CONTENT DISCOVERY: DON’T MISS OUT ON CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR, WORK ON YOUR CREATIVE

Christmas, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” – That’s for sure, however it comes with challenges for Marketers… You may have already experienced it last years, Content Discovery Networks such like Outbrain and Taboola have the strongest competition on their marketplace and here is why:

1. Many media plans will stop running on the 31/12 at midnight and as every year, Brands and Agencies will do a tremendous work delivering on their yearly budgets in full, naturally inflating the marketplace.

2. Moreover, Christmas is a very short and often highly profitable period and for many marketers who want to reach some volume, the most straightforward option is to increase their Cost-Per-Click (CPC) – logically, as many marketers do so, average CPCs rise.

Rather than paying higher CPCs, you can counter-attack whilst improving your Click-Through-Rate (CTR). As a reminder indeed, Content Discovery algorithms use two key metrics, among others, to push your content in front of relevant users: CPCs and CTR. The lower your CPC, the higher your CTR needs to be, and vice versa.
Agile tactics can help you to win the CPC Christmas battle, your best bet being on improving your CTR, hence working on your creative.

Some of the “must-haves” as follows can guide you when writing headlines – also considered as essentials by our Partners at Schwartz Consulting:

FUNDAMENTALS

“Headline and Image Best Practices for Reaching Engaged Audiences with Outbrain Amplify” – Source: Outbrain
“Creative Best Practices”– Source: Taboola

TO GO FURTHER

“5 Tips for Writing the Perfect Headline” – Source: Taboola
“Headlines: When the Best Brings the Worst and the Worst Brings the Best” – Source: Outbrain
“9 Do’s and Don’ts for Writing Catchy, Viral Blog Headlines” – Source: Outbrain
“What Really is The Best Headline Length?” – Source: CoSchedule

Publishing optimised headlines during Christmas could make a real difference on your capacity to engage with your audience and stay competitive for the algorithms.

The last but not least, an important matter I want to bring your attention to: a higher CTR doesn’t always equal with stronger post-clicks performances. CTR is a good way to optimise CPCs during competitive times, however it is not a KPI to focus on when having ROI objectives. It is instead mandatory to keep a close eye on the conversion rate per new creative in order to progressively exclude poor performing ones.

At Schwartz Consulting, we offer a strong methodology and an on-going support at every stage of your traffic acquisition, from headlines creation to landing page optimisation. Contact us to find out more.