Holiday marketing ideas in 2026: Strategies & campaign examples

The holidays are a joyful season for many. But for marketers, it’s also a time of high stress, higher stakes, and intense competition, leaving little time to slow down, adjust campaigns, or plan ahead.

In this blog post, we’ll go over some holiday marketing ideas to help you think outside the box and break through the chaos in 2026. 

But first, let’s go over a couple of basics, trends, and the outlook for the 2026 holiday shopping season. (Skip ahead if you want to get straight to the holiday marketing ideas or download StackAdapt’s peak season guide for even more in-depth holiday marketing strategies.)

What is holiday marketing?

Holiday marketing is a promotional strategy businesses use to connect with customers, build brand awareness, and drive sales around seasonal holidays like Christmas, New Year’s, Hanukkah, and Thanksgiving. It typically involves marketers using timely messaging, festive themes, special offers, and coordinated campaigns across multiple channels to engage audiences in the lead-up to and throughout the holiday season.

Holiday marketing is one factor that can help drive seasonal spending, with US holiday retail sales expected to reach $1.41 trillion USD in 2026, $304 billion USD of which will come from e-commerce sales.

Because much of this demand is concentrated within a relatively short (although, as we’ll get into, increasingly expanding) period, holiday sales can represent a disproportionate share of retailers’ annual revenue, making the season a make-or-break period for many businesses.

2026 holiday marketing trends

Holiday shopping habits continue to evolve, making the season longer and more complex for marketers to navigate. For brands, that means relying less on a fixed playbook and paying closer attention to how consumer behavior is changing from year to year.

Here are a few things marketers need to know going into peak season:

Holiday shopping is starting earlier (and ending later)

Although typical holiday shopping is still concentrated in the final weeks of the season—with Forrester reporting that in 2025, 26% of US adults online didn’t begin their shopping until December, and 44% wrapped it up after December 16—the holiday shopping window continues to widen.

According to a recent study, 71% of US adults plan to start buying gifts before Black Friday this year, and 46% before November.

At the same time, the National Retail Federation (NRF) reports that 70% of US consumers continue shopping the week after Christmas to capitalize on deals and use gift cards they accumulated over the holidays.

Key takeaway: As holiday shopping starts earlier, brands need to shift campaign budgets, audience building, and testing earlier too. This helps them influence shoppers before they narrow their options, while maintaining momentum through peak season and the post-holiday period.

Value remains a priority for holiday shoppers

Everyone wants to feel like they’re getting good value for their money. But global economic uncertainty is making consumers even more cautious and selective about where and how they spend their dollars this holiday shopping season.

As a result, shoppers are increasingly weighing price alongside factors like product quality, convenience, and other incentives when deciding what’s worth buying in 2026.

According to a Similarweb study, 42.7% of US consumers said they were more price-sensitive during the 2025 holiday shopping season than they were a few years earlier. In response, 31.7% of shoppers planned to start their holiday shopping earlier, while 29.9% planned to hold out for major sales events.

There’s no reason to expect that focus on value will fade this year, with EMARKETER forecasting that Cyber Five—the five-day shopping period from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday—will reclaim its place at the center of the holiday shopping calendar and generate more than $50 billion USD in e-commerce sales for the first time.

Key takeaway: Marketers need to compete on more than discounts. As shoppers compare more options, campaigns should make the value of each offer clear, highlight the products and incentives that matter most, and make it easier for shoppers to decide what’s worth buying.

Discovery will happen everywhere (including AI platforms)

Consumers around the world are researching products earlier, looking for bargains online, and discovering gift ideas across a growing number of channels. But the ways they research and shop are becoming more complex.

EMARKETER reports that 37.1% of US consumers plan to use AI tools like ChatGPT for product research during the 2026 holiday shopping season. Mobile shopping is also expected to reach a new milestone, with 57.5% of online holiday purchases occurring on mobile devices this year.

The path to purchase is growing more interconnected, with consumers moving fluidly between social platforms like TikTok and AI chatbots as they evaluate products further.

These behaviors create more opportunities for brands to reach shoppers, but they also make it harder to manage each channel in isolation.

Key takeaway: To stay visible as shoppers research, compare, and decide what to buy, marketers need to connect these moments as part of a cohesive strategy, rather than treating each touch point as a separate tactic.

12 holiday marketing ideas and strategies to try in 2026

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 together to reach shoppers across the path to purchase.

Retarget customers who abandoned their carts

According to Statista, worldwide cart abandonment rates have been steadily increasing since 2014, with  70.2% of online shopping carts being abandoned in 2026.

With shoppers looking for gifts across multiple sites over the holidays, 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 previously left in their cart. 

If shoppers open the email but don’t purchase the product, StackAdapt can retarget them across devices with display advertising, helping your brand stay top-of-mind while making it easier for them to return and complete a purchase.

Get your brand discovered in AI chats

As shoppers use more tools to research products, compare options, and look for gift ideas, discovery is expanding beyond traditional search, social, and retail environments.

AI-powered search and chat experiences are becoming part of that journey, with AI chatbots expected to help 63.3 million US shoppers in 2026.

But it’s not just about introducing products to shoppers and building brand awareness. AI is also driving traffic to retailer sites and turning that interest into conversions.

According to Adobe, during the 2026 edition of Amazon’s annual Prime Day sales event, AI referral sessions nearly doubled and converted 40% better than other traffic sources, showing that AI can help move shoppers from research to purchase.

With StackAdapt, marketers can access ChatGPT ads in the same platform they use to run programmatic advertising, reaching consumers while they’re actively researching products, comparing options, and deciding what to buy. Learn more here.

Use contextual targeting to reach shoppers researching gifts online

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

Marketers can capitalize on their interest by using contextual targeting solutions like StackAdapt’s Page Context AI 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 address 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.

Tap into social commerce

Social media continues to play an important role in product discovery, with a 2026 study from Salsify finding that 27% of consumers use it to discover new products. That figure is even higher among younger shoppers, with 41% of Gen Zers and 37% of millennials browsing social media for gift ideas.

For marketers, this creates an opportunity to reach shoppers while they’re still deciding what to buy. Brands can use shoppable content, influencer partnerships, and product-focused social ads to build awareness and move consumers from discovery to purchase without adding unnecessary friction to the shopping experience.

Extend your holiday reach beyond social

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. This format allows marketers to easily repurpose social media posts and ads by placing them across premium websites beyond walled gardens.

These programmatic social-style ads can outperform traditional banner ads by including likes, comments, and shares, helping build brand credibility and extending the life of existing creative without requiring marketers to create new assets from scratch.

Scale creative without slowing down production

Creating video ads, whether for programmatic video or connected TV (CTV), is often one of the most costly and resource-intensive parts of digital marketing. 

During the holiday season, the challenge becomes even more difficult. Promotions, inventory, shopper behavior, and demand can change quickly, making it difficult for one seasonal video to stay relevant throughout the entire campaign.

That’s why 86% of media buyers are either currently using or planning to use generative AI to build video ad creative in the year ahead.

StackAdapt’s AI Video Builder brings video ad production directly into the platform. Marketers can use existing brand assets and AI-powered templates to generate standard and dynamic video ads, including product-focused and story-driven creative with scripts, voiceovers, and soundtracks. 

In doing so, teams can test more concepts, adapt creative for different audiences, and scale campaigns without adding overhead—reducing production timelines from weeks to minutes.

Promote holiday deals to price-conscious shoppers with banner ads

For now, holiday spending remains relatively resilient, with holiday retail sales expected to reach $1.41 billion USD in 2026. 

Although retail holiday sales are projected to grow 4.1%, EMARKETER reports this growth will still lag the full-year average for the second year in a row. And if economic pressures, like inflation or interest rates, worsen, customers may have to reduce their holiday shopping budgets even more.

Marketers can stay agile by using display advertising to promote flash sales and limited-time offers to price-sensitive customers looking for the best deals.

Dynamic countdown clocks can help create a sense of urgency, while geotargeting can be used to promote relevant local deals to shoppers in specific markets.

Boost holiday foot traffic with DOOH ads

During the holidays, shoppers may start online, but many still hit local stores and malls 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 shopping areas, 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 CTV to aid product discovery and gain incremental reach

CTV advertising is often seen as purely a branding play. But according to EMARKETER: 

• 59% of holiday shoppers say CTV ads help guide their holiday purchase decisions.
• 36% of CTV viewers get gift ideas while streaming ads, rivaling social media.
• 89% want to see more specific deals or promotions over the holidays.

With CTV viewership rates 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 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.

The good news: that level of personalization can also translate into stronger campaign performance. Internal StackAdapt platform data shows that DCO can help marketers drive 32% higher click-through rates and lower their cost per click by 56% compared to advertisers that don’t use DCO.

Use lookalike audiences to reach new holiday shoppers

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

Using lookalike modeling, marketers can identify and target shoppers who share similar browsing behaviors, 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 at an affordable rate.

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 first-party data and premium placements from top retailers, brands can reach target customers while they’re actively browsing, researching, or ready to buy, helping drive stronger holiday marketing campaign performance.

As a result, it’s no surprise that 11.5% of ad buyers increased their spend in RMNs during the 2025 holiday shopping season than the year prior, and that investment is expected to continue growing, with global RMN ad spending projected to reach $200.4 billion USD by the end of 2026.

When to plan your holiday marketing strategy

With nearly half of the US population planning to start their holiday shopping before November 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. 

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.

Date	Shopping moment	Primary campaign focus	Build demand	Influence decisions	Capture intent
November 27	Black Friday	Capture purchase intent	Jun–Aug	Sep–Oct	Nov
November 28	Saturday after Black Friday	Retarget engaged shoppers	Jun–Aug	Sep–Oct	Nov
December 5	Third Saturday before Christmas	Influence purchase decisions	Jul–Sep	Oct–Nov	Dec
December 12	Second Saturday before Christmas	Influence purchase decisions	Jul–Sep	Oct–Nov	Dec
December 18	Friday before Christmas	Reach last-minute shoppers	Jul–Sep	Oct–Nov	Dec
December 19	Super Saturday	Reach last-minute shoppers	Jul–Sep	Oct–Nov	Dec
December 20	Sunday before Christmas	Reach last-minute shoppers	Jul–Sep	Oct–Nov	Dec
December 21	Monday before Christmas	Reach last-minute shoppers	Jul–Sep	Oct–Nov	Dec
December 26	Boxing Day	Re-engage shoppers	Aug–Oct	Oct–Nov	Dec

Holiday marketing case studies

Here are a few examples of how brands and agencies have used StackAdapt to reach holiday shoppers, build awareness, and drive campaign performance during key seasonal moments:

• Sunny Advertising used dynamic retargeting and display advertising to reach high-intent shoppers for Superior Engineering during Black Friday, helping the brand achieve a 6X increase in average daily sales and a 52X return on ad spend.
• Matrixx Shopper Marketing used contextual targeting, CTV, and video advertising to help Challenge Butter reach bakers during the busy holiday season, surpassing its click-through rate benchmark by 21% and achieving a 98.3% CTV video completion rate.
• MOBSTA used DOOH advertising to reach luxury shoppers over the winter holidays, generating 14.5 million impressions for Michael Kors Jewelry.

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 2026 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.

Holiday marketing FAQs