Planning Phase

Planning is the most important phase, as it lays the foundation for the Q4 holiday season. From photoshoots, creatives, campaigns, promotions, and GWPs (gift-with-purchase), to audiences, keywords, bidding strategies, emails, and SMS flows — this is where the magic happens. Our team started planning for Cyber Week 2023 during Q3 (August/September). We began by getting it on our radar and making plans and updates about upcoming photo/video shoots. The end of September and the beginning of October is when the majority of the details were finalized, and we were ready for the Preparation phase.

Preparation Phase

Preparation is the key to success during Cyber Week, a golden period for eCommerce. If you wait until Cyber Week to start finding new customers, you're too late. Remember the customer buying journey isn't linear and there are many touchpoints before they convert. Each of the channels needs to work in tandem, especially during Q3 and Q4. For example, starting to increase your non-brand/prospecting coverage in September will attract customers, get them interested in your products, and make them ready to purchase during the Cyber Week event.

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Implementation & Optimization Phase

The last phase is implementation and optimization, and it happens during the Cyber Week event. But hitting "start," "activate," or "enable" is only the beginning of it.There needs to be a balance between making too many and not enough changes. You don't want to put your campaigns into the learning phase over and over. During this stage, we made optimizations to ensure our clients’ success during the 5-day online shopping event.

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