The holiday season is the most beautiful time of the year and, for retailers, it’s also the busiest. This year has been particularly challenging for retailers and shoppers, alike, with the presence of global uncertainties like supply chain disruptions. Still, holiday shopping is poised to surge and retailers can turn to Google to drive sales.

This past holiday season, 54% of shoppers used five or more channels, like video and social media, to shop over a two-day period. With Google’s full range of promotional channels, retailers can show up across the shopping journey and stay top-of-mind for consumers. Here are a few tips to set you up for success this holiday season.

For more holiday insights, tune into Think Retail on Air at 10 a.m. PDT later today and check out in-depth recommendations in our Holiday Best Practices guide.

Show up to the party early

The countdown is officially on as holiday shopping kicks off earlier in the year. In May, we found that, on average, 17% of consumers in surveyed markets have started their holiday shopping and more than a third (36%) say they already have ideas for gifts they are going to buy. Get ready to reach these shoppers with the following Google Ads insights and tools.

Make your grand entrance with demand forecasts on the Insights page. This predicts upcoming trends relevant to your business so you can adjust your budget and bidding strategy to capture growing demand. Additionally, use Performance Planner to understand how these changes to your advertising spend will impact your predicted clicks, conversions and conversion values.

Beyond optimizing your campaign settings, you’ll also need to get your product feed in shape. Product-specific insights are now at your disposal at the account level in the Google Ads products tab. These insights let you spot underperforming offers, identify products with missing feed attributes and compare your bidding strategy with your top competitors’.