For most brands, the period from Black Friday through Cyber Monday — known as the “Cyber Five” — is the busiest shopping period of the year. Given heightened sales and competition, the cost of media is much higher during this time. With that said, while inflation might be on the descent, the global economy is still in flux. Finding ways to stretch your ad dollars by investing in building long-lasting relationships with new customers is critical this year. From mobile retargeted ads to personalized recommendations, learn strategies your brand can leverage to keep the customers you acquired during Cyber Five below.
Cyber Five 2023 Breaks Records
Black Friday broke records this year, with consumers spending a historic $9.8 billion in the United States. This represented a 7.5% increase in US holiday spending from 2022 year-over-year. What’s more, Adobe predicts U.S. online holiday sales will reach $221.8 billion this holiday shopping season (Nov. 1 to Dec. 31). This represents 4.8% growth YoY. The biggest driver of these sales will be Cyber Monday, the year’s biggest shopping day. Adobe predicted that Cyber Monday would fuel a record $12 billion in spending, up 6.1% YoY.
In a time when the global economy has seen a slowdown, what’s driving this expansive growth?
Contrary to what many people might assume, the increase in Black Friday sales is not due to higher prices. In fact, inflation is on the decline. In the fall, the economists at the US Federal Reserve revised their predictions about the likelihood of a recession. They predicted that cooling inflation, steady interest rates, a strong labor market and resilient economic growth would, in fact, increase the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2.2% in the final quarter of 2023. This is a significant uptick from the earlier prediction of 1%. Just take inflation rates today as proof: in October 2022, the U.S. inflation rate stood at a staggering 7.75%. Today, it has decreased notably to 3.24%.
E-commerce outlets have also been dropping prices consistently for 14 months (down 6% year-over-year) which has further driven consumer spending. Together, these trends have contributed to more consumers opening up their wallets for the holiday season, despite rising economic concerns.
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Mobile Shopping Drives Cyber Five Purchases
For the first time in history, mobile devices are predicted to overtake desktop in driving purchases during the holiday seasons. According to Adobe, over half of holiday purchases (51.2%) took place on mobile devices. During Cyber Week, mobile spending will hit an all-time high of $113 billion. This will be a 13.7% increase YoY. Purchase peaks are expected on typical high-traffic shopping days like Thanksgiving and Christmas.
For mobile marketers, this indicates the critical commercial opportunity represented by Cyber Week as well as Q5, the period spanning from the day after Black Friday to the end of January. During Q5, consumer shopping remains high, while the cost of media drops compared to preceding weeks. In fact, during Cyber Week, customer acquisition costs can rise more than 13% compared to the subsequent Q5 period. This shows the pivotal commercial opportunity offered by the Q5 shopping season.
Source: Snapchat
For more information and mobile advertising best practices for Q5, read our Q5 Mobile Advertising Guide, featuring the latest m-commerce trends from Jampp.
How to Keep the Customers you Acquired During Cyber Five
If you’re reading this, then you know we’re well into Q5. Odds are your company has spent the bulk of its remaining 2023 advertising budget on capturing new and active customers during the busy Cyber Five period. But, your work is far from over.
According to AppsFlyer, only 24% of consumers use their installed apps, with most apps not opened more than 10 times before being uninstalled. What’s more, only 26% of an app’s most active sessions take place 24-48 hours after installation. This interaction drops to 13% just after the first week after install.
Your brand might enjoy an expansive Cyber Week and Q5 but what’s the point if news customers remain one-time purchasers. New customers are 5-25x more expensive to acquire than existing customers and 10 times less likely to convert.
Don’t let your marketing efforts this 2023 holiday season go to waste. Here are three strategies for transitioning newly-acquired users into long-time customers.
Provide Relevant Product Recommendations
Keep customers who have browsed a product or purchased during Cyber Week engaged by offering them more products or services aligned with their interests. You can provide these recommendations through dynamically-optimized mobile retargeted ads. You could also build a push notification strategy that sends customers recommendations for complementary products based on their purchasing or behavioral data. For example, if a customer purchased a coat during Black Friday, you might send a promotion featuring sweaters from the same brand the following month. This strategy relies on a robust segmentation strategy that effectively tags customers that have recently made a purchase or engaged with your brand. Work with your data team to build ways of sorting these customers into buckets so you can send them recommendations and reminders that seamlessly align with their prior experience with your brand.
Invite New Customers to Join Your Rewards Program
Introducing loyalty programs is a great way to increase customer retention. Loyalty programs incentivize membership by offering rewards, oftentimes through a points system. This is a well-worn tactic for keeping customers engaged. In fact, 75% of consumers say they favor companies that offer rewards. If your brand does offer a rewards program, invite new customers to join so they can earn points through accumulated purchases to apply towards a discount or gift. Gamify your messaging by sending them regular reminders of how many points they have and how far away they are from being eligible for rewards.
Invest in Mobile Retargeted Ads
Given the exponential growth of mobile shopping this holiday season, it’s a no-brainer to invest in advertising that covers mobile channels. Meet consumers where they spend their most time: their smartphones. Today, the average American individual spends 7 hours and 4 minutes staring at their mobile device. Why not leverage this time by introducing them to your brand. There are many ways to leverage mobile retargeted ads successfully, which we’ve written about extensively.
Here’s a quick primer:
- Segment Users that are Likely to Make a Purchase — this requires identifying high purchase intent indicators, which vary from brand to brand. For example, it might be a certain minimum session time or a certain purchase recency.
- Personalize Your Ads — now that you’ve segmented your target audience, serve them ads that align with their experience. If they recently browsed your mobile website and left an item in their cart, show an image of the item on the ad. If they just made a purchase, send them a discount for a second purchase. How can you meet your customers where they are in your funnel and enhance their experience further?
- Keep Trying New Things and Testing Your Strategy — we’ve found the most interesting details to enhance performance. It might be targeting people with a certain device type or serving ads on a certain day of the week. Notice what works and keep trying new things. When in doubt about what’s working, run incrementality uplift tests to understand what strategies are driving incremental growth in your campaigns.
TL;DR
If you’ve made it all the way through this article, then you’re basically a Cyber Five retention expert! Here are a few takeaways to keep in mind as you go forth on driving long-term growth for your brand.
- Cyber Five 2023 saw record-breaking sales, with Black Friday alone hitting $9.8 billion, up 7.5% YoY, and Cyber Monday expected to reach a record $12 billion, up 6.1% YoY.
- Inflation decreases are driving this increased spending, with the U.S. inflation rate dropping from 7.75% in October 2022 to 3.24% today.
- Mobile devices are set to overtake desktops in driving holiday season purchases this year for the first time, with 51.2% of holiday sales taking place on mobile devices.
- Providing relevant product recommendations, inviting new customers to join rewards programs, and investing in mobile retargeted ads are effective tactics to transition newly-acquired users into long-term customers.
Boost your Cyber Monday customer retention with our best-in-class mobile app retargeting campaign solutions. Reach out to get started with our team of retention experts.
