How to Boost Your Holiday Sales with Millennials and Gen Z

Anne-Lise Sharbatian
3 min readOct 26, 2021

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The holidays are right around the corner and shoppers are tackling their lists as early as ever. Even as the world emerges out of the COVID-19 pandemic, a source of uncertainty still remains and the vast majority of holiday shopping is expected to occur online. Still, in the midst of this ambiguity, the economy is expected to see its fastest growth in more than two decades during the back-half of 2021.2 With this exciting trajectory in mind, here are three ways small businesses can drive big results with digital marketing this holiday season.

1. Optimize your ads for mobile to ensure a seamless shopping experience

Mobile commerce will dominate this holiday season as shoppers have officially made the jump from desktop to mobile. While this shift happened in part due to COVID-19, it has quickly become the new normal. In fact, 67% of all e-commerce sales this year will come from mobile. That’s true especially for mobile gamers, among the savviest mobile consumers out there, who shop online 80% more than other consumers.

Without a well-baked mobile strategy, your business will have difficulty effectively breaking through this holiday season.

Tip: Having an interactive, playful ad that showcases many of your products is key to ensuring, a seamless shopping experience and driving more conversions, especially during the holidays. If you’re advertising on Tempo, be sure to pair a beautiful, colorful video with clear pictures of the products you wish to display. Additionally, when building your digital advertising strategy, understanding which demographics and contexts is half the battle. Tempo can help you not only reach the right players but also the perfect game moments and environments in which to sell your products.

2. Advertise where people are having the most (casual) fun: in mobile games

Over the past five years, mobile games have dramatically taken away time spent on social media. Mobile gamers now spend an average of 40 minutes a day playing on their phone, their most effective getaway from the toxic noise of social media. Because mobile games are controlled environments, they’re also a great place for advertising since you won’t have to worry about one of your ads inadvertently landing in between controversial or hurtful pieces of content. Mobile games have also become a safe place to connect with friends, which means players are increasingly playing to have fun and pass time rather than to win — an auspicious time to introduce new products in an entertaining way.

Tip: Leverage mobile ads that are built to help you generate brand awareness, drive product sales, encourage app downloads and boost conversions. Tempo’s mobile ads are playful and organic to the games they appear in, which inspire gamers to take action.

3. Reach millennials and Gen Z beyond the big moments to maximize sales

Millennials and Gen Z are rarely without their phones and have incredible global spending power — $4.4 trillion and growing. These generations plan to spend big throughout the entire festive season. While 72% of gamers plan to shop this Black Friday and Cyber Monday, their holiday purchases are not limited to these key moments and neither should your digital marketing strategy.

This is a highly influential audience that loves the holidays and feels gift-giving is an integral part of the celebration. In fact, mobile gamers will spend 1.6-times more than the average shopper throughout the entire holiday season.

Tip: When building your target audience and contexts, it’s best to be as precise as possible. Targeting based on interests, behaviors, location and demographics are all important, but the more advanced targeting capabilities you have — like the ability to contextually target your ads based on your products — the more you’ll be able to grow meaningful reach and leave impressions on people looking for products like yours.

At Tempo, we believe small businesses play an important role in powering the holidays, which is why we work hard to empower small businesses. With these digital marketing tips, our goal is to help make sure your business sees the results you want this upcoming season, whether it’s reaching more customers or exceeding your sales goals.

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Anne-Lise Sharbatian

Anne-Lise is the founder of Tempo, an in-game ad network that connects brands and developers across the globe.