Should You Pause PPC Campaigns for the Holidays?

We have a common perception of everything shutting down for the holidays. Many stores are closed and people are basically finished buying anything for the time being. Therefore, should you pause PPC campaigns for the holidays?

Twenty years ago… even ten years ago the answer may have been yes. Today, however, it simply may not make sense the way it once did. You won’t be shocked by the reason: the pandemic.

No Business Should Pause PPC campaigns for the Holidays

Forget the rules for a holiday PPC campaign from what they were just a year ago. Any company that couldn’t adapt to the new normal has either gone out of business or in danger of doing so. The pandemic has truly changed everything, right down to holiday PPC campaigns. Now more than ever people are living online, sometimes because they have no other choice for school or work.

There’s an enormous captive audience online this holiday season. Yes, they may have been there last year but not in quite the same numbers. This year, of course, they are online more than ever before.

In years past, people were traveling during the holidays and they did less shopping for everyday necessities online. That’s not true now. Far fewer people are traveling this holiday season. Aside from a few troubled industries like travel, entertainment and restaurants, many businesses aren’t really slowing down at holiday time. Part of the reason is that holiday time isn’t much different than any other time in a pandemic. Therefore, it makes less sense to pause PPC campaigns for the holidays for many businesses, especially anything healthcare-related.

Keep in mind, of course, that competitors may not pause PPC campaigns for the holidays. If you decide to, you could be helping out the competition without even realizing it.

Of course, there’s another way to approach the whole PPC question. In the end, perhaps the best scenario is one where PPC isn’t a life-or-death situation for your digital marketing efforts.

A Refresher Course on PPC

It’s probably a good idea to remember exactly what PPC’s role should be (or shouldn’t be) for a business. When companies are looking to increase traffic to their websites, PPC is often assumed to be the best go-to method to achieve this goal. In some cases, especially the start-up phase, this is very true.

PPC is definitely an aspect of most SEO strategies and should be. However, there should be an asterisk after that statement. PPC all too often becomes the only strategy used by companies for increasing traffic. In the short-term, that may work out fine. In the long term, however, this concentration on PPC becomes a problem.

The main reason to have a website is to find qualified leads. Unqualified leads, which is what PPC is best at delivering to your website, may look good on a Google Analytics report but they do little to generate actual revenue for your company. You pay for clicks even when the people clicking could have zero interest in actually doing business with you. Consequently, you could be wasting a lot of money on these non-prospects.

There’s also the financial aspect of PPC. When you decide to bid on keywords, you’re entering into an aggressive competition with other businesses that may be clamoring for the same keywords as you. And here’s the thing: others may be able to outspend you on the more desirable AdWords (perhaps by a considerable margin).

PPC Vs. Organic Search

Keep in mind that PPC is a never-ending expense. Once you stop paying for it, its benefits end immediately. That means if there’s business to be had during the holiday season, you won’t be getting it if your holiday PPC strategy is to cut back.

Dreamscape Marketing is a big believer in the power of optimized content. Unlike PPC, it’s always on your website doing its job, even during the holidays. We’ve seen many companies just assume PPC is how they’re going to get web traffic. With that in mind, we’re always quick to remind them that PPC has a tendency to eat up a marketing budget. In the end, organic traffic is the gift that keeps on giving. It will bring you the kind of qualified leads you need, even during the holidays.