase data insights frequently so you can act on them quickly. For example, for CPG buyers specifically, our inflight analysis capabilities can help brands reach 60% more households, experience a +16% sales lift and 77% incremental ROAS.²¹ Plus, our new partnership with Catalina enables robust measurement capabilities for CPG advertisers in a cookieless world. The interoperability enables advertisers to utilize the interoperability of Verizon Media ConnectID and Catalina CPG shopper intelligence for seamless people-based marketing and measurement.

Let's get started

Want to reach shoppers at scale this holiday without sacrificing trust or performance? Work with a reliable, efficient, and brand-safe solution that connects you to potential shoppers who align with your brand. Work with a partner that provides a better 360-degree view of your audience, built upon first-party data direct from millions of leaned-in shoppers and customer interactions across search, mail, commerce, content, and more. Work with Verizon Media. Ask us howto achieve your goals during the holiday shopping season and all year long.

¹ Verizon Media, Omnibus Report, June 2021.
² Lipsman, Andrea, eMarketer, "How retailers can start planning for the 2021 holiday season", eMarketer.com, 18 February 2021
^{3-6, 8-10, 14-17, 19} Verizon Media, Holiday Shopper Attitudes, May 2021.
¹² Verizon Media, IPG, Magna, "The Interactive Effect", April 2021
¹³ Benes, Ross, eMarketer, "Out-of-home advertising is becoming more digitally driven," eMarketer.com, 10 August 2020, emarketer.com/content/out-of-home-advertising-becoming-more-digital-driven.
^{7, 16, 18, 20} Verizon Media, Internal data, 2020.
^{11, 18} Verizon Media, Omnibus Study, March 2021.
²¹ NCS Offline Sales Impact Study, CPG brand, H2 2020

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