- Businesses are capitalizing on consumer behavior after the holiday season as people shop for sales, make returns, and prepare their New Year’s resolutions.
- This period, known as ‘Q5,’ is often marked by lower media costs and overall cost efficiencies.
- Here are a few best practices for marketers to make the most of Q5 — from leveraging AI and automation to creative diversification.
As the New Year approaches, many businesses around the world will begin to ease back their marketing efforts, satisfied that they capitalized on peak shopping season with their holiday campaigns. But with the new year comes new beginnings, and a growing body of data shows that holiday shopping doesn’t end when the holidays are over. In a recent YouGov survey commissioned by Meta, 41% of shoppers said their shopping doesn’t stop in December, but continues after the holidays.
It’s a period now known as the fifth quarter, or ‘Q5,’ the post-holiday season when shoppers are searching for bargains, returning presents, and spending their gift cards — often with an eye toward their own hopes and aspirations for the new year.
“The holiday season is a very important part of the year for marketers, but Q5 is growing in importance,” said Justin Osofsky, head of online sales, operations, and partnerships for Meta. “Businesses are realizing that there is no magical date when the holiday shopping season ends and that Q5 is the time to think about driving your business into the next year.”
Q5 is also a period when competition for ad space decreases, giving marketers an opportunity to find bargains of their own. Internal data from Meta shows that in January 2023, CPM rates were down 4% while average conversion rates were only down 8%. While Q5 is relevant for businesses of all sizes, smaller companies in particular are finding that Q5 is their time to get creative on more competitive platforms when costs are down.
“For many small brands, engaging potential customers during Q5 can be a meaningful cost-savings opportunity when you’re looking at competition on auction-based platforms like Meta,” Osofsky said.
Optimize with AI and automation
Q5 is a great time for learning, and when it comes to marketing campaigns, nothing learns faster than AI.
“We’re viewing this season as the first AI-powered holiday,” Osofsky said. “Marketers are using our AI tools to streamline the entire process of building a campaign so they can more easily develop the right creative, optimize for the relevant audience, and then measure the results.”
Meta Advantage, a suite of automation solutions, uses AI to optimize multiple campaign levers at once, including targeting, creative, placements, and budget. It unlocks greater performance while saving marketing teams time — so they can focus on the bigger picture. And Meta’s Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns is one tool that allows marketers to automatically test more than 100 different creative combinations to see which performs best. The value is not just in boosting sales, but yielding valuable insights that can guide future strategy.
For example, when Bylt Basics, a direct-to-consumer menswear brand from southern California, used Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns to identify the company’s highest-value shoppers, its marketers were surprised to discover how many of those shoppers were women. Bylt then used this insight to begin creating more ads specifically targeted to female buyers.
“Marketers are using our AI tools to streamline the entire process of building a campaign so they can more easily develop the right creative, optimize for the relevant audience, and then measure the results.”
Diversify your creative
Q5 shoppers have a different mindset, frequently focused on sales and discounts, self-gifting, and New Year’s resolutions. This behavioral shift provides marketers an opportunity to diversify their creative, using messaging to meet people’s unique needs.
“We think of creative as your campaign superpower,” Osofsky said. “And one phrase we hear a lot these days is, ‘Creative is the new targeting.'”
And with Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns, marketers are empowered to test out different messages to see which ones perform best, then automatically optimize for the most effective ads.
According to Alejandro Chahin, founder of fashion company Mott & Bow, developing as many variations of creative to reach different audiences is the key.
“One of the best things about Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns as opposed to where we were before is the amount of extra time we have because we aren’t focused on media buying and targeting,” Chahin said. “The algorithm dictates where to go — creating efficiency. It’s the creative that then delivers diversification and targeting.”
Refine your measurement approach
The right measurement strategy allows marketers to make data-driven decisions to help them reach their goals. That starts with asking the right questions.
“Do you have the right account setup? Is your creative speaking to customer motivations? Does automation drive better outcomes? And then how do you validate the results?” Osofsky said.
To answer these questions, forward-thinking marketers are making creative use of A/B testing in their Q5 campaigns. For example, Air France wanted to test the impact of Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns compared to its business-as-usual campaigns using Advantage+ Catalog Ads (formerly known as Dynamic Ads).
Q5 may be a new concept, but marketers who choose to take advantage are finding that its benefits are instantly recognizable. As a period when shoppers are engaged and advertising costs are lower, Q5 offers marketers an untapped opportunity to grow their sales and learnings.
“The biggest misconception about Q5 is that it’s a period to pull back on your marketing efforts because you’ve made it through the holidays,” Osofsky said. “Q5 offers unique opportunities to grow your business, engage with consumers, and set your strategy for the year ahead.”
Learn more about how Meta’s advertising tools and capabilities can help you increase Q5 sales.
This post was created by Insider Studios with Meta.
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