The promise of irresistible shopping deals has long made mega sale days a draw for consumers and a critical growth opportunity for businesses. But as more brands tap into major shopping moments to grow bottom lines, it's increasingly important for them to stand out to win customers. The key to doing this: understanding people's shopping behaviors during mega sale events.
By knowing how people shop and what influences their purchase decisions, brands can better cater to their needs and win their attention — and affection — during upcoming sales such as the double-digit sale days of 11.11 and 12.12.
Our study of the recent 6.6 sale day provides fresh insights on mega sale shopper behavior that can help your brand stand out in timely and meaningful ways. For ideas on how to bring these insights to life, we turn to three major brands that have successfully cut through the noise to score business wins.
The complex consumer behavior of mega sale shoppers
The path to purchase for mega sale shoppers is sophisticated and nonlinear. This group of consumers are researching more online to find the best deals, but they’re also moving between online channels and offline stores, and they’re not sticking with one brand or platform.
Indeed, nine in 10 mega sale purchases were made after planning and research, with customers spending more than two-thirds of their shopping time online as they browse, get ideas, research, and make purchases.1 Yet even as their use of digital touchpoints deepens during mega sale days, with 52% of them doing more research online as compared with previous sales events, 84% of shoppers nevertheless head to the store after checking out digital sources.2
As mega sale shoppers move between channels, they’re also less loyal to a brand or platform. Our study found that 78% of shoppers from Southeast Asia used five or more shopping channels during the recent 6.6 mega sale day, and 75% of them visited more than one marketplace website while shopping.3
Given the complex consumer behavior of mega sale shoppers, brands need to show up prominently and meaningfully throughout their nonlinear path to purchase. We look at how three major brands used savvy marketing solutions to successfully establish a strong online presence and cut through the noise to better reach customers online.
L’Oréal: How to automatically find shoppers at scale to grow sales
In Vietnam, where e-commerce has become L'Oréal’s top growth channel, the brand noticed that shoppers are willing to spend more time on Search and YouTube to learn about skincare routines. So to win the attention of mega sale shoppers researching skincare products online, L'Oréal Vietnam piloted the use of Performance Max in its 12.12 mega sale campaign last year.
The new goal-based Google Ads campaign type, powered by machine learning, enabled the brand to automatically find new customers at scale across channels such as Search, Shopping, YouTube, and Gmail. It also helped the brand optimize performance in real-time toward sales conversion.
“The impact on sales was amazing,” said L'Oréal Vietnam’s marketing manager Linh Nguyen. “Performance Max contributed 40% of ad traffic to our online store and helped us achieve four times higher return on ad spend for our 12.12 campaign. We now use it as an always-on performance driver and we especially lean into it during the mega sale season.”
Nike: How to gain new customers cost-effectively by redoubling on campaign strategies
For Nike fans, the brand’s annual Member Days get their hearts racing. The sales event gives Nike members special access to exclusive products, discounts, and benefits on the brand’s online store. Nike Korea was therefore eager to use the sale to attract new customers, win their loyalty, and grow bottom lines.
The brand already ran Performance Max campaigns as part of its always-on media strategy to raise awareness and sales during its Member Days. However, it was interested to see if it could unlock incremental conversions and maximize impact in a cost-effective way by adding Video action campaigns.
The result of combining Performance Max with Video action campaigns was a 164% increase in conversions, and at 40% lower cost per conversion. Awareness of its sale event also enjoyed substantial lift, with interest in “Nike Member Days” growing 26X on Search and 73.8X on YouTube.
By combining Performance Max with Video action campaigns, Nike Korea’s Member Days achieved:
“Using Video action campaigns together with Performance Max enabled us to efficiently maximize online visibility and boost conversions during the peak shopping promotion period for Nike Member Days,” said marketing specialist Hyeonju Mun of EchoMarketing, Nike’s performance media agency.
Brands that want to replicate Nike’s success during mega sale days can also complement their Performance Max campaigns with other campaigns, including Video reach, Display ads, Discovery campaigns, and Search broad match.
Shopback: How to re-engage lapsed customers to maximize lifetime value
It can be challenging for brands to grow bottom lines during mega sale days through customer lifetime value, given that shoppers are not loyal to any one channel or platform. However, Shopback’s experience of successfully re-engaging lapsed customers and driving profits shows that brands can tap into customer re-engagement as a mega sales strategy.
The online loyalty retail platform had the goal of raising profit per user, and it wanted to do so beyond acquiring new users. It set out to test if it could achieve this by re-engaging its app users in Singapore who had not made a purchase in three months.
It created a test group among the lapsed customers and used App campaigns for engagement to encourage them to take in-app actions. The result was 19% increase in profit per reactivated user account and 178% incremental return on ad spend over two months.
With App campaigns for engagement, Shopback re-engaged lapsed customers and achieved:
“The experiment clearly exhibited the effectiveness of App campaigns for engagement as a revenue driver and means for activation, and it has a bigger role to play in raising our profits,” said Shopback’s head of online marketing Kevin Li.
To achieve even better results during mega sale days, your brand can integrate Customer Match with App campaigns for engagement to tailor bids and creatives to different customer segments, including lapsed customers and high value shoppers.
With the competitive year-end mega sale season under way, now is the time for your brand to attract the attention of mega sale shoppers who are browsing, planning, and researching their double-digit sale day purchases. By tapping into the power of marketing automation, redoubling on ad campaign solutions, and re-engaging inactive customers, your brand can capture mindshare, generate new leads, and win big this mega sale season.
