Are you ready for the holiday season?
With consumer shopping behaviors shifting toward earlier start dates, being proactive is no longer optional, but a competitive necessity.
This checklist is designed to help you streamline your holiday strategy, from early season preparation to post-holiday customer retention, ensuring you’re ready to maximize reach, engagement, and conversion at every stage. Get your pens ready, it’s time to check off some critical steps.
51% of 2025 holiday shoppers started in October or earlier, according to research by Northwestern Medill. The research cites deal-driven behavior as the main reason for starting earlier and spreading spending out over time.
In order to capture the interest of your customers as early as possible, use these months to build brand awareness, finalize your discounts and sales, and stock inventory.
Set up and launch brand awareness campaigns.
Create personalized shopping experiences across channels by utilizing dynamic product ads.
Plan your logistics and operations (inventory management, shipping, etc.)
Finalize your deals and discounts.
Pro tip: use our discount profit margin calculator to align revenue to goals. →Use the calculator.
Prepare your website for a large influx of visitors and checkouts.
Set up tracking for your holiday campaigns to track your success throughout the season.
Pro tip: →use our UTM builder to get started.
For ecommerce brands November is the pinnacle period: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Small Business Saturday. It’s time to engage all the brand awareness audiences you’ve built and target those buyers with precision.
Launch retargeting campaigns for brand awareness audiences, site visitors, and cart abandoners.
Continue to maintain brand consistency through creative across channels for recognition built over time.
Maintain top-shelf customer service to avoid poor interactions that reflect on the brand.
Pro tip: set up for easy customer service contact for customers, clear return policies, and well maintained shipping timelines.
Don’t stop running deals after BFCM or Small Business Saturday; extended offers can bring in last minute shoppers.
Cultivate long-term customer relationships by implementing a customer loyalty program.
Start to reflect on your 2026 marketing campaign data to build a Q1 success plan.
You’ve generated revenue to close out Q4, now what? Don’t let all the great customers you’ve won fall off your radar. January and beyond is the time to create customer loyalty, upsell, and nurture.
Launch a post-holiday customer loyalty experience.
Create upsell opportunities by identifying commonly purchased items and what other purchases are made together and using them in a retargeting campaign.
Don’t stop communicating. You can nurture customers to create long-lasting relationships through emails and ads.
Use your holiday data to determine best sellers, upsell opportunities, and trends in behavior to replicate success in Q1.
You need a multichannel ad platform that has been put to the test of the holiday season time and time again. Our years of experience helping ecommerce brands succeed during their busiest seasons makes AdRoll the holiday advertisers’ choice. Create awareness, retarget with precision, and nurture bargain hunters into lifelong customers all in one platform. Learn more today.
Last updated on August 12th, 2026.
