Holiday Marketing Ideas, Trends, and Predictions for 2025

The holiday season is often known for gift-giving, good food, and, most importantly, spending time with friends and family.

But for marketers, it’s also a time of high stress, higher stakes, and intense competition, leaving little time to slow down and recalibrate.

To stand out during the busiest shopping season of the year, marketers must rely on creative thinking, strategic decision-making, and a little holiday magic to achieve their goals.

In this blog post, we’ll go over some holiday marketing ideas to help you think outside the box and break through the chaos this holiday shopping season. 

But first, let’s take a quick look back at what happened in 2024 and explore the trends shaping holiday marketing in 2025 and beyond. (If you want to skip ahead and get to our holiday marketing ideas, click here.)

Recapping Holiday Retail Sales in 2024

Despite cautious forecasts, US holiday sales grew by 4.3% in 2024, hitting a record $1.343 trillion USD and surpassing expectations by nearly 1.5%.

This strong performance was mainly driven by lower inflation, early-season promotions, and increased in-store shopping, helping holiday season sales reach their highest growth rate since 2021.

In 2024, e-commerce also reached a new milestone, representing over 20% of total holiday retail sales for the first time ever.

But, despite the gains, only three retail categories experienced accelerated online sales growth: 

• Apparel, footwear, and accessories 
• Computers and consumer electronics 
• Furniture and home furnishings

Key takeaway: Targeted promotions of high-performing categories, especially early in the season, can still deliver results, even when shoppers are feeling the pinch from rising costs and financial instability.

Predictions for the 2025 Holiday Shopping Season

Although official holiday shopping forecasts from the National Retail Federation (NRF) weren’t available at the time of publishing, early sales indicators still provide some valuable insights for holiday campaign planning:

According to the NRF, total retail sales in the US are expected to grow 2.7% to 3.7% in 2025, reaching between $5.42 trillion and $5.48 trillion USD.

In July, the US Census Bureau reported that retail sales climbed 3.5% through the first half of 2025, closely aligning with NRF’s full-year predictions—a sign that, even with ongoing tariff concerns, consumer spending remains steady and is outpacing inflation. But the NRF says that continued policy uncertainty could weigh on both consumer and business confidence.

Key takeaway: According to EMARKETER, although it may be tempting for media buyers to focus on bottom-funnel metrics in the face of economic uncertainty, it’s important to resist the urge to drastically reduce spend.

Brands that maintain upper- and mid-funnel investment, especially during high-intent periods like the holidays, are better positioned to stay visible during the discovery and consideration phases when customer demand is building.

In other words, while performance channels ultimately drive conversions, using a full-funnel strategy ensures there are customers in the pipeline ready to convert in the first place.

Holiday Marketing and Shopping Trends to Keep In Mind

Before you lock in your media plan, it’s worth stepping back to see how—and when—consumers are actually shopping.

Here are some seasonal shifts and customer behaviours to consider when crafting your holiday marketing campaigns:

Mobile Shopping Continues to Rise

The days of desperate parents racing to local malls for last-minute holiday shopping may not be completely over, but they’re certainly on the way out.

In 2025, mobile commerce (aka m-commerce) is expected to account for 56.5% of US holiday e-commerce sales and 11.5% of total holiday season sales. M-commerce is also forecasted to represent nearly a third of incremental holiday sales growth this year, highlighting just how central smartphones have become to the consumer journey.

Strategic advice: Mobile plays a key role in any cross-channel strategy and should be treated as both a discovery touchpoint and a path to purchase. Build mobile-optimized campaigns that deliver engaging, personalized ad experiences across channels—from in-app to mobile web—to capture attention and drive conversions, whether a customer is on the go or panic-buying from the couch.

Shoppers Still Search for Ideas Online

Although it’s easy to ask a special someone what they want this year, the NRF says that the internet remains the most popular place for gift ideas, with a 2024 survey finding that 44% of shoppers go online to look for inspiration.

Of those shoppers, Gen Zers (i.e., people typically born between 1997 and 2012) are most likely to go on social media for gift ideas.

Strategic advice: Seasonal campaigns should be optimized for second-screen usage, featuring creatives designed specifically for audiences seeking inspiration on social media or wherever they search for ideas online.

Holiday Shopping Will Start Earlier

Black Friday has long been the unofficial kickoff of the holiday shopping season. But as The New York Times reports, due to rising costs, inflation, and uncertainty around tariffs, 21% of shoppers started their holiday shopping in the summer (up from 16% in 2024).

That said, November and December accounted for roughly 75% of Q4 online holiday sales in 2024, so late-season holiday advertising is still important to overall campaign success.

Strategic advice: Start your campaigns early to capture attention from customers looking to stockpile goods ahead of the holiday rush, but maintain budget flexibility, so you can scale spend later when holiday shopping peaks during traditional months.

When to Plan Your Holiday Marketing Strategy

With nearly 20% of the US population starting their holiday shopping in October last year (and even earlier this year), if you haven’t started planning your holiday campaigns yet, chances are you’re already behind. 

But it’s never too late to get started. 

In 2024, the 10 busiest shopping days were projected to account for 30–40% of all holiday retail traffic, and all of them happened in November and December.

Strategic advice: Use this table to map out your campaign timelines. Then, fine-tune pacing and budget allocation to take advantage of high-traffic days without overspending too early.

Holiday Marketing Ideas for 2025

This year, how—and when—people shop for the holidays is changing faster than ever, and what worked last year won’t necessarily work this season. 

From finding budget-conscious buyers to personalizing messages at scale, here are a few holiday marketing ideas you can use to meet shoppers exactly where they are, just in time for the holidays.

Retarget Customers Who Abandoned Carts

According to Statista, cart abandonment rates have been climbing steadily since 2014 and have been hovering around 70% over the past few years.

With shoppers browsing multiple sites over the holidays looking for gifts, it’s easy for customers to get distracted and leave purchases unfinished.

StackAdapt’s email marketing capabilities help you re-engage shoppers by automatically sending emails highlighting the items they’ve left in their cart. If shoppers open the email but don’t purchase the product, StackAdapt can retarget them across devices with display ads, keeping your brand top-of-mind and making it easier for them to return and complete their purchase.

Use Contextual Targeting to Reach Shoppers Researching Gifts

It’s no surprise that searches for terms like “Christmas gift ideas” and “holiday gifts” spike in October and November, as shoppers increasingly turn to the internet for inspiration and ideas in the form of gift guides.

Marketers can capitalize on this early enthusiasm by using contextual targeting to reach consumers at the precise moment they’re hunting for the perfect gift, delivering timely ads that match their interests and purchase intent. 

Contextual targeting also helps advertisers navigate privacy concerns and tightening regulations by relying on content relevance instead of user-specific data, allowing them to reach shoppers open to discovering new brands or products without compromising consumer trust or privacy.

Extend Your Holiday Reach Beyond Social

During the holidays, social media content becomes especially powerful as shoppers scroll looking for gift recommendations. 

Marketers can get more mileage from their best-performing festive content by extending their reach beyond the usual feeds with StackAdapt’s Social Display Ads, which allow you to easily repurpose social media posts and ads and place them across premium websites.

These programmatic social-style ads often outperform traditional banner ads by including likes, comments, and shares, helping you build brand credibility and amplify content across other channels without creating new assets from scratch.

Promote Holiday Deals to Price-Conscious Shoppers

Right now, it’s business as usual. But if economic pressures like inflation or interest rates worsen, customers may have to reduce their holiday shopping budgets, and that’s bad news for retailers counting on year-end revenue.

Marketers can stay agile by using display ads to promote flash sales to price-sensitive customers looking for the best deals this holiday season.

Use dynamic countdown clocks to create a sense of urgency and geotargeting to advertise local deals to the right shoppers.

Boost Holiday Foot Traffic With Digital Out-of-Home Ads

During the holidays, shoppers may start online, but many still hit local stores to find gifts, avoid shipping hassles, or hunt for last-minute deals.

Digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising lets you capture attention in high-traffic locations—such as malls, transit hubs, and bus shelters—to boost local awareness and direct shoppers straight to your doorstep. Use DOOH ads to promote nearby store locations, seasonal deals, or exclusive in-store offers.

Use Connected TV to Aid Product Discovery and Gain Incremental Reach

Connected TV (CTV) advertising is often seen as purely a branding play. But according to a recent study, 59% of holiday shoppers say CTV ads help guide their holiday purchase decisions.

The study found that 36% of CTV viewers get gift ideas while streaming ads—on par with social media—while 89% want to see more specific deals or promotions over the holidays.

With CTV viewership increasing and cost-conscious consumers migrating to free ad-supported streaming platforms to save money, marketers can increasingly use CTV as a performance channel, delivering personalized deals over the holidays while gaining incremental reach beyond traditional linear TV.

Personalize Holiday Ads at Scale With Dynamic Creative Optimization

Over 70% of shoppers expect personalized experiences. But when you’re targeting thousands of potential holiday customers, keeping it personal can feel impossible.

With dynamic creative optimization (DCO), a single creative concept can be instantly transformed into hundreds of tailored ads, automatically adapting messaging, imagery, and promotions to match customer tastes, browsing habits, and real-time product availability. 

DCO is like having a savvy personal shopper responsible for every impression, delivering what customers want, when they’re ready to buy, without increasing your creative team’s workload.

Reach New Holiday Shoppers With Lookalike Audiences

Your best customers hold the key to finding more people just like them. 

Using lookalike modelling, marketers can identify and target shoppers who share similar browsing behaviours, purchase histories, and interests of their existing audience, helping you scale holiday campaigns quickly and cost-effectively. 

With this approach, you’re more likely to reach the types of consumers who already love your products, driving higher engagement, better performance, and more conversions without breaking the bank.

Influence Holiday Shoppers Directly at the Point of Purchase

Holiday shoppers have always flocked to retailer websites and stores seeking inspiration, ideas, and deals. Retail media networks allow marketers to tap into their interest, providing them with powerful tools to influence purchase decisions, in-store and online.

Leveraging exclusive 1st-party data and premium placements from top retailers, brands can precisely target customers actively browsing, researching, or ready to buy products to maximize holiday performance.

Start Your Holiday Marketing Now

With consumer habits changing and holiday competition getting fiercer, marketers need strategies that are creative, agile, and built to adapt. 

Staying ahead of key trends is only one piece of the puzzle. Tapping into smarter, data-driven solutions can help make the 2025 holiday shopping season your strongest yet. 

Ready to put these holiday marketing ideas into action? Request a demo of StackAdapt and get ahead of the holiday rush.