With the holidays quickly approaching and Christmas just around the corner, consumers are not the only ones looking to find the best bang for their buck. Brands and marketers are beginning to increase their Facebook advertising budgets for the holiday shopping season, given the 375% jump in click-through-rates from the third quarter in 2012 to 2013. [1]Mobilize the ExperienceTo capitalize on what this holiday season has to offer and leverage the highest ROI for your brand, we leave you with a few stocking stuffers sure to optimize your campaign’s success.78% of Facebook’s daily users in the U.S. are on mobile devices, so it comes as no surprise that focusing promotion on mobile versus desktop is the way to go.2 Not only does mobile promotion help in driving traffic to online shopping sites, but it also provides consumers with their own personal guides when shopping in-store. Brands can further leverage mobile usage by promoting their retail-oriented applications living in Facebook to streamline user experience.Stay on TargetReaching the right audience is another critical piece to effectively market your product this holiday season. To really hone in on your most valuable customers, here are the top targeting methods to capitalize on.Facebook ExchangeFacebook Exchange is an increasingly popular method using cookie-tracking to re-target users on Facebook who have already visited your website. To glean the best results, it is important to start building the cookie pool a month prior to campaign launch in order to generate enough site traffic. Strategic pixel placement is equally important to consider, as a higher number of pixeled pages might yield a larger cookie pool, but limiting pixels to the most important pages of the site (e.g. checkout page) could also produce a more relevant targeting pool.Custom AudiencesIf time is of the essence, another way to capitalize on your already-established consumer base is through Custom Audiences. This targeting type allows advertisers to focus on users who have previously engaged with the brand via e-mail lists, phone numbers, Facebook user ID’s, or app user ID’s. It also opens up the opportunity to reach Lookalike targets, who are users likely to be interested in your brand based off the Custom Audience list provided.Keywords + Partner Category OverlayAnother effective tactic to maximize performance in your holiday campaigns is targeting users through traditional keywords with a Partner Category overlay. Teaming up with Acxiom, Datalogix, and Epsilon earlier this year, Facebook launched Partner Categories to give advertisers the chance to target users based on groups such as purchase history, lifestyle, and job title. Utilizing Partner Categories alone to target users can sometimes prove to be too broad, so the combination of keywords and Partner Categories allows marketers to really fine-tune their key audience.Keywords + Fans OverlayIn the same way that targeting users with a Partner Category overlay boosts performance, pairing keyword targets with a Fans overlay also helps contribute to campaign success. Fans targeting concentrates on those consumers who’ve already proven to be loyal brand advocates on Facebook. One of the advantages of running the Fans instead of the Partner Categories overlay is that there is less risk involved in predicting ROI performance. At the same time, however, if you’re looking to grow your consumer base Partner Categories is the route you want to take.Engage Your AudienceArguably the most important piece to the puzzle of holiday marketing on Facebook is the content used in the ads. Facebook offers a wide selection of ad types to choose from, but the challenge is to implement them intelligently.Unpublished Page Post Ads are a no-brainer when it comes to the optimal ad type to use this holiday season. These ads mimic traditional posts that live on brands’ Facebook pages, but allow advertisers to customize the content specifically for the campaign without over saturating users. With Facebook’s recent ad spec changes back in September, it is important to keep these key pointers in mind:

• When using a photo post, include a bit.ly link within copy composition for best conversion results
• Use images with high-resolution specs:
• Link posts: 1200 x 627
• Photo posts: 1200 x 900
• Focus on Newsfeed placements
• Keep the copy short and incentivize users with time-sensitive promotions

While there is no sure-fire recipe for a successful Facebook campaign, these best practices are helpful to keep in mind when considering how best to invest your Facebook advertising budgets this holiday season. Whether you’re looking to reach entirely new consumers or to simply capitalize on your current customer base, remembering to mobilize the experience, stay on target, and engage the audience will give your brand a strong base to help your campaign jingle all the way!Citations1 http://www.nanigans.com/2013/10/16/benchmark-report-retailers-facebook-advertising-roi-holiday-shopping/2 http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/13/facebook-mobile-user-count/3 http://www.nanigans.com/2013/06/17/how-page-post-ads-in-the-news-feed-drive-direct-response-and-roi-study/