‘Tis the season for magic—and marketing! Behind every eye-catching holiday ad celebrating Valentine’s, Mothers Day, Back to School, Singles Day, and Christmas comes months of meticulous planning, fierce competition, and a ticking clock. So, how do the most successful brands unwrap holiday campaign success amid the chaos of the season?
After boosting return on ad spend for Hallmark’s holiday ad campaigns by 48.7% YOY for 5 years, Criterion Global elevated holiday advertising to a science. But apart from all the media planning and buying decision-making, creative optimization, or real-time to inventory and profitability analyses, there’s one singular priority that determines make-or-break winners and losers in holiday advertising – whatever the market, whatever the holiday. Keep reading to unlock proven strategies that top brands like Hallmark use to make their holiday ads stand out, even before careful planning and data-driven insights, to capitalize on the busiest shopping moments of the year.
Holiday Ads Unwrapped: The Math Behind the Magic
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. For advertisers, brands and CMOs, it’s also one of the most critical—and sometimes stressful—periods, as they gear up for surges in consumer spending, seasonal promotions, shipping cutoff timelines, and end-of-year sales. The season represents an unparalleled opportunity for advertisers, accounting for a significant portion of annual retail revenue every year. Different holidays carry different weight for brands; consider Crayola, owned by Criterion Global client Hallmark, where “back to school” shopping demands +8% more production output each day compared to the rest of the year (Bloomberg).
| Rank | Retail Holiday | Approximate Date | Estimated Aggregate Global Sales (USD Billions) Range | Notes | Source |
| 1 | Christmas/Boxing Day/NYE | December 25/26 – January 1 | $957 – $966.6 billion | 2023 | Statista |
| 2 | Lunar New Year | January/February | $965 billion | 2021 | Pattern |
| 3 | National Day/Golden Week | October 1 | $202 billion | 2018 (China) | Coresight Research |
| 4 | Back to School | August/September | $171.8 billion | 2021 | Grand View Research |
| 5 | Alibaba 618 | June 18 | $102.3 billion | 2024 | CNBC |
| 6 | Singles’ Day | November 11 | $84.5 billion | 2021 | Statista |
| 7 | Black Friday | Fourth Friday in November | $59.1 billion – $72.3 billion | 2023 | WiserNotify |
| 8 | Diwali | October/November | $45 billion | 2023 | Inc. |
| 9 | Mother’s Day | Second Sunday in May | $35.7 billion | 2023 | Silverpush |
| 10 | Valentine’s Day | February 14 | $25.8 billion | 2024 | Oberlo |
| 11 | Easter | March/April | $24 billion | 2023 | NJBA |
| 12 | Father’s Day | Third Sunday in June | $22.9 billion | 2023 (US) | License Global |
| 13 | Amazon Prime Day | Mid-July | $12.9 billion | 2023 | Statista |
| 14 | Cyber Monday | Monday after Black Friday | $11.3 billion | On average, yearly | Exploding Topics |
| 15 | Halloween | October 31 | $10.6 billion | 2023 (US) | Consolidated Credit |
The table above shows that the cumulative sales value of the top 15 global retail holidays is estimated at approximately $2.74 trillion in a year, out of total global retail e-commerce sales estimated to be $5.8 trillion USD. This means that e-commerce sales, from Holidays in particular, make up an estimated 47.24% – almost HALF — of all global ecommerce. But it’s important to note that, although Christmas leads in sales volume, there are more holidays than simply Christmas, even for brands focused exclusively on Western markets; even lower sales volume holidays like Back To School, Halloween, Valentine’s and Mother’s Day represent a complex battlefield for consumer attention – with a significant prize at stake.
It follows logically that ad spending at holiday is significant, with advertiser brands fighting for their share. In 2022 alone, $1.9 billion dollars were spent on Christmas advertising (though just .2% of the $929.5 billion in revenue generated). This year, holiday sales are expected to reach a whopping record of $1.353 trillion globally, per eMarketer’s July 2024 forecast, and with holiday ad spending forecast to grow in line with the opportunity for outsized revenue.
To make the investment pay off, however, brands must recognize that holidays are, by nature, excessively competitive times of the year. With countless brands fiercely competing for consumer attention, holiday advertising is not for the faint-hearted, or brands hoping to “test and learn” by trialing a campaign strategy. The short window for holiday promotions places a strenuous demand on advertisers to plan strategically, craft precise and targeted messaging, and stay adaptable as consumer trends shift.
The #1 Thing that Makes – or Breaks – Holiday Ads
A surge in consumer sales due to holidays doesn’t just take place on the big day itself, but accumulates in the weeks leading up to it. The most successful brands in the holiday space don’t wait until the last minute to make their mark—they plan ahead and build anticipation. Some call this “just-in-time marketing”; In holiday advertising, this is what Criterion Global calls pacing. Pacing is strategic planning to maximize the total engaged time in market, to effectively “stretch” sales for maximum time and total value achieved.
Must-Know’s for Holiday Pacing:
- One of the most important aspects of pacing for holiday ads is establishing a clear budget and defining specific and measurable campaign goals before the season kicks off. Holiday ads should be fueled by a well-structured plan with realistic projections for Return On Investment, informed by past performance data. Are you hoping to increase brand awareness, attract new customers, or drive end-of-year sales? Clearly outlining brand revenue objectives will guide your budget allocation and ad placement strategies in the right direction during the early stages of planning for holiday ads. Whether you’re using paid search, social media ads, or programmatic buys, your pacing should align with both your financial resources and goals.
- The best thing you can do as an advertiser or CMO is begin building momentum early, launching initial campaigns 6-8 weeks before the holiday, while using the final week to employ retargeting tactics and last-minute promotions to get a hold of procrastinating shoppers. Planning ahead enables you to catch early-bird shoppers while maintaining the flexibility to adjust your strategies later on as trends evolve throughout the campaign duration.
This “extended runway” gives brands time to create high-quality ads that resonate with consumers. By spacing out your campaign timeline, you ensure your brand stays top of mind as the holiday buzz intensifies.
Mastering Flexibility: How Agility Drives Holiday Ad Success
It is important to note that in the competitive holiday space, even the best-paced plans need room for flexibility. Marketers know that consumer behavior can shift on a dime, especially during the holidays, when economic conditions or emerging trends can quickly and dramatically reshape the shopping landscape. That’s why it’s important to build contingency into your pacing strategy.
Alibaba, for example, a popular online shopping platform in China, has developed several retail and e-commerce holidays of their own in the last few decades. The 12.12 shopping festival, which originated in 2012 as a lesser-known counterpart to their Singles Day (November 11), had evolved into a significant multi-week shopping event. During Singles Day 2023, Alibaba offered 80 million products at its steepest discounts, a strategy seen as part of its effort to compete with rivals like Douyin and Pinduoduo.
However, Chinese consumers have, in general, become more cautious with spending over the last few years due to a worsening real estate crisis, high youth unemployment (over 20%), wage declines in some sectors, and government-mandated cuts in local government spending. These economic challenges have made consumers more value-conscious, further influencing their shopping behavior.
On November 24, 2023, Alibaba announced the cancellation of the December 12 shopping festival. They decided to replace the e-commerce holiday with a new, consumer-friendly event called “Year-End Great Prices,” to begin on December 9 and last throughout the season. According to Alibaba, the strategy behind Year-End Great Prices was that it would offer deeper discounts, a wider range of products, and greater participation from merchants compared to previous 12.12 festivals. The new holiday shifted strategies to match the “thrifty” mood of consumers in China. Staying flexible allowed Alibaba to avoid the financial loss of full cancellation and seek new, promising opportunities. Even for well-established brands, campaigns don’t always go as planned, making it crucial for brands to stay agile and be prepared to pivot strategies when results fall short of expectations. As a CMO, how can you prepare for these unpredictable shifts? By leaving 5-10% of your budget aside for opportunistic moves, you give yourself the option to adjust your messaging during a campaign if necessary based on real-time data. The brands that adapt fastest are often the ones that stand out, and ultimately take the cheese.
Tapping Into Consumer Desires: The Power of Personalization in Holiday Ads
To truly stand out, holiday ads have to speak directly to what consumers care about most. Tapping into consumer insights and first-party data to channel personalization in holiday ads is a great way for brands to resonate deeply with their audiences.
To fine-tune your personalization strategy, you must first know your audience well, which can be done by tracking audience growth and behavior. Criterion Global’s approach to Hallmark’s holiday ad campaign offers a blueprint for the power of personalization in holiday ads. By segmenting Hallmark’s audiences into “New” vs. “Known” categories and tailoring ad messaging to each group, Criterion Global maximized the impact of the company’s holiday ads.
Criterion Global knew from experience that existing consumer relationships generate the most significant returns in the short term. They also knew that unfamiliar audiences tend to respond better to ads that reflect their individual preferences and needs. Personalized messaging to known audiences (in this case Hallmark’s loyalty members), drove higher ROI by targeting repeat customers with tailored offers and relevant content. Personalized content aimed at the new audience had a deep impact, ultimately building trust and engagement for the brand in the long-term.
Don’t Forget about Retargeting (But Also Think Beyond it!)
After capturing a consumer’s interest, it’s important to keep that connection throughout the holiday season. Implementing retargeting tactics in your holiday campaign strategies ensures that potential customers who’ve interacted with your brand or previously browsed your products stay hooked. Whether it’s through personalized emails, social media ads, or display ads, retargeting helps you stay top of mind for your audience, pushing them closer to conversion with relevant, well-timed messages during the holiday season. The key is to focus on the desires and behavior patterns of your consumers, delivering offers that feel personal and meaningful during the holiday season.
Learn more about how Criterion Global drove significant ROI for Hallmark during the Holiday Season… Read our Hallmark holiday case study.
Tracking Triumph: Measuring the True Impact of Your Holiday Ads
As a CMO, it is vital that you understand the true impact your holiday ads are having. Tracking key performance metrics for holiday ads is a great way to get a full scope of your campaign’s impact. Following Hallmark and Criterion Global’s model, brands can use a scorecard approach to monitor important KPIs such as ROI, conversion rates, click-through rates, and revenue lift. Hallmark effectively measured both online and offline performance, including revenue attributed to store visits, offering a comprehensive view of their campaign impact.
Real-time monitoring tools like DCM, Pinterest Conversion Pixel, and Facebook Ads Manager help with collecting actionable insights throughout the campaign duration. Criterion Global employed multi-channel tracking to continuously optimize results, making quick adjustments as needed. Like Hallmark, your brand can learn valuable things from each holiday campaign, and can use that data to polish strategies and drive year-over-year growth for future holidays.
Crafting Holiday Ads That Captivate: Formats Proven to Engage
Every year, several brands go above and beyond at creating holiday ads that feel both relatable and heartwarming, tapping into the emotional desires of their audiences. These brands succeed by focusing on delivering an experience that resonates deeply with customers during the holiday season. They combine exclusivity with personalization, and more often than not, the campaigns they craft leave a lasting impression long after the holidays have passed. Let’s look at some brands that did holiday well.
MoneyGram: Mother’s Day
Here’s an example of how MoneyGram used creativity and technology to engage their audience with a memorable campaign for Mother’s Day, one of the most important holidays in the cross-border payments industry.
In May 2024, MoneyGram launched their “Make Your Mother’s Day” campaign, which encouraged people to create AI-generated Mother’s Day cards and share them on social media for a chance to win a plane ticket home to visit their moms. From May 8 to May 15 of 2024, people living in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, France, South Africa, Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico could enter for a chance to win a plane ticket home by creating a Mother’s Day card at mgrm.link/makeyourmothersday and saving it to their devices, following @MoneyGram on Instagram, and posting the Mother’s Day card as Instagram Story tagging the brand. The interactive aspect of the campaign allowed people to celebrate their mothers in an imaginative way, tapping into the nostalgia of family connections while embracing modern tech.
This campaign wasn’t just about engaging customers with creativity—it also tied into the core of MoneyGram’s business by taking advantage of seasonal opportunities. Mother’s Day typically sees a surge in cross-border payments as families living abroad send money home for the occasion. For example, in May 2023, remittances from the U.S. to Mexico spiked to a record $5.69 billion. By blending technology, family sentiment, and capitalizing on the natural surge in cross-border payments around Mother’s Day, MoneyGram successfully connected with their audience during the holiday.
Spotify: Wrapped
Spotify’s “Spotify Wrapped” is a concrete example of how personalized marketing during the holiday season can cut through clutter and turn a campaign into a viral sensation. Every December, Spotify Wrapped sends users a personalized review of their most-listened-to music over the past year, packaged with bright visuals and shareable content. Since 2016, the annual tradition has tapped into the holiday season’s reflective nature, encouraging users to celebrate their music journey while generating organic engagement.
Key to its success is emphasis on personalization. By providing each user with a custom experience, Spotify makes each subscriber feel individually valued, which ultimately leads to high user participation. Wrapped’s sharable format capitalizes on the power of user-generated content by encouraging users to post their results on social media, showcasing their individuality and music taste while promoting the Spotify brand. Over the course of the last 9 years, Wrapped has become a viral success, helping drive Spotify’s bottom line. In 2020, over 90 million people engaged with Spotify Wrapped, which helped support a 21% increase in Spotify app downloads during the first week of December. The #SpotifyWrapped hashtag has accumulated an impressive 66.5 billion views on TikTok alone — and the numbers are still increasing.
The lesson for holiday advertisers? Engagement is driven by personalization and a sense of ownership. Campaigns that speak directly to the consumer and give them something to share with their social networks—like Spotify Wrapped—have the potential to go beyond traditional ads and become an anticipated event, creating buzz and increasing brand loyalty.
Gift Giving for Gucci
Gucci’s 2023 holiday campaign welcomed the festive season with a luxurious yet heartwarming collection inspired by family bonds and personal connections. The campaign captured intimate moments in homely, festive environments. The campaign was designed to capture consumers at every stage of their purchase journey, starting with building brand awareness and guiding audiences through to conversion. The campaign featured a 15-second video spot that introduced the collection and directed viewers to a longer director’s cut for a deeper connection. Gucci used keywords, interests, and purchase intent to target new audiences, ensuring they reached consumers likely to engage with the brand.
Social Media: Gucci deployed six-second bumper ads targeted at potential customers, keeping the messaging concise and visual. These ads were geared toward people who had shown interest but had not yet purchased.
YouTube Ads: They strategically used 11-second product-focused videos with TrueView for Action and TrueView for Shopping, designed to convert interest into action by directly linking viewers to the products.
Display and Retargeting Ads: Gucci also retargeted users who had engaged with the brand but hadn’t made a purchase, keeping the brand top of mind throughout the buying journey.
Pop-Ups: The campaign didn’t stop there. Gucci’s pop-up gift shops in major cities like Paris, London, Shenzhen, and Bangkok immersed shoppers in a magical world of holiday gifting. The pop-ups featured crafted gift boxes, sealed with Gucci’s signature Horsebit hardware, inviting customers to explore high-end surprises inside. The holiday ad campaign achieved impressive results, with 33.7 million impressions, 5.4 million views globally and over 44,500 clicks to the Gucci website. The videos also had a strong impact, with a 31% view rate and a 58% completion rate, showcasing Gucci’s ability to drive intent and action through a full-funnel strategy. This multi-stage approach effectively turned viewers into customers, even in a highly competitive holiday market.
Cartier Christmas: A Sparkling Success
For the 2023 christmas season, the Maison Cartier team wanted to take audiences on a dream-like adventure to celebrate the holiday season and end of the year. Cartier’s holiday campaign showcased the brand’s mastery of creating magical, immersive experiences across both digital and physical platforms. The campaign featured a series of dreamlike animated videos and stunning 3D corresponding window displays in Cartier’s flagship stores. These elements transported viewers into enchanting winter landscapes, blending luxury with the warmth of the holiday season.
The campaign revolved around Cartier’s iconic pieces, like the Tank watch and Love ring, using them as symbols of “timeless” gifting. By focusing on a multi-channel approach, Cartier ensured their presence across social media, in-store, and digital formats. The overall strategy highlighted their ability to evoke emotion while maintaining the brand’s elegance.
The campaign had a significant impact on sales during the festive season. Luxury conglomerate Richemont far exceeded expectations in Q4 2023, reporting an 8% increase in YoY sales reaching $6.1 billion USD for the period ending December 31, 2023. The success of the company has been attributed to the spike in demand for Richemont’s jewelry brands, particularly Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, during the festive period.
To wrap things up, nailing holiday ads is all about striking the right balance between smart planning and staying on your toes. With the busiest shopping season on the horizon, brands need to stay sharp, ready to tweak campaigns on the fly as the data rolls in. The best holiday ads aren’t just well-prepped; they know when to pivot and how to keep things fresh, ensuring brands make the most of the holiday rush while staying ahead of the competition.
Contact Criterion Global today to start planning your winning holiday ad campaign. Let’s drive results that make this season your brand’s best yet.