The holiday swing is well under way, with Prime Big Deal Days in the rearview mirror and the official-official holiday season ahead: Black Friday and the days that follow. And if you haven’t already noticed, 2024 holiday planning is….unique, for lack of a better term. Between spending concerns from consumers to the Presidential Election disrupting business as usual advertising methods, tight timelines and more, planning and executing a holiday strategy can be overwhelming. And, of course, the clock is ticking. If you haven't started, you're behind.

So like the superhero marketers our Coders are, we banned together to fight unsuccessful holiday seasons and put together a comprehensive list of quick, easy tips you can use to succeed this year. Check out our gift to you, below.

Project Management

Tip: Integrate Cross-Functional Communication Tools

Why it Matters: Centralizing communication across teams minimizes bottlenecks and keeps projects moving smoothly, especially under tight holiday deadlines. Using project management tools like Asana or Slack with clear priorities and department-specific tags (e.g., “High Priority,” “Creative Approval Needed”) enables quick responses and real-time updates. This alignment is essential for staying agile and delivering on schedule during the critical holiday season.

Tip: Anticipate and Plan for Shifting Timelines

Why it Matters: Clear, early deadlines for creative, media, and logistics are essential to prevent last-minute scrambles. Building in buffer time is crucial to adapt to potential delays, especially since election-related news may affect consumer engagement. This approach ensures brands stay responsive and meet key holiday milestones, despite this year’s unique challenges.

Tip: Stay Positive

Why it Matters: Yes, positivity matters! Staying positive during holiday planning and Q4 in digital marketing is crucial for fostering creativity and resilience in an often hectic season. A positive mindset encourages teams to embrace challenges as opportunities for innovation, leading to more effective strategies and engaging campaigns. This optimism not only enhances collaboration and morale but also resonates with clients, creating an authentic connection that drives engagement and trust. By maintaining a hopeful outlook, marketers can navigate the complexities of the season with agility and enthusiasm, ultimately setting the stage for success.

Client Partnership

Tip: Don’t Overlook the Lead-In and Lead-Out Timeframe

Why it Matters: The lead-in time period for the holidays is often overlooked as advertisers save the vast majority of their spend for event days. This year is even more complicated as the Presidential Election is included in the lead-in, but a strong lead-in time frame allows for more discoverability to get products set up for success for the holiday season itself.

Similarly, lead-out time frame is important to push your baseline sales and retarget customers from the event days or to extend any deals that didn’t meet expectations. Between events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday and more, lead-out for one event leads directly into lead-in for the other, and you’ll need new and fresh deals to entice returning customers or attract new customers.

Tip: Over Communicate

Why it Matters: Communication is an essential part of client partnership, but it is even more critical during Q4 (or any high priority time!). During the holiday season, we recommend intentionally over communicating with client teams when it comes to planning rationale, expected performance, optimization strategies, and actual performance and insights. Set reminders to look at pacing and performance at the cadence that makes sense for your account AND send out updates to your clients about what the performance looks like, how it is trending and any changes you recommend making. This communication will increase client confidence and allow the team to capitalize on immediate changes that need to be made to improve performance or add incremental dollars to exceed goals.

Tip: Put Yourself in the Shoes of Your Customer

Why it Matters: So many times we see marketers forget to put themselves in the shoes of their potential consumers. What will their mindset be like during the election or Turkey 5? Are they in the mindset to shop for your product or are they distracted by other promotions? Are they more likely to actually purchase a product outside of a promotional period? Is your product trending and there’s a scarcity mindset going into the holiday? What does your historical data tell you about your customers' mindset? By honing in on your customer mindset, you’re setting yourself up for a stronger, more successful marketing strategy to fuel your holiday season.

Google Search

Tip: Keep a close eye on performance trends and pivot where necessary.

Why it Matters: This year more than ever it will be important to track daily performance and even pull intraday reports to ensure you are adapting to demand. The landscape could shift rapidly due to election-related events, and a shortened peak period with Cyber Monday falling in December, so continual monitoring and optimization will be key to maximizing performance.

Tip: Ensure you are hitting all the AI essentials to maximize adaptability in turbulent times

Why it Matters: Leveraging AI will help personalize campaigns and increase conversion rates across Google’s ecosystem, plus it can make you a more efficient marketer! The holidays are a busy time for marketers as well with family obligations, shopping and more, so using AI as an assist will be crucial.

Tip: Ensure your promotional strategy is aggressive and well-timed to meet consumer expectations.

Why it Matters: Promotions are 5% more important in purchasing decisions this year vs. last. During Cyber Week, capitalize on deal-hunters with the enhanced tools in Merchant Center Next. AI-powered insights and automated inventory syncing make it easier to monitor and optimize your deals.

Amazon Search

Tip: You might Be Late Already. With Cyber Monday falling in December this year, consumers are likely to begin their shopping even earlier than usual. Starting your planning - and executing on it now - allows you to strategize effectively and capture early spenders. Here are more expert tips to focus on this year on Amazon Search:

  • Focus on Personalizations Utilizing Data: Tailoring your messaging and offers based on customer preferences can drive engagement and conversions, setting your brand apart in a crowded market. Lean on the data and performance from campaigns throughout the year and note what performed best. Use that knowledge to optimize holiday campaigns, even down to the creative and copy. Additionally, analyzing past holiday data can reveal trends and consumer preferences. Understanding what worked well in previous years allows you to tailor your strategies for better outcomes this season.
  • Highlight your Brands Value: With inflation concerns lingering, shoppers are more budget-conscious than ever. Highlighting value — whether through discounts, bundles, or loyalty rewards — can entice cost-sensitive consumers and encourage purchases.
  • Plan for Shipping and Fulfillment: Tight timelines mean consumers will be more concerned about shipping reliability. Keep a close eye on fulfillment and shipping to ensure you can meet customer expectations - focusing ad spend on items that will ship on time - especially as the end of the year comes closer.

DSP

Tip: Strong Lead In, Holiday, and Lead out Strategy

Why it Matters: A successful holiday advertising strategy goes beyond just focusing on the Deal Days. Planning for the lead-in and lead-out phases can make a big impact on your campaign’s overall effectiveness. The lead-in phase is particularly crucial on the DSP side, as it’s your opportunity to reach audiences beyond Amazon and make your brand memorable before the holiday shopping frenzy begins. Prioritize investing in upper-funnel tactics to attract new-to-brand shoppers and build awareness.

During the lead-out phase, shift your focus to lower-funnel strategies to re-engage shoppers who may still need last-minute gifts. This approach ensures you're reaching customers at every stage of the buying journey, driving both immediate and extended holiday sales results.

Tip: Eye Catching Creatives

Why it Matters: The holiday season is the peak time for advertising, with countless brands vying for consumer attention across every platform. In this busy landscape, having eye-catching creatives is essential to make your brand stand out. Attention-grabbing visuals can be the deciding factor in capturing shoppers’ interest amid the holiday buzz. By prioritizing bold, unique designs, you give your brand the edge it needs to rise above the competition and connect with consumers during this high-stakes season.

Tip: Don’t forget to Prioritize after the Holidays

Why it Matters: While many brands focus their ad budgets on the lead-up to and during the holiday season, the post-holiday period offers valuable — and often overlooked — opportunities. In January, advertising costs tend to drop as many brands pull back, resulting in some of the lowest CPMs of the year. This allows you to expand your reach efficiently and make the most of budget-friendly advertising. Additionally, shoppers armed with gift cards and holiday cash are more inclined to make spontaneous purchases and try new brands. By maintaining a strong presence after the holidays, you can effectively capture this motivated audience and extend your holiday momentum well into the new year.

Creative and Social Media

Tip: Make Promotional Creative Shine

Why it Matters: Promotional creatives have a limited window to capture audience attention and win conversions, so the impact needs to be immediate and powerful. As you build out holiday sales assets, ask yourself these key questions: Are these assets visually distinct from evergreen content? Do the promo assets feature products that are actually available? Are you leaning into strong holiday trends to make sure content is relevant to users' feeds? Are you leveraging your top creative insights for the entire year? If you get all of these things right in your creative, users will be ready to convert this holiday season.

Tip: Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

Why it Matters: You should have an entire year’s worth of creative data and insights, so iterate on top performers for the holiday season by making slight adjustments to existing ads (ie. visuals, messaging and CTAs). Build off what you know works vs. starting from ground zero. A tried-and-true creative format will likely perform again in a slightly different context and time period. Work smarter, not harder, especially during the busiest time of the year.

Tip: Plan for flexibility and adaptability in case of last-minute promotional shifts or changes.

Why it Matters: If a promotion or sale is exceeding expectations, be prepared to make last minute changes to creative (ie. extending the sale window, making CTA more urgent, swapping out products that may have sold out).

Tip: Set up a Promotional/Holiday Calendar

Why it Matters: There are many ways why a calendar should be the first thing you should do, including:

  • Provides a Strategic Roadmap: A promo calendar ensures the team has a clear timeline for every holiday and promotional period, allowing for strategic planning, cohesive messaging, and ample preparation time to build high-quality creative assets.
  • Ensures Consistent Messaging Across Platforms: A calendar helps teams sync messaging across channels, ensuring that social media, email, and paid ads all reinforce each other with seasonal themes, offers, and timing. This unified approach creates a stronger, more memorable impression.
  • Allows for Budget Optimization: Mapping out promo dates and peak times allows for better budget planning. Teams can allocate more spend to high-priority dates and reserve some budget for last-minute adjustments, adapting to market trends or competitive moves.
  • Improves Team Coordination: Having a shared calendar keeps all departments (creative, paid media, sales, etc.) aligned, reducing last-minute scrambles and ensuring smooth execution. This is especially helpful when managing multiple campaigns, products, or clients.
  • Enables Flexibility for Last-Minute Adjustments: A pre-planned calendar provides a solid structure while allowing room to pivot or add promotions in response to market demand, unexpected trends, or competitor activities during the season.
Ultimately, a promo/holiday calendar streamlines the execution of holiday campaigns, helping to capture maximum sales potential during key shopping moments.

Tip: Include Seasonal Messaging in your Creative

Why it Matters:

  • Creates Relevance and Resonance: Seasonal messaging taps into the festive mindset of audiences, making content more relatable and timely. By aligning with the themes and emotions of the season, brands create stronger connections with potential buyers.
  • Grabs Attention in a Crowded Space: The holiday season brings a flood of marketing content. Seasonal messaging helps ads stand out by aligning with the holiday spirit and themes, giving them an edge in capturing attention within competitive ad spaces.
  • Conveys Urgency and FOMO: Seasonal messaging adds a sense of limited-time opportunity, subtly urging viewers to act now rather than later. Phrasing like “perfect gift for the holidays” or “season’s must-haves” can prompt quicker decision-making.
  • Increases Brand Recall During Gift-Buying: For gift-oriented shoppers, holiday-themed creative serves as a helpful reminder that your brand has offerings fit for the season. This can be key to driving conversion for those buying for others and considering multiple brands.
Seasonal messaging helps make ads feel timely, relevant, and compelling, ultimately leading to stronger engagement and higher chances of conversion in a crowded marketplace.

Tip: If you don’t already, include Consideration or Awareness campaigns to plus up your presence and reach during these giftable moments

Why it Matters:

  • Expand Reach and Audience: Holidays are prime times when more people are browsing and shopping. Awareness campaigns help brands reach new audiences who may not yet be familiar with them, especially if they’re targeting niche or premium markets like luxury or beauty.
  • Warm Up Potential Buyers: Running consideration campaigns builds familiarity and connection, so audiences are more likely to think of the brand when they're ready to make a purchase. It's particularly valuable in the gift-giving season, when buyers may not be the end-users and might need extra information and confidence in the product.
  • Boost Retargeting Effectiveness: By bringing new users into the funnel early in the season, these campaigns make retargeting strategies more effective. When users are later exposed to lower-funnel campaigns, they're already familiar with the brand, leading to better engagement and conversion rates.
  • Combat High Competition: The holiday season is highly competitive for paid media. Running upper-funnel campaigns can increase your reach cost-effectively and keep your brand top-of-mind against competitors.
  • Maximize Budget Efficiency: Investing in awareness campaigns early in the season can be more cost-effective than focusing only on conversions in the final weeks. By building an audience gradually, brands can optimize spend and avoid the high CPMs that often arise closer to key dates.

These campaigns lay a foundation for strong brand recall and trust, positioning the brand effectively for increased sales during peak holiday shopping moments.

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