The Afterpay Effect

Working across a number of industries, we uncover insights that shift strategy across all our advertising accounts. Some small, some Seismic. The impact of Afterpay, Zippay etc.. has created a dramatic change in online purchase behaviour.

Due to the structure of our Search ad accounts, we can spot early keyword trends and over the last 6-12 months started seeing a small rise of <brand+afterpay> searches. Not enough to change our approach to Branded campaigns.

However, in the last 3 months, the trend has shifted again, with a very sudden rise for <category+afterpay> searches.

This is an incredible behaviour shift.

Think about the purchase intent of this search. The shopper has likely researched brands & products, making their decision to buy. The final decision comes to who has the ability to offer an Afterpay style service.

Seismic.

Running a test on this, we created specific campaigns for <Category+Afterpay> keywords.

Its not the big that eat the small. It’s the fast that eat the slow

– Rod Drury

The specific client we ran this test on was chosen due to the volume of searches, but also the fact they called out Afterpay in their header across the website, not just hidden on product pages or at checkout. A fantastic line of sight.

If you are an eCommerce store:

1. Review your Search Term report filtering for the lay-by service that you offer
2. Update your ad copy to include Afterpay in the Headline or Description
3. Update your website / landing pages to include an Afterpay call out

Ultimately this a great insight to act upon today. But the thinking behind the insight is more important.

Who is your seismologist?

Are your ad accounts structured to easily spot trends? Do you have time each month to review? (is your agency providing these insights?)

With the closing gap for technical advantages on Adwords, through bidding, budgets.

The brands that are winning, are those who can react fastest.