5 Steps to Drive Massive Holiday Traffic for Retail With Display Ads [Case Study Inside]

Last year, Urban Outfitters absolutely sleighed the 2020 holiday session with its display ads. The lifestyle label has been cozying up homes and selling trendy clothes since the 70’s. The holiday sales in particular never disappoint, which is especially helpful when your main customers are living on a student budget and looking for a holiday steal.

To get you in the holiday spirit, we’ll show you exactly how urbanoutfitters.com drove demand and give you step-by-step advice on how to optimize your own display campaigns in real-time this season.

Let it show – display ad goals to go after

With Similarweb Competitive Analysis, we can see that urbanoutfitters.com increased its display ad traffic by over 100,000, accounting for a 26.7% increase between November and December 2020. Clearly, there’s merit to maximizing your strongest channel while maintaining the rest during the holiday season.

Some questions you might want to keep in mind as we continue to look at the success of urbanoutfitters.com in the display space:

• How did the brand’s display strategy change the end of year push?
• Where did it focus its publishing efforts?
• What specific ads did it run that resulted in such merry movement?

Increase present purchases with more publisher partnerships

Numbers never lie.

In November 2020, urbanoutfitters.com partnered with 142 publishers to promote its display ads. In December 2020, it added 100 more into the mix, resulting in 100,064 more display ad visits, more traffic, and ultimately, more presents to be unwrapped.

When we look more granularly at where the traffic comes from, it can be attributed to publications like thespruce.com, which increased 119.2% in incoming traffic to urbanoutfitters.com from November to December 2020.

The brand also diversified its display ads, focusing on news, media, and home improvement in November before switching gears to add more fashion and apparel and home and garden in December.

Urbanoutfitters.com sells clothes, home decor, lifestyle, and beauty accessories, so it’s very likely its strategy here was to expand into these categories to target current and potential customers with some spicy holiday content.

Knock their stockings off with warm display messaging

When it came to visuals, the brand opted for a message as warm and cozy as a cup of hot cocoa, “You are Gifted,” to pull at the holiday heartstrings of consumers from Dec. 13 to Dec. 23, 2020. Here we can see Urbanoutfitters.com carefully crafted a “You are Gifted” message as promotional content during Hanukkah and leading up to Christmas.

These ads must have hit home with consumers, as there was over 100,000 MoM traffic increase in December.

Set high goals with key takeaways to ice out the competition

Now for the real gift: insights you can use to run your successful optimization efforts during the 2021 holiday season.

1. Identify your target audience and pick publishers with the same/similar following
2. Increase the number of publishers you work with during your promotional period to get the biggest gain in traffic
3. Spread your message wide and far with publishers in different industries that match your product offering
4. Create display ads that spread holiday cheer so people can relate to your messaging
5. Find inspiration, see what your competitors are up to, and track and measure your efforts with Similarweb data to optimize like the best in business

Follow these steps and get bonus affiliate and PPC holiday insights, sync your optimization efforts, and of course, have yourself happy holidays.

by Chelsea Feil

Marketing Intelligence Specialist

Chelsea, a storyteller and data enthusiast, graduated with a B.A. in Media and Communications. She enjoys sunsets, beach frisbee, yoga, and exploring new places.