The holiday season is here, and you know what that means - time to secure your strategies and budgets and amp up your game. But let’s face it, small businesses and startups often find themselves staring at a limited advertising budget, feeling like the Grinch just stole their marketing mojo.

In this post, we’re here to save the day and help you sleigh (pun intended) your holiday advertising game, even on a tight budget.
Our goal?
To dish out practical advice and insider tips to ensure your holiday ad campaigns shine, all while making the most out of your resources and maximizing the potential impact of your holiday advertising endeavors.
The Importance of Holiday Advertising
Picture this: your brand soaring to new heights, sales skyrocketing, and customers singing your praises like Mariah Carey on her classic holiday anthem. Sounds amazing, right?
In case you need a rundown of why advertising during the holidays is important; holiday advertising holds immense significance for small businesses, offering a prime opportunity to drive sales and boost brand awareness during a time when spending is traditionally high. Well-planned and targeted campaigns can capture the attention of consumers in a highly competitive market, leading to increased customer engagement and higher conversion rates.
Effective holiday advertising not only boosts sales but also plays a crucial role in building brand awareness and loyalty. It allows brands to stand out in a crowded market, establish a memorable presence in consumers' minds, and create lasting impressions. Well-executed holiday campaigns can contribute to shaping a positive brand image and fostering strong connections with customers, ultimately translating into long-term success for the brand beyond the holiday season.
Your Holiday Plan on a Limited Budget
In the marketing landscape, crafting a compelling holiday advertising strategy on a limited budget requires strategic resourcefulness. As businesses gear up for the festive season, the challenge lies in maximizing impact without breaking the bank. From harnessing the power of social media to capitalizing on cost-effective digital channels the art of budget-friendly holiday advertising puts the emphasis will be on strategic planning, creativity, and leveraging available resources and not getting distracted by what the rest of the ad world is doing.
Setting a Realistic Budget
Strategic budget planning is the North Star for successful holiday campaigns. Begin by evaluating your available funds, then allocate them strategically to ensure resource optimization. Recognizing your budget constraints allows you to prioritize advertising channels and tactics that align with your goals and target audience. If you're unsure of how to allocate, here are a few places where you can put your budget and feel good knowing even modest investments can deliver impressive holiday campaign results.
Retargeting Ads: Implement retargeting campaigns to re-engage potential customers who have already shown interest in your products or services, these are likely to be the lowest-hanging fruit and will convert at the highest rate. Check out our Remarketing for Holiday Sales Success post for more tips & tricks here.
Search Advertising: Search allows you to get in front of users who are actively searching for your product, thus resulting in higher conversion rates and more profit.
Social Media Advertising: Focus your budget on targeted social media advertising. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer cost-effective ways to reach specific demographics.
Email Marketing: Leverage your existing customer database for email marketing. Send out well-crafted, personalized emails with holiday promotions and exclusive deals.
Content Marketing: Invest in content creation. High-quality blog posts, videos, and infographics can engage your audience without breaking the bank.
Collaborations with Micro-Influencers: Partner with micro-influencers in your niche. They often have more engaged followers and charge lower fees than mega-influencers
Choosing the Right Advertising Channels
When dealing with limited resources, it's crucial to choose advertising channels that not only fit your budget but also offer substantial value. These channels aim to empower brands with the tools and insights needed to create a resonant and memorable holiday campaign that not only captivates the target audience but also stretches the marketing dollars for optimal return on investment.
The Power of Targeted Meta Ads
Meta's advertising tools allow you to precisely target your desired audience based on demographics, interests, and online behavior. By focusing on a specific audience, you can ensure that your holiday messages reach the right people, optimizing the impact of every advertising dollar spent. Additionally, Meta's ad platform provides flexibility in budgeting, allowing businesses to set daily or lifetime limits to control expenditures. Creative and engaging ad formats, such as carousel ads and video content, can be employed to capture attention effectively. To wrap it all up, the analytics tools offered by Meta enable you to track the performance of your ads in real-time, allowing for quick adjustments to optimize the campaign's effectiveness.
What does this look like in real life? Let's say you sell handcrafted holiday ornaments.
Audience Targeting: Define your target audience, such as individuals interested in holiday decorations, DIY enthusiasts, and those who have engaged with your website before.
Ad Creatives: Create visually appealing ad creatives showcasing your unique ornaments, using high-quality images and compelling copy.
Budget Allocation: Distribute your budget across a series of ads, each tailored to a specific audience segment. For instance, one ad targets parents looking for family-friendly decorations, while another targets young adults interested in trendy ornaments.
Monitoring and Optimization: Continuously monitor the performance of your ads. Shift your budget towards the ones generating the most engagement, clicks, or conversions.
Results: With careful budget allocation and targeting, you can maximize your return on investment (ROI) even with a limited budget. Facebook's ad platform provides insights and analytics to help you refine your strategy further.
Remember, the key to successful budget planning is flexibility and adaptability. Monitor your campaigns, adjust your allocation as needed, and be prepared to seize opportunities as they come.
*Quick tip: In a recent podcast interview with Mosseri, he mentioned that users are spending more time in their stories (& DMs) than anywhere else on the app. So keep this in mind when choosing which ad format to use for Instagram.
Maximizing Google Ads Performance Max Campaigns
If you're a small business navigating the world of Google Ads, we've got a gem for you: Performance Max, the all-in-one Google campaign that covers search, video, and display.
The magic here is hitting all your goals with a single budget, streamlining your efforts. When you're working with limited resources, simplicity is key - the smaller the budget, the more minimalist your campaigns should be. Performance Max campaigns use machine learning to automatically optimize bids and placements based on your specified goals, which can help stretch a limited budget by allocating resources where they are most likely to generate conversions. The automated nature of the campaign minimizes the need for constant manual adjustments, saving time and resources.
Performance Max also allows for broad-reaching ad placements, enhancing visibility across different Google platforms. This can be particularly advantageous during the holiday season when consumers are actively searching and browsing for gift ideas. The campaign's adaptability to various ad formats, including images and videos, enables businesses to create engaging content that resonates with their target audience.
Google allows PMax campaigns to provide detailed performance insights, allowing you to analyze the effectiveness of your ads and make data-driven decisions to refine your strategy. This real-time feedback loop enables businesses to optimize campaigns continuously, ensuring that every advertising dollar is invested wisely.
Creating Ads & Assets On The Cheap
Effective ad creative is crucial for holiday advertising campaigns as it plays a pivotal role in capturing the attention of the audience amidst the seasonal advertising noise. In the crowded holiday market, where consumers are bombarded with messages, compelling ad creative stands out, making the brand more noticeable and memorable.
So how do you do this on a limited budget? Utilize free/inexpensive platforms and fine-tune what you already have.
Ad Copy: changing ad copy in search or social campaigns does not cost any extra dollars - this will allow you to at least change the text that supports your ads even if your site or images do not
Repurpose Existing Content: Repackage and repurpose existing content for the holiday season. Modify images, graphics, or videos to include festive elements or messaging. This can save both time and money compared to creating entirely new content.
User-Generated Content (UGC): Encourage your customers to share their holiday experiences with your products or services. Repurpose user-generated content in your ads, showcasing real people enjoying your offerings. This not only adds authenticity but also reduces the cost of creating original content.
Maximize Free Marketing Tools: Take advantage of free or low-cost marketing tools available online. For instance, use social media scheduling tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to plan and automate your posts, saving time and effort. Or obviously solutions like Canva for creating ready-to-go images & videos.
By combining these strategies and getting creative with your approach, you can develop impactful holiday ad creatives that resonate with your audience while staying within the constraints of a limited budget.
TLDR;
Now you've got all the tools you need to conquer the holiday advertising game, even if you're working with a tight budget. By putting into action the actionable tips and insights we've dished out in this blog post, you'll be geared up to sail smoothly through the festive season while ramping up those holiday sales and boosting your brand's visibility.
With some strategic planning and sharp execution, your business can not only thrive during the holidays but leave a lasting impression that stretches way beyond the festive season. So, let's get started on making your holiday advertising campaign shine – we're here to lend you a hand, and together, we'll make this holiday season one for the books!
-Bluum
are seeing cpms increase yet?
Super helpful - as a brand who constantly feels I cannot keep up with the bigger advertisers, this brings me hope 🙏🙏