Halloween is almost upon us and for many people this means two things, a Halloween fancy dress party and the need for an awesome costume to match. For many costume and fancy dress retailers this is their busiest and most profitable period of the year, so there is a lot of competition for advertising space. Advertisers are charged with creating compelling and unique messages and therefore analysing Halloween could provide great insight into creating effective ads.
Search Query: Halloween costumes
There are a few themes evident in the ads served for ‘Halloween Costumes’, the most obvious being that Halloween features in both the headline and display URL. Humour and seasonal puns are used to draw attention and it is fairly obvious that first and last ads are far more eye catching than the middle ad. The use of sitelinks is interesting here, as it would appear that each company has placed the products that they feel are most likely to be profitable as sitelinks.
The first add alludes to value, which is likely to be important to users searching for Halloween costumes currently. Whereas the message in the second ad focuses on next day delivery, yet this is likely to be premature as this message will become more important and relevant in the last few days before Halloween.
Search Query: Halloween fancy dress
Humour is used with the pun “spooktacular costumes” and this is far more attention grabbing. Also, the use of sitelinks does make a difference, as this guarantees you will end up in the appropriate section of the site and enhances the likelihood of a click occurring.
Search Query: Scary Halloween costumes
Less effort has gone into this less searched for term, bidding on this search term is less competitive and with an average of 18,000 searches per month a concerted effort to drive clicks on this term could be profitable.
Search Query: Plus size Halloween costumes
Demand for such costumes has grown in the recent past, so it is encouraging to see that advertisers are recognising this growing trend. The use of the sizes it offers is likely to reduce the number of wasted clicks, while one ad offers value for money in addition to a wider range of sizes.
It is evident that when it comes to seasonal advertising, referring to the topic at hand and using humour in the process makes your ad stand out. It is also worth noting that the timing of your message is important and ideally it should vary in the run up to the event or holiday period.
