Consumers are projected to spend $207B on holiday shopping in November and December—a 10% spike from last year. Fueled by an increase in discretionary income and consumers’ need to seek respite during the holiday season, the record-breaking spending surge on gifts, travel and entertainment unfortunately falls within a supply chain crisis, shipping delays and inventory challenges.
As residual economic effects from the pandemic continue, it’s critical that marketers cater to consumers being advised to buy their gifts early. The United States Postal Service, Fedex and UPS have announced shipping deadlines for guaranteed Christmas delivery starting as early as December 9.
There’s good news for marketers leveraging Partnerize. They can adapt to the 2021 holiday shopping season hurdles while accommodating consumers’ desire to spend by implementing these tactics into their holiday strategy:
- Get an early start. Reach consumers that are aiming to wrap up their holiday shopping in time for guaranteed delivery deadlines by launching your most aggressive promotions early. To ensure you’re maximizing the numbers of consumers reached with your offer, coordinate placements or promotions around the earlier shopping holidays like pre-holiday shopping season, Singles Day and Thanksgiving. Also, don’t forget to tap into Partnerize’s integrated reporting to review partner performance from these shopping holidays last year before allocating marketing dollars to paid placements or added exposure.
- Lean into gift cards. Cater to consumers that missed the last ship date for guaranteed delivery by adjusting commissions on gift card purchases. With Partnerize, you can implement SKU-based commission rates (in this case, on your gift card SKUs) and increase commission rates to incent partners to promote them while still being equitably rewarded.
- Don’t overlook unique fulfillment opportunities. Although 90% of consumers will continue to favor home delivery for online purchases, 44% of shoppers will tap into curbside pickup to redeem their purchases. Connect with your partners via Partnerize’s integrated communication tool to chat about their unique promo opportunities for various fulfillment capabilities including buy online, pick up in store (BOPIs), specifically once the holidays draw closer.
- Leverage free shipping coupon codes. If you’re not able to support discounted merchandise before key shopping holidays but need to incent purchase, consider affiliate-exclusive coupon codes that enable free shipping. Partnerize powers code-based commissioning that enables you to create coupon codes, assign them to partners and customize rewards based on redemption—flexibility that puts you in control of acquisition cost.
- Maximize benefits for travelers. Traveling will once again become a priority this holiday season with 40% of consumers indicating that the pandemic will not impact their holiday plans—a trend that is particularly important to note for travel brands as they allocate spend across their digital mix. Leverage Partnerize’s ability to commission and report on unlimited data parameters to set up dynamic commission structures based on popular flight routes or travel necessities, encourage longer hotel stays with increased cash back or incent new customer bookings with higher payout rates. By controlling the reward structure for transaction attributes, you’re able to control your ad spend and drive profitable growth.
For more information about maximizing the partner channel for your holiday strategy, check out Partnerize’s Holiday Planning 2021 ebook.