By Crystal Silvas

Before the extremely important Q4 selling season begins, the biggest focus is on maximizing this major once-a-year revenue opportunity. The brightest marketers have devoted at least part of their budgets to behavioral targeting for the upcoming year, but retailers should also be aware of behavioral targeting opportunities to cross- and up-sell to customers during the holiday shopping season. This can be done for both returning and new customers alike, and it’s not difficult to do.

“Cross-selling” and “up-selling” involve directing a customer’s attention to products and services that complement or increase a purchase while it’s still in progress. Good e-commerce sites are a great way to study cross- and up-selling strategies. Try making a purchase at Amazon.com without being offered recommendations for additional products you should be using. (“People who purchased this item also bought this one…”) Behavioral targeting offers an enlightened follow-up on communication and sales opportunities. This can be leveraged for cross- and up-selling to people browsing or shopping the Web. These techniques can substantially boost your online sales, especially during a season characterized by benevolence and wanton spending.

You can begin by looking over historical purchasing patterns. If you find that buyers of product A often buy product B or C, either in the same transaction or later on, then they’re obvious candidates for follow-up ads for product B or C. See how that works? Re-targeting can be used to designate a cookie for product A buyers and to deliver ads featuring products B and C after the initial sale. But we already do that all year round, so what makes this season different?

Behavioral marketing lets advertisers target individual consumers rather than portions of content or categories of consumers. When consumer purchasing patterns change, like they do in seasons of amplified spending, this approach allows marketers to make adjustments in an efficient, timely and profitable way. Allowing consumers to take the lead, following their trail, and then responding to their hints is what sets behavioral targeting apart from other methods.

Most consumers browse, shop, and buy differently during the holiday season than they do during other times of the year. Trends materialize quickly and the response window is quite small. Many high-involvement purchases sold during this season are excellent candidates for cross- and up-selling opportunities. Sellers of clothing, electronics, products for the home, etc can offer higher quality, more expensive products, upgrades, insurance, or service offerings.

There is a challenge involved in holiday up-selling during the holiday season, however. For instance, if an item is given as a gift, marketers unlikely know anything about the recipient and therefore can’t up-sell them directly. A more comprehensive approach must be taken in order to give gift recipients a reason to come to the site so that they can be identified and receive a cookie. Once you segment gift recipients, you can reintroduce the brand plus additional sales opportunities through targeted promotions and offers. There’s also a larger percentage of new buyers to many sites during the holiday season, so re-targeting pixels aren’t available. (Those shoppers are holiday buyers, not regulars.) Special techniques must be used to address the follow-up to those sporadic buyers.

It’s probably possible to target gift-givers differently if you are able spot them based on their behavior. You might consider creating a segment of buyers who have items gift-wrapped if there are appropriate up-sell opportunities. But don’t forget about the other effective tactics that can be used. E-mail maintains its position as the most effective means to incremental sales. Using behavioral targeting to identify candidates for up-sell with the specific objective of adding them to an e-mail list is an excellent way to integrate two channels for a common goal. Rich media ad units that capture e-mail directly in the advertisement represent a productive and quantifiable use of behavioral targeting.

A practical approach to maximizing the holiday shopping season starts with knowing your customer (and potential customer) base. Behavioral targeting should be applied in a skillfully crafted plan to create awareness, motivate action, and to develop an ongoing dialogue with your customer base. In the holiday season, behavioral targeting should be a progressive and focalized effort.