As the New Year approaches, many businesses around the world will begin to ease back their marketing efforts, satisfied that they capitalized on peak shopping season with their holiday campaigns. But with the new year comes new beginnings, and a growing body of data shows that holiday shopping doesn't end when the holidays are over. In a recent YouGov survey commissioned by Meta, 41% of shoppers said their shopping doesn't stop in December, but continues after the holidays.
It's a period now known as the fifth quarter, or 'Q5,' the post-holiday season when shoppers are searching for bargains, returning presents, and spending their gift cards — often with an eye toward their own hopes and aspirations for the new year.
"The holiday season is a very important part of the year for marketers, but Q5 is growing in importance," said Justin Osofsky, head of online sales, operations, and partnerships for Meta. "Businesses are realizing that there is no magical date when the holiday shopping season ends and that Q5 is the time to think about driving your business into the next year."
According to retail trade fair, Q5 is also a period when competition for ad space decreases, giving marketers an opportunity to find bargains of their own. Internal data from Meta shows that in January 2023, CPM rates were down 4% while average conversion rates were only down 8%. While Q5 is relevant for businesses of all sizes, smaller companies in particular are finding that Q5 is their time to get creative on more competitive platforms when costs are down.
"For many small brands, engaging potential customers during Q5 can be a meaningful cost-savings opportunity when you're looking at competition on auction-based platforms like Meta," Osofsky said.
Q5 is a great time for learning, and when it comes to marketing campaigns, nothing learns faster than AI.
"We're viewing this season as the first AI-powered holiday," Osofsky said. "Marketers are using our AI tools to streamline the entire process of building a campaign so they can more easily develop the right creative, optimize for the relevant audience, and then measure the results."
Meta Advantage, a suite of automation solutions, uses AI to optimize multiple campaign levers at once, including targeting, creative, placements, and budget. It unlocks greater performance while saving marketing teams time — so they can focus on the bigger picture. And Meta's Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns is one tool that allows marketers to automatically test more than 100 different creative combinations to see which performs best. The value is not just in boosting sales, but yielding valuable insights that can guide future strategy.
For example, when Bylt Basics, a direct-to-consumer menswear brand from southern California, used Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns to identify the company's highest-value shoppers, its marketers were surprised to discover how many of those shoppers were women. Bylt then used this insight to begin creating more ads specifically targeted to female buyers.
As far as retail trade fair knows, Q5 may be a new concept, but marketers who choose to take advantage are finding that its benefits are instantly recognizable. As a period when shoppers are engaged and advertising costs are lower, Q5 offers marketers an untapped opportunity to grow their sales and learnings.
"The biggest misconception about Q5 is that it's a period to pull back on your marketing efforts because you've made it through the holidays," Osofsky said. "Q5 offers unique opportunities to grow your business, engage with consumers, and set your strategy for the year ahead."
(source: Business Insider)