For many retailers and direct-to-consumer brands, the holiday season is the most important time of year. But, the social strategy we’ve invested in – daily posting and customer service – just doesn’t impact sales during the holidays. Sadly, this isn’t an attribution problem. Sure, our customers and prospects are discovering and discussing our brands and products in social. And yes, customers go through a “journey” and not a “funnel” when making purchase decisions. However, we believe the platforms themselves and the way marketers have traditionally approached social during the holidays are to blame for disappointing results. This year will be different.

1. The Social Rich Media Holiday Playbook
Engaging consumers at each stage of the purchase journey
The Social Rich Media Platform 2013

2. www.shopigniter.com
503.232.2021
The Social Rich Media Holiday Playbook
Page 2
Introduction
For many retailers and direct-to-consumer brands, the holiday season is the most important
time of year. But, the social strategy we’ve invested in – daily posting and customer service
– just doesn’t impact sales during the holidays. Sadly, this isn’t an attribution problem.
Sure, our customers and prospects are discovering and discussing our brands and products
in social. And yes, customers go through a “journey” and not a “funnel” when making
purchase decisions. However, we believe the platforms themselves and the way marketers
have traditionally approached social during the holidays are to blame for disappointing
results. This year will be different.
We’re not making this up.
Facebook has vastly improved their advertising offerings and consumer behavior has
evolved.
• Globally, over 70% of monthly activity on Facebook and Twitter is on mobile devices.
By the end of Q213, Facebook had over 219M mobile-only users and it’s growing by
30M a quarter. This means that by the end of 2013 there will be more mobile-only
users of Facebook than total users of Twitter
• In the US, 80% of daily Facebook activity is on mobile devices
• There is no right-rail advertising on mobile, all ads publish to the news feed
• Most Facebook tab apps don’t work on mobile, and they certainly aren’t built mobile-
first. If they do work, they aren’t built for the social mobile context. Going forward, all
social advertising campaigns must be mobile-first
• If not driving to apps, many brands drive consumers directly to their websites from
social. Most sites aren’t mobile-enabled and if they are, they are rarely built mobile-
first. And again, if they do work on mobile, they certainly haven’t been designed for the
social mobile context
• Marketers who want to drive brand and business outcomes at scale in social must
spend media dollars – just like they do everywhere else
• With a plan and partners who enable social mobile-specific campaigns, you can do a
lot more in the stream – from awareness to add-to-cart and everything in between
Engaging consumers at each stage of the purchase journey
Playbook
The Social Rich Media Holiday Playbook
2.0
Social
Advertising
1.0
Social Media
Marketing
Desktop
Right-rail
Centralized on fan page
Tab apps
Viral
Fans
Engagement
Mobile
Social streams
Decentralized in stream
Social mobile landing pages
Paid
Customers
Conversion

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The Social Rich Media Holiday Playbook
Page 3
In-Stream
Ad Buying
Conversion
Optimization
Rich Interactive
Content
Magic
Recipe for Success
Increasingly, brands and their agencies are spending “working” dollars to reach, engage
and convert key social mobile audiences. Roughly 84% of the top national advertisers
are buying media in Facebook and the entire measurable social media ad spend is
estimated to be over $6B in 2013.
As we’ve worked with some of the world’s most innovative brands, their agencies and
the largest social networks, we’ve determined that to drive key outcomes at scale in
social, marketers must approach every campaign with these three key elements:
1. In-steam ad buying
2. Rich interactive content
3. Conversion optimization
The recipe, on it’s surface, is simple:
Buy in-stream advertising to reach your most important customer segments – drive
them to social mobile experiences that present rich interactive content that both
engages and converts and use the data to optimize both the media and the experiences.
But as we know, each of these elements is a marketing discipline in and of itself.
Luckily, and at long last, this recipe for social success looks very similar to what we’ve
been using for ages in search and email marketing. And like search and email, brands
need tools and expertise to avoid pitfalls and deliver results.
This playbook uses the trusted framework of a holiday calendar to provide a sense of
the possibilities this new framework enables and hopefully spark ideas of your own.
Our goal is to show you that social and the holidays are not oil and water, nor do they
require a set of new and risky tactics.
We believe that marketers must merge the full power of their creative and media
expertise with Facebook’s remarkable ability to reach and engage key audiences. Rich
media in the mobile news feed is the best way to maximize the return on these efforts,
period.

4. www.shopigniter.com
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The Social Rich Media Holiday Playbook
Page 4
With Halloween behind you, the season officially begins and it will
be time to get your customers and prospects to start thinking about
holiday giving. It’s game time.
As with any kick-off, you want to start strong. Cast a wide net to build
broad holiday awareness among key audiences. In social, you can do
this by reaching a larger audience with lightweight branded content
that is compelling to consume and share.
The goal of this first phase is to reach as many of the right people as
possible with the message, “We have great offerings this holiday;
make sure you keep us in mind”. Video is a great way to connect your
brand and holiday shopping in social. It can elicit emotional responses
and in the case of your holiday promotion, you want that response to
be, “I like and trust those guys. I want to stay in touch”.
While driving reach and awareness is key, it’s also essential that you
capture opt-in early to stay top-of-mind. Ways you can do this are,
• Grow Facebook fans by running in-stream sponsored page ads or
holding a contest that requires people to like your brand page.
• Capture email addresses by offering early or exclusive access to
holiday collections or promoting a pre-holiday giveaway.
• Initiate remarketing to reach website visitors in Facebook with
engaging content and opt-in calls to action
first week of november
Awareness
According to Facebook, remarketing ads have a 20x-40x
higher CTR than standard ads. Start acquiring “remarketing
targets” early and with every campaign you run:
• Place a retargeting pixel in your social mobile landing
experiences
• Plan remarketing creative in Facebook, Google and
elsewhere during the multiple phases of the holiday
purchase journey
Leave Your Mark1
Tip
According to Facebook, brands reach approximately 16% of their
Facebook fans through organic posting. Extend your reach by
advertising to fans, friends of fans and non-fans:
• Create fan-targeted ad campaigns to maximize reach to
your most important audience
• Use unpublished posts to reach non-fans that are in your
extended network
Extend Your Reach2
Tip
75% of online shoppers click on links from their Facebook
friends. This social proof is powerful and harnessing it effectively
is an important part of driving holiday success:
• Use prominent share buttons in your social mobile landing
experiences
• Create page post ads that are optimized for engagement
(likes, comments and shares)
• Sponsor stories to extend the reach of all sharing activity
Use Social Proof3
Tip

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The Social Rich Media Holiday Playbook
Page 5
You have spent the first week of November driving awareness and
opt-in, now it’s time to move down the purchase path. At this stage,
consumers have specific goals -- buy a present for my mom -- but
don’t yet have a plan to achieve them. This is the time to influence this
decision-making process.
The goal of this phase is to entice consumers to explore deeper and
ideally consider buying your products. Use high-impact imagery of
a single product or a collection of products to draw consumers in.
Remember, as your customers are exploring your products, they are
also in the stage of evaluating them. Coupling your product photos
with customer reviews and recommendations, lifestyle imagery or
video can sway the decision to take action.
days leading to thanksgiving
Exploration
& Consideration
The first go-round, you placed one retargeting pixel in your
social mobile landing experience. Now is the time to set
yourself up for more refined tactics later on.
• Place a retargeting pixel on each product page in your
landing experiences
Leave Your Mark (Again)1
Tip
People like to give. People like to get. And people like to get
things for themselves, even during the holidays. Of the people
polled for a recent National Retail Federation study*, 8 out of
every 10 (79.6%) shoppers were looking for self-gifts.
• When driving product exploration and consideration, be
sure to include both “gift-giving” as well as “self-gifting”
messaging
Mind the “Self-Gifters”2
Tip
The consideration stage is an uber important phase in the
customer purchase journey and the right messaging is key. From
post to landing experience is a 1:1 relationship in social. You can
easily create pairings for different audiences.
• Tailor your message to your key audiences. Are you a
targeting younger audience? Then your messaging should
be something like – “Be sure your parents know that you
want XX this year.”
Tailor Your Messages3
Tip

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The Social Rich Media Holiday Playbook
Page 6
The average shopper spends $423 over the Black Friday weekend with
41% of this spent online. This crucial shopping period is largely deal-
based so incorporate this tactic in your social promotions.
The goal of this phase is to drive purchase. To see success at scale
you’ll need to use paid media and optimize your spend toward
conversion events like add to cart and offer claims. Social mobile
commerce is still nascent because of the challenge of checkout on
mobile devices and mistrust of the networks, so think strategically
about enabling a sale, not closing the deal.
• Drive to eCommerce with flash sales and scheduled deals (hourly,
daily, etc.)
• Drive to retail with offers and coupons that can be easily claimed
on mobile but redeemed in-store
black friday to cyber monday
Drive to eCom & Retail
According to a study by the National Retail Federation*, 28%
of shoppers were at stores by midnight on Black Friday. Don’t
wait until Friday morning to launch your campaigns:
• Schedule your Black Friday deals and promotions to go
live at midnight local time
• Everyone appreciates exclusive access. Consider
opening up your Black Friday deals a day earlier just for
fans.
Start Early1
Tip
The scarcity principle states that humans place a higher value
on objects that are scarce and a lower vale on those that are
abundant – use this to your advantage:
• Include scarcity imagery like a ticker that shows the limited
quantity available that slowly decreases
• Include scarcity copy such as ‘for a limited time,’ ‘one day
only,’ or ‘100 only’
Impose Scarcity2
Tip
Now is your opportunity to make use of your prior legwork by
initiating a “product viewers” remarketing campaign:
• Using a partner like AdRoll, you can create dynamically
generated news feed ads based on the specific product
pages (on your dot com and in your social mobile
experiences) visited by the user
Fine-Tune Remarketing3
Tip

7. www.shopigniter.com
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The Social Rich Media Holiday Playbook
Page 7
By December, some people are completely done with their holiday
shopping (kudos to them!) while others haven’t even started.
According to a study by the American Express Spending & Saving
Tracker* last year, only 14% of Americans reported being done with
their shopping come December. According to research last year from
the MasterCard Advisors Spending Pulse*, the final week of December
accounted for approximately 15% of the month’s sales. Basically, many
people are still shopping in December so your marketing needs to keep
working too.
The goal in this phase is to stay in your audience’s consideration set
and capitalize on last-minute and impulse buying opportunities.
december 1st-24th
Stay Top-of-Mind
Use a single social rich media product collection theme to
promote gift guides for key customer segments like women,
men and children. The same theme can be reskineed and
merchandised as often as needed.
• Offer a range of price points within each and
merchandise collections that make it easier to buy
Segment!1
Tip
Flash sales -- time or quantity-limited -- and daily deals will keep
impulse shoppers tuned-in to the last minute.
• Having a new offer every day during this time period is
essential
Reach Impulse Buyers2
Tip
Gift cards are a notoriously popular during the holidays.
• Compel shoppers to choose your gift cards by making
them incredibly easy to buy and deliver and by running
a December promotion. Offer a free lower-value gift card
-- like $10 -- for purchasing a gift card of a higher amount
-- like $100 -- as a gift
Gift Cards!3
Tip

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The Social Rich Media Holiday Playbook
Page 8
The day after Christmas is a frenzied time
for deal-seekers and gift card redeemers.
Plan for it and create strong campaigns for
each of these buyers.
An awesome and unique aspect of social
rich media is that you can easily switch out
content in an existing unit and republish.
Update your existing themes such as Flash
Sale or Daily Deal to create social rich
media units with your post holiday offers.
It’s time to bring your holiday campaign
to a close, phew. Engage your social
audiences with Instgram, Twitter (and Vine)
photos and videos of real, happy customers
using your products. Show the world that
your brand and products made a lot of
people happy this holiday season.
last 6 days of december
Post Holiday/End-of-Year Sale
early january
Strengthen Loyalty
A thank you can go a long way to strengthen loyalty among your
new and existing customers:
• Use Facebook custom audiences to target everyone who
purchased during the holidays and say thank you. No offer,
no nothing, just a big THANK YOU. Do it, it will make you
feel good.
Say “Thank You!”1
Tip
All of those people who received gift cards during the holiday
will be itching to use them!
• Use Facebook custom audiences to target gift cardholders
and inspire them to shop.
• Many shoppers will purchase products amounting to more
than their gift card total so be sure that you’ve set-up
companion products on your product detail and shopping
cart checkout pages.
Gift Cards!1
Tip

9. www.shopigniter.com
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The Social Rich Media Holiday Playbook
Page 9
Digital marketing is hard, especially in social and during the holidays. We believe that this is starting to change. As the networks, vendors and even our own experience matures, frameworks, best
practices and success stories emerge. We hope that in sharing some of what we’ve learned, we’ve both eased your challenge and inspired your success.
If you have any questions or would like to bounce ideas off of us, don’t hesitate to reach out. Our contact information is below.
Good luck in the stream!
Endnotes
Version
1 -- Published September 2013
Primary Authors
Marko Z Muellner, VP of Marketing, ShopIgniter
Kelly Cooper, Marketing Manager, ShopIgniter
Kim Blomgren, Manager of Communications, ShopIgniter
Disclosures
Some campaign examples were never published or considered
Citations
Page 5+6 - National Retail Federation Report: http://bit.ly/1agKSCP
Page 7 - American Express Spending & Saving Tracker: http://bit.ly/17hvNj9
Page 7 - MasterCard Advisors Spending Pulse: http://bit.ly/159Wcjr
About ShopIgniter
ShopIgniter’s powerful social rich media platform enables digital marketing leaders to reach
and convert their social mobile consumers. Innovative brands like Ford, Toyota, Universal,
Disney, GoPro, Sony, Target and Nike use the Igniter platform to publish, manage, and
measure highly effective stream advertising campaigns that drive discovery, engagement and
advocacy across networks and devices. Founded in 2009, ShopIgniter is headquartered in
Portland, OR.
503.232.2021
www.shopigniter.com
@shopigniter
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Thank You