Holiday Shopping Study 2023: Connected TV, Shopper Trends, & Intended Behaviors This Holiday Season
In addition to being the most wonderful time of the year, the holidays can be the biggest time of the year for advertisers. The fourth quarter is a critical time for many advertisers and LG Ad Solutions’ Direct-to-Glass strategies will help marketers make better connections with shoppers on the biggest screen in the home.
The Spend at Stake:
- Retail Holiday sales are predicted to hit $1.317 trillion in 2023, a 4.5%1 year-over-year increase
- In 2022, the average planned per-person spend on holidays gifts was $8332
- 196.7M Ameicans shopped either online or in stores (or both) during the 2022 Thanksgiving holiday weekend3
- November and December can represent up to 19% of total retail sales4
Additionally, LG households planned to spend 14% more on the holidays relative to non-LG households.
Every year, advertisers want to have a successful holiday season. And households start shopping for the holidays earlier than you might think. 30% start holiday shopping in October or earlier and another 24% start shopping in November before Thanksgiving.5 This means that more than half of all holiday shoppers have started shopping before Black Friday or Cyber Monday! Additionally, even when the holidays are over, 85% of shoppers are still looking for deals.5 This post-holiday period represents a great opportunity for any remaining spend while shoppers make exchanges or use gift cards.
Despite potential economic concerns, 73% plan to spend the same or more on holiday gifts this year relative to last year, which is great news for advertisers!5 Other great news includes how holiday content is an appropriate, relevant medium to communicate to shoppers. 95% watch some type of holiday-themed content during the winter season and 97% of those watch with friends and family.5 Not only does holiday content represent a great opportunity to engage both gift buyers and gift requesters, but 86% do some type of holiday shopping while watching TV.5 This highlights how TV represents a chance to push shoppers through the full marketing funnel, starting at building awareness all the way to driving a purchase.
So the Holidays represent an amazing time to connect with holiday shoppers. But how do you manage the mayhem? Read on to discover how LG Ad Solutions Direct-to-Glass tactics can help you streamline the holidays!
Managing the Holiday Mayhem with Direct-to-Glass tactics:
Prevent Holiday Fatigue (for your Brand):
More than 3 in 5 US households agree that TV ads are repeated too often and this can become even more true during the holiday season.6 While advertisers still want to break through and stand out relative to the competition, you don’t want to overexpose your target audience after they have already internalized what you are communicating (especially when that budget could be used on a different target).
Direct-to-Glass Tactic: Frequency Management
In order to prevent holiday overexposure, use LG’s Automatic Content Recognition and Ad Server technology to suppress advertising to audiences who have already been exposed to your ads multiple times. While optimal frequency will vary by brand and creative, at some point, additional frequency will no longer drive additional lift.
Direct-to-Glass Tactic: Sequential Messaging
In addition to overexposure, brands can be strategic in what order they serve ads to their target audience using sequential messaging, or controlling what creative is served based on how many ads an audience has seen. Two examples include:
- creative rotation where tracking prevents the same creative being served back-to-back and
- narrative construction where creatives are served to advance shoppers through a marketing funnel (i.e. building awareness, highlighting product differentiation, conversion)
Provide Relevant Ad Experiences:
After getting great deals, the number two feature shoppers want from their holiday shopping ads is personalization and relevance. LG Ad Solutions already understands this as we previously found that 73% of CTV owners want ads that are relevant to their interests.7
Direct-to-Glass Tactic: Precise Audience Segment Creation
Adopting a traditional TV approach that targets a generic audience (think adults 25-54) misses out on the advanced targeting capabilities of CTV. At LG Ad Solutions, we prefer to blend a combination of our first-party data (Automatic Content Recognition), a brand’s first-party data connected via clean rooms, and select third-party data sources like Experian or TransUnion to isolate and target specific audiences based on who they are, what media they consume, and where they are in your marketing funnel.
Direct-to-Glass Tactic: Enhanced Ads
CTV provides the ability to move past the traditional :30s TV spot. Using Enhanced Ads, LG Ad solutions can serve ads based on the weather (winter coats for the snow outside), directions to the nearest store (where to buy the winter coat in-person), or through a QR code (buy the winter coat from your phone). Enhanced Ads represent a great tactic to increase relevance and engagement. For example, 82% of CTV owners like the concept of Enhanced Ads overall while 50% indicated they would be likely to engage with a QR code ad.8
Engage from the Start
Even with all the technological advancements of CTV that make advertising better, audiences will always want to find and watch exciting and enjoyable content. However, how audiences find what to watch is changing. In fact, using the homepage of a CTV is the number two way audiences find new content, trailing only recommendations from family and friends. And given the amount of content, on average, US CTV owners spend 5.7 minutes between turning on the TV and watching content.7
Direct-to-Glass Tactic: Native Ads
However, these 5.7 minutes represent a prime time for advertising through Native ads. Native ads are seen when households turn on their TV and are navigating to their desired content. LG Ad Solutions offers the option of roadblocks where brands can obtain 100% Share of Voice and enable the viewer to interact with native ads in a variety of ways (such as click-to-video or click-to-web).
Capitalize on Post-Holiday Shopping
Shoppers do not stop shopping once the holidays are over: 85% are likely to look for additional deals after the holiday season.5 Plus, not everyone gets the perfect gift for the holidays as 54% of holiday shoppers are likely to return or exchange a holiday gift.5 Additionally, 92% of holiday shoppers indicate they are likely to use a gift card they received during the holidays (which is actually the #2 planned holiday gift).5
Direct-to-Glass Tactics: Post Holiday Push
With exception of specific live events like New Year’s Eve, streaming beats out linear TV both before and after Christmas/New Year’s Day.5 Streaming represents a great opportunity to connect with shoppers looking to make exchanges or use their gift cards.
Why You Need a Steaming Strategy:
- 93% of Internet users are reachable by Connected TV,7 and 88% watch Streaming TV with others, creating an opportunity to reach multiple people in the household at the same time8
- Streaming is the top method for watching holiday content5
- Relative to mobile ads, ads on streaming TV are considered more helpful in informing holiday purchases5
- 57% of shoppers feel favorable towards brands that advertise on Free, Ad-Supported Streaming Platforms5
Ready to manage the holiday mayhem? Reach out to LG Ad Solutions to learn more!
- eMarketer: How retailers can prepare for the holiday season in 5 charts
- NRF and Prosper Insights & Analytics October 2022 Consumer Holiday Survey
- NRF Holiday 2022 by the Numbers
- NRF Winter Holiday FAQs
- Holiday Shopping Study 2023: Connected TV, Shopper Trends & Intended Behaviors This Holiday Season
- MRI-Simmons 2023 March Cord Evolution Study
- The Big Shift Wave II
- Tuning in to Attention: The Data-Driven Advantages of CTV
