Holiday Marketing: 2024 Trends, Predictions + Expert Insights

From personalization to holiday-specific landing pages, these holiday marketing tips will help you succeed in this year’s short buying season.

The holiday shopping period in 2024 is five days shorter than last year — a whole business week.

And weekday shopping for holiday gifts has grown 4%-5% annually since 2019, overtaking weekend shopping in daily spending.

That means this shortened season could seriously impact holiday sales.

That is, unless you leverage these top holiday marketing tips for 2024.

1. Start your holiday marketing early

Maximizing the shorter holiday shopping season means putting your holiday marketing plan into play now. Last year saw a record number of shoppers over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Many consider Amazon’s Fall Prime Day (October 8-9 this year) as the unofficial start of the shopping season.

Big names like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy are kicking off holiday sales in October, too.

So, for medium and small businesses, now is the perfect time to build holiday digital marketing campaigns and put a focus on deep discounts and bundled packages to attract lean spenders.

The shorter season and inflation pose extra challenges for businesses. In fact, two out of five Americans say inflation will impact their holiday shopping. So it’s better to get their attention before the holiday season kicks off.

But don’t be discouraged. Despite the hurdles ahead, holiday sales are expected to increase.

…also, consider ending holiday campaigns early

Get ahead of the competition with those limited-time holiday offers. John Ross, CEO of Test Prep Insight, recommends starting and ending holiday campaigns early. We’ll let him explain:

“[Online stores] have gotten pretty aggressive in the duration of their sales, so to beat them to the punch, you have to act early. But to overcome consumer instinct to wait it out for steeper discounts closer to the actual holiday, we place a shot clock on the sales. Using a big, bright banner on the nav bar of your site makes it clear that the sale will end in 48 hours or less, making consumers compelled to act quickly.”

2. Focus on personalization & authenticity

A large percentage of ecommerce consumers (from 47% to 76%) now expect more tailored interactions with brands.

Mailchimp recommends leveraging sales data to offer relevant product recommendations, showcase best-selling products, and highlight new arrivals through email.

Nurturing relationships is a key to successful holiday marketing campaigns. Personalizing your holiday emails is one effective way to do just that.

And it might be easier than you think: Simply adding each recipient’s name to an email campaign via a token can drive significant engagement (more on email best practices below).

When crafting personalized email campaigns, ensure your messaging is authentic.

It’s easy to play into emotions with holiday ads — it’s a sentimental season that, for many, symbolizes family, reflection, and a new year with new beginnings.

Just make sure your campaigns don’t come off as saccharine or manipulative. You can avoid this by building campaigns with authenticity at the forefront that speak to real-life situations.

Remember that Millennials and Gen Z buyers see through traditional marketing tactics, so don’t try so hard.

3. Send promotions directly to email inboxes

Despite new programs and ad platform features cropping up regularly, email marketing accounts for 20% of holiday online sales Sending promotional offers through email boosts your marketing efforts by reaching an audience that has already shown interest and with shopping at top-of-mind.

Gelato suggests that businesses create exclusive discounts and promotions targeted at specific segments of their audience, such as:

• Percentage discounts on popular items
• BOGO (buy-one-get-one) deals
• Exclusive holiday-specific bundles
• Early access to holiday sales events
• Introductory offers

Emails that get the best open rates often include elements like:

• Eye-catching subject lines
• A hierarchy of content (with the most important info at the top)
• Mobile-friendly design
• A strong call-to-action (CTA)
• An interactive element

Pro tip: Don’t be afraid to have fun and experiment with appealing visuals. Data shows more than half of marketers use GIFs in email campaigns.

4. Use social media to drive visibility & sales

In 2024, U.S. social commerce sales will total nearly $83 billion.

With younger audiences preferring not only online shopping but social commerce over in-store shopping, ramping up your social media game is more important than ever to boost sales this time of year.

Platforms like TikTok and Instagram have already blended social media and shopping. But even more integration is expected to rise with live streaming events and purchases from user-generated content.

In fact, Gen Z is more likely to use social commerce during the holidays than other age groups.

So, where should you focus your attention? The most popular platforms among those who intend to make holiday purchases through social media are Instagram (57%) and Facebook (56%).

Check out these resources for holiday marketing from the social giants themselves:

• TikTok’s holiday playbook
• Meta holiday marketing guide
• Reddit holiday 2024 preview

Here are a few examples to inspire your social holiday marketing ideas.

Shoppable content

Create a post where users can purchase items displayed in the video or photos you post, like in this Instagram post from @beyondyoga.

(Image: Beyond Yoga)

But keep in mind that you can’t boost an organic post if you tag a product in it. Because of that, some brands opt to skip the product tags in organic posts so they have the option to use it in an ad if it performs well.

Paid social ads

Use Facebook to promote specific products or lines (with a discount):

(Image: Sweet July Skin)

Holiday giveaway posts

Not every post has to be a “buy now” promotion. Another goal of holiday marketing is to build brand awareness. One option is showing holiday spirit by giving away freebies:

(Image: Babesandletters)

Pro tip: Don’t forget to use hashtags to boost visibility and yield more views and engagement.

Live streaming events

“Live shopping” is expected to double in the US between now and 2026, from $31 billion to $67 billion. It connects brands with consumers, giving them an opportunity to ask questions and learn more about your products before they buy — just like in-person shopping.

If you’re just getting started with live shopping, remember to choose no more than ten products to sell (stick to your bestsellers). This article includes some tips to launch your first event.

5. Don’t sleep on holiday marketing via text

The trend of mobile commerce (or m-commerce) continues to rise. Shopping via smartphone is projected to grow from 8% of total retail sales in 2023 to over 10% by the end of 2025, according to Statista.

(Image: Vuori)

It’s one reason brands are investing more in SMS (short messaging service) and MMS (multimedia messaging service) text marketing. If you’re already building an email list, consider doing the same for your SMS list.

According to Forbes, SMS can generate $71 for every dollar spent. Sounds like a worthy investment to us.

6. Build holiday-specific landing pages

Where shoppers land after clicking on your ad can make or break your chances of a sale. Your sales page should be festive (while maintaining continuity with your brand’s style) and have easy-to-spot deals and CTA buttons.

Another option is to create an evergreen sales and events page you update year-round with new deals. This way, it’s already ranking for related keywords and generating backlinks (and traffic) from various sources.

Check out our landing page guide here.

If you don’t offer deals throughout the year, then hide it using a temporary 302 redirect (vs. a permanent 301 redirect).

Otherwise, create one-off sales pages for Black Friday and Cyber Monday before shoppers begin browsing for the perfect gift (or gift card).

Take things to the next level by producing SEO content that’s more personal and natural and less promotional, but equally attractive and targeted to holiday shoppers as a way to boost organic traffic and foster brand trust.

You can even create a gift guide that’s free to download (in exchange for an email or SMS subscription, of course):

(Image: ARM & HAMMER)

Pro tip: Publishing in-depth guides as part of your holiday marketing strategy also improves your ranking potential, thanks to Google’s helpful content update, which became a ranking factor in 2024.

7. Stay on top of your technical SEO

Onsite SEO and paid ads drive traffic. If a promotion goes viral, there can be a huge influx of traffic at once. The question is, can your site handle a large surge of your target audience coming to purchase your products or services?

The only way to know for sure is to check your technical SEO.

Start by analyzing your site’s performance and load times. If URLs are too slow to load or buggy with poor user experience, you’ll be sure to lose new customers in a flash. Avoid this by keeping the technical side of your site running smoothly.

When auditing your site, check:

• Mobile-friendliness
• Load speeds across mobile and desktop devices
• CTA buttons and forms
• Issues with page indexing
• Pages that are duplicated or outdated
• Broken external and internal links
• Lack of SSL certificate (or other page security measures)
• Missing or inaccurate canonicals
• Confusing website architecture

This can be a lot to take on, especially if you’re doing everything manually. These tools can help speed up the process:

• Screaming Frog: A tool (with free and paid versions) to audit a site’s technical SEO and identify deep-rooted issues
• Google’s PageSpeed Insights: Finds underlying problems decreasing site performance (e.g., code issues, site architecture, etc.)
• WebPage Test: Scores your website load times and provides ways to improve speed

8. Get creative with long-tail holiday keywords

So, we’ve got good news and bad news.

The bad news is you’re not just competing to steal shoppers’ attention from retailers, ecommerce stores, and other competitors in your industry. You’re also competing with brands and publishers that have adopted direct-to-consumer (DTC) models.

More generic phrases like “Thanksgiving gift ideas” likely won’t help you cut through the clutter. These terms are also too competitive, decreasing your visibility, while increasing your CPC (cost-per-click rate).

The good news: You have options. You can expand your holiday SEO opportunities via long-tail keywords. It’s also wise to do a little digging with tools like Google Trends to find the most popular searched terms for your holiday campaign.

For instance, we can turn a broad term like “Christmas gifts” to “Christmas gifts for grandparents.” When you search for the 5-year trend for this phrase, you see there are spikes every year, showing great potential.

But don’t stop there — find other opportunities in the related queries box:

You can see breakout terms for key phrases for other loved ones, like “What to get dad for Christmas” and variations like “Gifts for grandparents who live far away.” Use these queries as ideas to create a gift guide, product bundle, or PPC ad creative that attracts these shoppers.

Pro tip: Our specially designed ConversionIQ platform helps marketers determine which keywords are driving the most conversions (and to identify who those customers are). It makes ad management a breeze and simplifies identifying your top and lowest ad performers, along with tons of other metrics. Learn more here.

9. Brush up on the latest holiday marketing resources

Many of the big names you already trust for business-related products and services also have helpful guides for holiday marketing and sales. Here are a few to get you started.

Facebook & Instagram (aka Meta)

If you’re not advertising on Facebook, now’s a great time to explore this option. Not only do they have a huge platform teeming with potential customers to show ads to, but their data and advertising advice are top-notch.

Not only that, but you can easily create ads that are shown on both Facebook and Instagram, and get a consolidated report of performance on both platforms. Here’s Meta’s holiday marketing guide.

HubSpot

When it comes to free resources, HubSpot has no shortage of materials. They recently released their State of Marketing Trends Report 2024.

It’s got 50-plus data points from more than 1,500 marketers, along with information on industry trends, important insights, and strategies to make the most of your 2024 holiday initiatives.

The takeaway

Brushing up on the latest resources, getting creative with ad platforms and messaging, personalizing where possible, and staying on top of social media trends will keep your efforts in good standing through the 2024 holidays.

But what if you’re not confident in running the best holiday marketing campaign possible? Or if you just don’t have time to manage all the moving parts yourself?

If that resonates, then schedule a call with a marketing expert at HawkSEM to see how we can build and grow your holiday marketing campaign for you.

This article has been updated and was originally published in October 2021.