All Treats, No Tricks

Follow these best practices for a boo-tiful Halloween selling season

That most scary of seasons is almost upon us, and soon the streets will be filled with tons of tiny Darth Vaders, Draculas and Transformers, going from door to door and requesting candy. As such, we thought we’d “treat” advertisers to a few Halloween best practices. If you’re an advertiser who hopes to make a, ahem, killing this month, this info may help a lot.

• If you sell costumes, make sure your ads match your keywords. Ads that promote “sexy” costumes don’t exactly fly with users searching on keywords like “kid costume.” On the flipside, if your ad is for a keyword like “adult costume,” relevant verbiage like “sexy devil costume” might fit perfectly. Along those same lines, keep an eye out for simple mistakes in your ads, such as advertising “Star Trek” costumes for “Star Wars” keywords. Mistakes like that could deter users, but the good news is they’re easily fixed and/or avoided with a little simple maintenance.
• If you rent costumes as well as sell them, be sure to avoid writing ads that make it sound as though you only do one or the other. This is especially critical when it comes to buying, since chances are strong that most users are seeking to buy, rather than rent. If you sell costumes, you’ll want to call that out, or risk turning off uses who think you only rent.
• If you sell the materials for making costumes, keep an eye on the way you word your ads. We’ve seen some that made it sound like the advertiser was selling actual homemade costumes, rather than the materials for the users to make them themselves.
• If you sell officially licensed character costumes (Star Wars, GI Joe, etc.) calling that fact out in your ads never hurts. Users seeking quality costumes may be swayed by the fact that you sell officially licensed versions.
• If you offer discounts, coupon codes, free shipping or anything that might turn a searcher’s head, be sure to call that out in your ads. However, be careful not to try to cram too many deals into your ads, or they may wind up taking over. Ideally, your ads should focus on the products or services you sell, with your deals appearing as an incentive to sweeten the pot. If your ad is nothing but deals, users may not be sure that you actually offer what they’re looking for, and click elsewhere.

As always, the usual suggestions apply: Use keyword insertion to make sure that your keywords appear in your ads, as well as alt text, to make sure that those keywords appear just the way you want them to. Keep an eye on grammar and spelling errors, as well as the general readability of your ads, to make sure that they all read smoothly and correctly.

When it comes to Halloween 2009, be sure to make like Dracula and sink your teeth into your ads—the results could be pretty sweet!

— Noah Belson, Content Quality Analyst