Merry Clickmas Infographic : Christmas sharing ‘hotspots’ are goldmine for marketers – Craig Tuck, RadiumOne’s Managing Director

On the eve of John Lewis’ Christmas ad launch, a study reveals the huge amount of Christmas-related content sharing online and how marketers can tap into it to fuel sales, particularly around 4 key “hotspots” based on an analysis of 10 million shares.

“The vast majority of purchases result from recommendations by friends and family people trust, so sharing behaviour is a powerful retail signal at this time of year which marketers need to have built into their paid, owned and earned plans.

Boots tapped into this last Christmas to generate £10 in sales for every £1 spent on digital ads.”

Read the Infographic  ..  Merry Clickmas 2016

Christmas sharing ‘hotspots’ are goldmine for marketers

98 million shares a day: this behaviour is most powerful retail signal at this time of year

For many, tomorrow’s John Lewis’ Christmas ad marks the start of the festive period and people sharing Christmas content. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg and marketers are missing out on a big opportunity to drive sales around what consumers share online.

Among the 72% of British adults (36.1 million*) who’ll share Christmas-related content online, adverts are only the seventh most popular content, alongside present wish lists (30%). The most popular, by far, are festive pictures (65%) followed by videos (49%), present ideas (45%) and sales & promotions (43%).

Based on analysing 10 million shares of gift-related content, data-driven marketing technology business RadiumOne identifies four sharing spikes or ‘hotspots’ outside Black Friday and Cyber Monday which marketers can tap into to fuel sales. These are the 11-12th and 18-19th November, and 3-4th and 18-19th December.

“The vast majority of purchases result from recommendations by friends and family people trust, so sharing behaviour is a hugely powerful retail signal at this time of year which marketers need to have built into their paid, owned and earned plans,” says Craig Tuck, RadiumOne’s Managing Director. “Sales & promotions and present ideas will each be shared by about 15.9 million people. This is a real-time trigger of consumer intent and the most likely moment they’ll interact with a brand at the most important retail period of the year.”

Electricals, clothing, gadgets and toys are the product ideas most likely to be shared. For all these, the vast majority of sharing happens in “Dark Social” channels (which can’t be measured via web analytics, such as email and instant messengers), from 78% in clothing to 94% in toys.

Mobiles have now overtaken laptops as the most popular device for sharing content online, being used by 41% of sharers.

Around 98 million pieces of Christmas-related content will be shared each day and the average sharer will do so with 11 people, so Tuck points out this gives brands a “12-for-1 deal” as they can “join the dots” between sharers and recipients.

“Having the right tools in place to wrap, track and activate your Christmas content online is vital if you want to harness the power of this critical consumer signal,” says Tuck. “Data–driven insights gleaned from sharing enables retailers to successfully grow revenue in this hugely competitive period. For example, Boots tracked how their content was shared last Christmas to generate £10 in sales for every £1 spent on digital ads.”

Source: *Based on Office of National Statistics Population Estimates for England, Wales and Scotland Mid-2014. 50.09 million People 18+ x 72% = 36.06 million people sharing Xmas content online.

Methodology

Hotspot-related data is based on RadiumOne’s analysis of around 2.5 million pieces of content shared each month between 1 September and 31 December 2015. The consumer research was undertaken by MindMover. The total sample size was 1,000 people aged 18+ who celebrate Christmas. The survey was conducted online between the 14-20 July. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).

 

About RadiumOne

RadiumOne is the only data-driven marketing company that connects the dots between brands’ paid, earned, shared and owned assets to find and connect with high-value consumers. Through our ability to see the strongest signals of consumer intent and predict where consumers are on their journeys, we can build brand-specific campaign strategies. RadiumOne delivers digital campaigns that are measured against real business outcomes. Based in San Francisco, RadiumOne has offices across the US, Canada, Europe and Asia Pacific. www.radiumone.com / @RadiumOne.