The next holiday season is never too far away. The time will soon come for shoppers to prepare for Black Friday and actively browse the web for perfect Christmas gifts for their friends, families, and colleagues. While it may seem early, thinking about a seasonal conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategy now could make a huge impact on your profits at the end of the year.

Holiday seasons are characterized by gift-giving, so retail businesses expect a surge in consumer spending over the Black Friday period. In fact, despite the continuing cost-of-living crisis, retail e-commerce holiday season sales in the US were estimated to reach $253.71 billion in 2023 – and we can only expect this number to be even higher in 2024.

5 Strategies to Boost Your Seasonal Conversion Rate Optimization Strategy Ahead Of The Holidays

Retailers have a lot to gain by improving their conversion rate optimization strategies in time for holiday periods. Whether you’re preparing for Black Friday or Valentine’s Day, don’t wait until the week before the big day to start implementing these five strategies:

1. Understand Your Seasonal Audience

Any successful marketing campaign requires you to understand your audience. Start by taking a look at last year’s customer analytics so that you can learn more about their preferences, behaviors, and purchasing habits during different seasons.

By understanding what motivates your seasonal audience, you can tailor your festive CRO strategy to resonate with them. 

In addition, think about what strategies worked best for your audience last time the holiday came around. For example, if you saw an increase in sales conversions coming from your gift guides, try creating more festive guides to show an angle of your products that consumers might not be familiar with.

Black Friday gift guide: Origins

Take this great example of a Black Friday/Cyber Monday gift guide from Origins! Here we have plenty of windows to choose from as a customer, including bundles, discount call-to-actions, and ‘Holiday Favourites’ picked just for you.

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Gift guides help guide seasonal purchase decisions, especially if you’ve released a themed product range or a holiday bundle. 

2. Create Seasonal Landing Pages

Whether you opt for reindeer and gingerbread men or a glamorous Valentine’s Day heart design, creating a landing page for the season is a great way to get your visitors in the holiday spirit – and, hopefully, in the mood to spend money on your products.

It’s also never been easier to create a landing page. Using landing page builders like the one offered by Hostinger, you can choose from hundreds of themed templates and even build a seasonal landing page using AI prompts, which makes the process twice as fast as preparing for every holiday. 

Ensure your seasonal landing page reflects the offer, product, or festive collection that initially attracted a user to click on the link, because a cohesive cross-channel experience is important for improving your conversion rates. This is especially important during seasonal shopping periods like Black Friday where customers rely on grabbing the best deals.

Christmas landing page: Super Coffee

Below is an example from the healthy drinks brand Super Coffee. The festive landing page has a whimsical headline, and the product image captures the essence of the Christmas season.

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They have switched from their usual brown branding to green – a color associated with Christmas and relevant for a festive landing page. However, they have kept the same design and fonts, as it is important for businesses to be consistent with their branding.

Businesses experience up to a 23% increase in revenue through cohesive and recognizable brand identities.

3. Offer Seasonal Promotions 

The run-up to any holiday season sees a peak in consumer spending, making it the perfect time for retailers to implement strategies that maximize sales and boost conversions. This is where seasonal promotions come in.

Whether through limited-time offers, bundle deals, free delivery, or discounts, retailers can use seasonal promotions to increase their sales figures, especially during Black Friday shopping sprees. 

Seasonal holidays like Black Friday are all about the ability to create a sense of urgency and excitement among customers and encourage them to make more costly purchases or buy extra items that they can’t always afford.

Promotions in retail, particularly during the holiday season, are not just about reducing prices; they can shape consumer behavior, drive sales, and increase brand loyalty. Consumers want discounts to counteract steadily increasing prices.

According to PWC research, many consumers expect to see deals and discounts even before the holiday season has begun. This highlights the benefits of starting your festive CRO strategy early and enticing the first of the holiday shoppers with seasonal promotions.

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For a successful seasonal promotion, it’s important to balance content marketing and digital marketing to achieve the best return on investment.

4. Optimize Your Search Function

When it comes to shopping over the Black Friday season, consumers most likely have specific products in mind that they’re trying to buy as quickly and easily as possible, especially if they have a long list of gifts to purchase for their loved ones.

Your website and mobile app will see an increase in conversions and sales if high-intent shoppers can easily use your search function to find the products they need. 

Here are a few ways you can optimize your online store’s search function to increase seasonal conversions:

• Put your search bar in an eye-catching position on both your desktop and mobile site. In addition, make sure you maximize visibility by making it a different color to your site’s background.
• Incorporate a predictive search or autocomplete tool so customers receive helpful suggestions while they are still typing in the search bar. This AI-powered technology predicts a user’s search terms based on their behavior, previous searches, geolocation, and more.
• Make sure your search function can handle human errors such as misspellings or misunderstandings. Customers won’t always know how to spell product names.
• If you don’t have an item in stock, use the customer’s search query to show other relevant products they might consider. If you just show an empty page with zero results, your customers will likely visit a competitor’s site instead.
• Incorporate filters into your search function so shoppers can find the products that best meet their requirements and needs. These filters could include price, size, color, gender, material, etc.

Search function: Macy’s

Below is an example of Macy’s search function. The American department store offers a range of filters to help online shoppers find what they are looking for. 

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5. Create a Sense of Urgency

When it comes to converting online browsers into customers this Black Friday, a tried-and-tested CRO strategy is to create a sense of urgency.

When customers feel a sense of pressure to act quickly so they don’t miss out, brands see an increase in conversions and sales. Here are some ways you can create a sense of urgency among consumers during your next Black Friday campaign: 

• Limited-time offers: A discount code or offer that is soon to expire will inspire shoppers to buy before it’s too late, and they are left to pay the full price. In fact, limited-time offers can increase the likelihood of customers making a purchase by as much as 33%.
• Countdown to Christmas delivery: Using a countdown on your homepage to highlight the deadline for securing pre-Christmas delivery will generate a festive buzz when someone lands on your site and increase buyer motivation to get their shopping done in time.
• Stock levels: Telling shoppers when stock levels are low is a powerful tactic for creating a sense of urgency. However, remember to always be honest with the stock figures you use, as misleading customers will affect customer trust and damage your reputation.
• Purchase or view counters: A purchase or view counter allows shoppers to see how many others have bought or viewed an item. This will act as social proof and increase its perceived value, enticing a customer’s sense of urgency to purchase it themselves.

New Year flash sale: NYX

Here we have a great sense of urgency from beauty brand NYX. Their New Year flash sale campaign is a brilliant example of the importance of encouraging your customers to convert fast.

Here the site shows an exact sale end date, as well as a few clickable CTA offers to choose from. 

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Remember, the purpose of creating a sense of urgency isn’t to force a customer through the purchase process too quickly. It’s all about gently motivating a shopper to convert their interest into a sale while ultimately providing a positive customer experience.

Are You Ready For Black Friday 2024?

These five seasonal conversion rate optimization strategies will help your brand convert browsers into buyers this holiday season and boost the metrics that matter.

Once the Black Friday season ends, ensure you nurture the relationships you have built with any news leads and customers into the new year and beyond. This is essential for converting seasonal shoppers into loyal customers who keep coming back for more.