How Can Operators Prepare for the Holiday Season?

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With the holidays approaching, it’s always a fun and festive time, but it’s also a great opportunity for brands to ramp up their marketing efforts to grow their audience. As the year comes to a close, it’s a great time to reflect on the past year and see what your strong points were and what improvements can be made. With this article, we go through some simple techniques to help your brand prepare for the busiest time of the year, and what to consider

To begin with, it’s important to start the planning early on so that you have plenty of time to develop a plan that works best for you. Below you’ll find some techniques that you should keep on your radar when deploying your holiday plan.

Align Your Message Across All Channels

During the holidays, it can be very tempting to get carried away with offering the best promotions and games for players. However, it’s very important not to forget to align your other marketing channels to deliver one consistent message. Affiliates should have access to any discount affiliate links, specific brand messaging, and creatives.

Develop Holiday Creatives

On that note, working on holiday creatives that will be eye-catching and relevant is another element to consider. You can also have a variety of different creatives for each different type of affiliate. If you’re using text links, be specific about the promotion and include the dates and times of the offer. It’s a good practice to run a report on past banners to see which banner sizes convert the best.

Holiday Newsletters

Holiday newsletters are a great way to update players or affiliates on upcoming promotions, games, and offers. You can use a simple yet engaging subject line to spark your audience’s interest. Consider using emojis in your subject line as that usually stands out in an inbox filled with text. Your email needs to add value to increase your click-through rate, so it’s important to add links, images, and bold text to make it stand out.

Increasing Commission Rates

It's worth considering increasing commission rates for affiliates during the holiday season to incentivize them further to promote your brand. Reviewing the industry averages for commission rates and margins can help you figure out how much of an increase you can offer. Be sure to mention that it will be a temporary commission increase, so as not to confuse or disappoint your affiliates.

Audit Past Campaigns

As we all know, the best outcomes are usually derived from looking at past data and evaluating them for improvements. It’s a good tactic to audit past holiday campaigns, looking back at statistics from previous years to see what worked, what didn’t, and how you can improve your campaigns this year. Have your demographics changed? What does your target audience value? Understanding this will help you craft the perfect holiday campaign that converts.

Review Onboarding Process

Attracting top affiliates to your affiliate program can be a challenging but rewarding task. You want to ensure that the affiliate onboarding process is smooth and quick. Therefore, you will want to review the onboarding procedures prior to the holidays to speed up the process of onboarding.

Plan, Plan, Plan!

Finally, and most importantly, plan ahead! For operators, communicate early on with your affiliates about upcoming offers and promotions and provide them with updated marketing materials so they have enough time to place the holiday assets on their sites

Closing Thoughts

While the holidays can be an overwhelming time of the year, you can ease the stress by starting to plan now. By implementing these effective strategies, it can help boost your program’s performance and results. Happy holidays and best of luck in growing your brands in 2023!