Bigger budgets don't always win the holiday season. Neither do better promotions or flawless execution. What separates strong results from disappointing ones is usually something less visible: the quality of decisions made weeks before a single campaign goes live.
That preparation is getting harder. Consumer journeys are more complex than ever, with shoppers moving fluidly across channels, platforms and devices. Meanwhile, C-suite pressure to prove performance and make sense of fragmented data keeps mounting.
Adding more tools or launching more campaigns isn't necessarily the answer. Here are three strategies marketers can pursue today to enter the holiday season prepared to make faster, more confident decisions.
Strategy 1: Strengthen marketing measurement and identity foundations
The foundation for holiday marketing success is built on data, especially as holiday shopping journeys grow increasingly non-linear and complex.
According to eMarketer, consumers typically engage with a given brand at least three times across different channels before making a purchase decision, while nearly a quarter, 22.8%, research a product five or more times before buying. Each additional interaction makes it more difficult to see which touchpoints influenced a purchase and how channels worked together along the way.
And what marketers cannot measure, they often undervalue.
A strong holiday marketing strategy starts with connected data and measurement that captures the full picture. Without it, budget flows toward channels that look efficient on paper while the ones actually driving purchase decisions go unrecognized and underinvested.
YouTube was a prime example of this. Because YouTube existed outside of many attribution models, marketers historically struggled to grasp the true value of investment in the channel. According to a recent analysis from TransUnion®, YouTube was over 2x more efficient at driving attributed conversions than the median publisher.
For marketers preparing for the holiday season, the implication is clear: measurement needs to capture wherever consumers discover, consider and purchase products. Otherwise, decisions about channel performance and budget allocation may reflect only part of the customer journey.
As competition intensifies and every investment comes under greater scrutiny, marketers need trusted partners who can help connect fragmented signals, uncover hidden value and build confidence in the decisions that follow.
Strategy 2: Invest in brand building and give marketing the credit it deserves
During the holiday shopping season, it may seem logical to shift toward a performance-centric strategy and reduce brand investment. Budgets are tight, competition is intensifying, and pressure to produce immediate results can make short-term tactics especially appealing.
But that logic rests on a shaky assumption: that brand doesn't help drive near-term performance.
According to research from TransUnion and MMA Global, because many of the tools that have been traditionally used to measure marketing’s contributions are focused on short-term performance, they can end up underestimating the full impact of brand on sales by as much as 83%.
In reality, brand shapes purchase decisions long before a consumer opens a shopping app. And its influence doesn't fade when the media goes dark.
The same research found that consumers favorable to a brand converted at 2.9 to 4.1 times the rate of non-favorables over a nine to 10-month period. The long-term impact compounds further: brand marketing delivers 1.8 to 6 times its short-term effect over time. That's not brand as a soft metric. That's brand as a performance driver with a measurable, lasting return.
That distinction is particularly important during the holiday season. Marketers focused exclusively on immediate conversion may overlook how demand influences purchasing when the season reaches its peak.
Brand and performance should not be treated as competing priorities. Investing in brand is investing in performance, both during the holiday season and throughout the year. Marketers that maintain brand investment can strengthen preference before consumers enter the market rather than relying entirely on promotions to win attention at the point of purchase.
But understanding that performance requires looking beyond the easiest outcomes to measure. TransUnion retail research found that Google and YouTube campaigns generated $1.69 in in-store sales for every $1 in online sales, demonstrating how much of a campaign’s impact can be missed when measurement stops at the digital checkout.
Strategy 3: Focus on the metrics that matter
The holiday season brings heightened competition for consumer attention. As brands compete for premium inventory and high-value audiences, media costs can rise and efficiency per dollar may decline.
During this period, marketers can fall into the trap of judging campaign performance through a single lens, such as return on ad spend. Although ROAS remains important, it doesn't always capture the complete impact of a campaign, particularly when market conditions are changing quickly.
Marketers may need to pay more to maintain visibility, secure premium placements or reach their most valuable audiences. Those decisions may result in lower efficiency per dollar, even as effectiveness per impression improves.
A declining ROAS shouldn't automatically set off alarm bells. Audience reach, impression delivery, conversion rate, incremental sales or share of voice may provide a more accurate assessment of campaign health and business impact.
Focusing exclusively on efficiency can cause marketers to mistake healthy holiday market dynamics for poor performance. It can also lead them to pull back investment just as consumers are most actively researching and purchasing, potentially leaving the brand struggling to deliver impressions or remain competitive.
To avoid that outcome, marketers should define each campaign’s objective and identify the metrics that will indicate success before the holiday rush begins. If the goal is maximizing visibility ahead of peak shopping dates, reach, impression delivery and audience quality may be more meaningful than short-term ROAS. If the goal is to drive sustainable growth, measurement should account for immediate sales and future demand.
No single metric fits every objective. Marketers that understand the difference between efficiency and effectiveness are better positioned to interpret results in context, make informed tradeoffs and build trust in what their measurement is telling them. Rather than chasing one number, they can focus on the outcomes that matter most to the business.
Marketing success in the holiday season starts with preparation year-round
Holiday success isn't determined by what marketers do when demand peaks. It's determined by the decisions, investments and measurement practices they put in place before it arrives. That means:
- Auditing measurement coverage. Determine whether existing approaches connect performance across channels and capture both online and offline outcomes.
- Protecting brand investment. Treat brand as a contributor to performance rather than discretionary spending to cut when short-term pressure rises.
- Defining success before campaigns launch. Align each campaign objective with the metrics that best reflect its intended business outcome instead of relying on one KPI across every investment.
Marketing teams that enter the holiday season with connected data, strong brand investment and a clear understanding of what their metrics are saying will be better equipped to make faster decisions, adapt as market conditions change and finish the year strong.
Related insights
- Master Your Marketing with the Confidence Effect
- Giving Marketing the Credit it Deserves
- Uncovering the True Cost of Trust in Measurement
Related solutions
ieMarketer, “5 key stats on the shopping journey,” Feb 13, 2025, https://content-na1.emarketer.com/5-key-stats-on-shopping-journey
