The holiday shopping season is a make-or-break time for many businesses. To maximize your success, we’ve compiled 11 Branch-powered tips and tricks to plan your holiday campaigns, track their performance, and take advantage of post-holiday opportunities.
Planning: Lay the groundwork for success
Effective holiday planning starts early and uses your data to understand past performance and create user journeys that convert.
Analyze past performance data
Dive into your Branch Dashboard to understand how users engaged with your app during previous holiday seasons. Identify top-performing campaigns, popular channels, and peak conversion times. This data is invaluable for optimizing this year’s ad spend and campaign strategies.
Branch’s funnel analysis makes it easy to visualize your users’ paths to conversion.
Use deep links to send customers exactly where they need to go
Deep links are crucial for reducing customer friction. Use them to ensure every holiday ad, email, and social media post directly links users to the intended product, sale page, or in-app experience. This eliminates unnecessary steps and improves conversion rates — especially for time-limited offers and exclusive promotions, where every second counts.
Optimize your ad creative for mobile
The importance of mobile-first optimization cannot be overstated. Make sure your holiday ad creatives are visually striking and optimized for smaller screens; test colors, typography, and motion graphics to see what resonates; and use Branch links to guide users seamlessly from ads to relevant in-app content. Branch’s ad partner connections will help you optimize campaigns and creatives based on real-time results.
Plan ahead for influencer measurement
Influencer campaigns are especially popular around the holidays. Give creators unique Branch links to track the effectiveness of their promotions. This not only generates authentic engagement but also allows you to measure ROI when campaigns go live.
Monitoring: Keep a finger on the pulse
Once you’re live, real-time monitoring is essential to adapt your strategies and address any issues during the busy holiday season.
Track campaign performance in real time
Your Branch Dashboard provides real-time insights into campaign performance. Monitor key metrics like installs, conversions, and revenue. Identify underperforming campaigns quickly and reallocate your budget to maximize impact.
Identify and resolve friction points with funnel data
If you notice users are dropping off any stage of the user journey, use Branch funnel data to pinpoint where it’s happening. Is a deep link broken? Is a particular page loading slowly? Spot and address these issues fast to prevent lost conversions.
Optimize your deep linking strategy on the fly
Continuously monitor the performance of your deep links. If certain links aren’t performing as expected, adjust your targeting or the content they lead to. Branch gives you flexibility in your deep linking strategy, letting you change link behavior — even after links are live — so you can make quick updates anytime.
Post-holiday: Sustain engagement and loyalty
The holiday season doesn’t end after December 25th. The weeks that follow are just as important for driving sales and strengthening loyalty.
Capitalize on post-holiday trends
Shopping season extends into January and beyond. Keep your marketing momentum strong with Branch-powered campaigns during this period. Highlight post-holiday deals, personalize recommendations based on past purchases, and tap into post-holiday trends like self-gifting.
Analyze post-holiday trends
Just as you analyzed pre-holiday data, delve into your Branch analytics to understand post-holiday spending habits. Did certain product categories see a surge in returns or exchanges? Are shoppers coming back via specific channels or links? How did mobile vs. desktop users interact with your campaigns? This information can refine campaign strategies, guide future holiday planning, and even inform inventory management.
Reinforce your brand with continuous engagement
Don’t let your brand disappear after the holidays. Continue to engage with your audience with personalized content, exclusive offers, and helpful information, using Branch links that take users directly to the right in-app or web experience with a single tap.
Don’t head into the holidays without a plan
It’s not too late to make your campaigns holiday-ready. Branch can help you turn fleeting shoppers into loyal, long-term customers with effective linking and measurement. Want to learn more? Reach out to our team.