It’s been an interesting holiday shopping season thus far, with consumers more eager than ever to start the holiday season as soon as possible. Consumers began their gift shopping well before Thanksgiving, starting as early as mid-October. Overall, shoppers plan to spend an average of $1,430 on gifts, travel and entertainment this year.
Holiday Spending 2022 by Generation - Source: PWC
Below we take a look at the top three holiday mobile shopping trends of the season and the best practices for leveraging holiday app retargeting practices to maximize return on investment.
Holiday Mobile Shopping Trend #1: Humanize Communications
During the busy holiday season, many mobile apps look to scale customer service with generic chatbots and other automatic services. However, customers want to engage with humans. When given the choice of how to communicate with a brand, the majority of customers chose speaking to a live agent, followed closely by online chatting with a live agent. Poor customer service can lead to low user retention with 52% of users deleting or forgetting an app when they encounter issues.
In order to deliver a fantastic customer experience during the busy holiday season, apps should combine their technological innovation with a human element. Users that don’t receive optimal care during this time could switch to a competitor without a second thought. Understanding your users’ needs for holiday app retargeting and establishing a customer-centric mindset will help your app finish the year on a high note.
Tip #1: Double down on customer service
More than 60% of customers say they’ve left one brand for another because of bad customer service. Customer service is especially important to the test during the holiday season. With rushed shoppers hurrying to buy last minute presents, there is no time to waste when answering questions. With this holiday mobile shopping trend, make sure your app has streamlined customer service and goes above and beyond to create a human-like communications experience.
Since retaining customers is less expensive than acquiring new ones, providing excellent customer service to keep your current customers happy is extremely important. One way to get ahead of customer issues is to incentivize users to take feedback surveys about their experience with your brand. Use the information from these surveys to build an FAQ page to streamline your customer service process. If a user has left the app without making that final purchase, let them know that the team is here to help by sending them a follow up message. For users that drop off, follow up with a customer service message to make sure they didn't drop off because of problems with your app
🎁Bonus tip: Let users know that the chat is live with the team! Use images of the app’s support team members to give a human element to the platform’s customer service.
Holiday Mobile Shopping Trend #2: Spend Cautiously
There’s no ignoring that the United States has been facing some economic uncertainties. With inflation and the price of goods on the rise, consumers are cutting back on their holiday spending. In the US, 58% of consumers are planning to cut back on non-food spending during the holidays.
With the increase in cost of goods this year, American consumers are willing to make sacrifices to maintain spending with 15% reporting they will sell possessions and 17% saying they will take on another job or work more hours. Younger shoppers are also willing to make significant sacrifices, with around 40% of Gen-Z and Millenials cutting back on personal expenses like dining out in order to check off their holiday wish lists.
However, despite these forecasts, shopping app marketers should still be optimistic that customers will be back and ready to spend this holiday season. When marketers are looking at holiday mobile shopping trends, they need to realize that lower income holiday shoppers are increasing their spend across all categories, returning to pre pandemic shopping levels with only 13% of lower income shoppers opting out of holiday spending in 2022 compared to 21% in 2021.
Tip #2: Offer a Deal
Over half of shoppers are looking for sales, deals, and coupons this holiday season. Additionally, nearly 50% of US shoppers say they would switch stores if they found a better price elsewhere. App marketers need to leverage rewards, discounts or coupons in order to match their prices against competitors and appeal to holiday shoppers.
In order to regain the attention of these seasonal shoppers, app marketers should offer personalized discounts to their users in their holiday app retargeting. The majority of consumers ( 72%) say they only engage with personalized messages from brands. Try offering discounts to shoppers that have been active within the app but might not have made a purchase yet. Make sure to point out products that that shopper has been browsing in order to create a personalized experience for them. This encourages repeat purchases and brand loyalty.
🎁Bonus tip: Want to go above and beyond? Send a follow up message to the user letting them know how much they saved on their items. This is a great way to re-engage that user and encourage them to purchase again!
Holiday Mobile Shopping Trend #3: Social Media Influence
Having a strong social media presence is a non-negotiable to stay relevant in 2022. Almost half of consumers this holiday season are likely to purchase from social media platforms such as TikTok or Instagram directly. Additionally, 87% of Gen-Z shoppers will look to social media for gift inspiration. This means that app marketers need to take advantage of this holiday mobile shopping trend and double down on their social media efforts this month in order to capture and retain these paying customers.
Expected use of Social Media in Holiday Shopping in the United States - Source: Statista
Tip #3: Get Creative!
Social media is the perfect place to get creative with a re-engagement campaign. Utilizing short videos and unique messaging within platforms such as Instagram and TikTok capture the attention of younger consumers and remind them about products they want to purchase. One piece of this holiday mobile shopping trend is to find relevant topics in the media to create fun and engaging content that matches your brand’s essence. For example, sports apparel companies can create images or videos around the World Cup to promote their products while staying timely and relevant.
🎁Bonus tip: Engage with customers on social media! Ask users what they’re looking forward to most about the holiday season or what products they use most. Not only does this create a sense of community but it gathers important feedback at the same time!
Takeaways of Holiday App Retargeting Trends Guide
- Trend #1: Humananize Communications - Many mobile apps have turned to chatbots and other AI-powered services to scale their customer service. However, customers want humans. Poor customer service leads to lower user retention with 52% of users deleting or forgetting the app when experiencing issues with mobile apps.
- 💡Tip: Double down on customer service - More than 60% of customers say they’ve left one brand for another because of bad customer service. Making sure an app has streamlined customer service that goes above and beyond to create a human-like element within the app is a feature that consumers are looking for.
- Trend #2: Cautious Spending - Consumers are cutting back on their holiday spending this year. In the US, 58% of consumers are planning to cut back on non-food spending during the holidays due to rising cost of goods.
- 💡Tip: Offer a Deal - As price increases are inevitable, over half of shoppers are looking for sales, deals, and coupons this holiday season. App marketers need to leverage rewards, discounts or coupons in order to match their prices against competitors and appeal to holiday shoppers.
- Trend #3: Social Media Influence - Almost half of consumers this holiday season are likely to purchase from social media platforms directly. This means that app marketers need to double down on their social media efforts this month in order to ensure that they capture and retain these paying customers.
- 💡Tip: Get Creative - Social media is the perfect place to get creative with a re-engagement campaign. Utilizing short videos and unique messaging within platforms such as Instagram and TikTok will capture the attention of younger consumers.
