No matter what team you are rooting for, the Super Bowl is a time for people to gather together to eat, drink, and be merry. In fact, according to Men's Journal, Americans drink an average of 325.5 million gallons of beer on Super Bowl Sunday. That’s about ten cans per American. (And that’s just beer!)
Social drinking occasions such as the Super Bowl often happen in clusters, with many consumers making bulk purchases, sometimes for multiple events. MikMak's Shopping Index has found that mid-January is when demand for alcohol begins to climb for the first of the four eCommerce shopping seasons for alcohol, starting with the Super Bowl.
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So with Super Bowl LVI taking place on February 13th, how does an alcohol brand best prepare?
Start your campaigns by mid-January
As you may remember, ‘Dry January’ is not all that dry. Purchase intent for alcohol can start to increase as early as the second week of January. This trend is driven by those who are already starting to prepare for the Super Bowl. For sporting events, our Shopping Index has found that it is common for purchase intent peaks to occur in the two weeks before the event. Based on these findings, we can expect alcohol consumers to begin shopping as early as January 28th.
For the Super Bowl, the two purchase intent peaks take place during the week of the game itself. Last year, the first peak happened on the Tuesday of Super Bowl week, with a purchase intent rate of nearly 24 percent. This means that on that day, nearly one out of every four shoppers on the MikMak Platform that viewed an alcohol ad proceeded to add the product to cart. The second major peak of purchase intent that week happened on Super Bowl Sunday itself. These were shoppers buying those last minute items to complete their party shopping list. For alcohol brands, this is the time to be tracking eCommerce metrics and sales attribution in real time, so that messaging is optimized to drive conversion.
Make your game plan for game day
Just like teams are strategizing to win, alcohol brands should be deciding what their key initiatives are to maximize sales. Last year's Super Bowl week emphasized the need for brands to be at every stage of the marketing funnel, and this is true for this year as well. Expect at least half of eCommerce traffic to be from Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and programmatic advertising.
When purchasing alcohol, having the option to access it immediately is vital. Ensuring delivery and fulfillment options with your retailers can make or break purchasing decisions made. Here are some additional best practices:
- Ensure Facebook and Instagram are in the channels leveraged
- Develop your brand.com into a key part of the shopping journey
- Ensure product availability by always displaying backup to where your product is in cart
- Have last mile delivery available as a fulfillment option
Having the agility built into your strategy is key to making the right real-time adjustments to your Super Bowl campaigns. Tracking the performance of your campaigns, how it compares to category benchmarks, and noticing shifts in demand and preference will be paramount to making the most of this shopping season.
To help you with calling these shots, MikMak will be providing a play by play on alcohol eCommerce performance trends during the week leading up to the Super Bowl. Tune in as we present insights from our Shopping Index on our LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Think of it like ESPN, but for eCommerce! Meanwhile, brush up on your knowledge of these important eCommerce metrics as you put the final touches on your game plan.