The holidays bring more shoppers to online stores than any other time of year, and more competition for their attention. A good holiday marketing plan doesn't need a huge budget. It needs the right offers, sent to the right people, at the right time.
This guide walks you through all three: who to target, which offers to run (with worked examples), and a campaign timeline from early access to the January follow-up, with sample messages for each stage. For the technical side, like testing coupon codes and making sure your store can handle the traffic, see our Black Friday store prep guide.
Start with your audience
Before you choose offers or write a single ad, decide who you're talking to. Holiday shoppers fall into two broad groups: people who already know your store, and people who don't yet. They need different messages, and they cost very different amounts to reach.
Your existing customers come first
Past buyers and email subscribers are the cheapest people to reach and the most likely to buy. Look at who bought from you last season and what they bought, then group them. Repeat customers, one-time buyers and subscribers who have never bought are good starting segments. Your best customers can get early access, while subscribers who have never bought might need a stronger first-order offer.
Reaching new shoppers with ads
Ad platforms change their targeting options often, so focus on the principles rather than every setting. Give each platform good data about your customers, let it find people like them, and keep your messages specific to each audience. Two platforms do most of the work for holiday ecommerce:
- Meta (Facebook and Instagram): Meta now leans on its own automated targeting, called Advantage+ audience. Your inputs, such as interests, past website visitors and customer lists, act as suggestions rather than hard limits. Lookalike audiences, built from a list of your existing customers, are still a good way to reach new shoppers who resemble your best buyers. For any of this to work well, install the Meta Pixel on your store so Meta can see who visits and buys.
- Google Search: Search ads reach people who are already looking for what you sell. Google offers three keyword match types: broad, phrase and exact. Exact gives you the most control, while broad reaches the widest range of related searches. Add negative keywords to stop your ads showing on searches that won't convert, and send every ad to a landing page that matches what it promises.
- YouTube and other Google channels: Demand Gen campaigns run across YouTube, Gmail and Discover, and they're where Google's lookalike segments live. You upload a list of your customers, and Google finds people with similar traits. It's a good way to reach gift buyers before they start searching.
Whichever platforms you use, the better your customer data, the better your ads will perform. That's why your existing customers come first: the lists you build from them power your best ad audiences, too. Once you know who you're talking to, you can choose what to offer them.
Choose offers that protect your margin
The best holiday offers get shoppers to buy more without giving away all your profit. Before you settle on a number, run a quick margin check. Say a product sells for $100 and costs you $50, so you make $50 on each sale. At 25% off, you sell it for $75 and make $25. You've halved your profit per sale, so you'd need to sell twice as many just to break even on the promotion.
The examples below use a store with an average order of $55. Swap in your own numbers.
Spend thresholds
Thresholds reward bigger baskets instead of discounting every order. Set them about 20 to 30% above your average order value.
- Offer: "$10 off orders over $70." A shopper who would have spent $55 adds a $17 item to qualify and pays $62. You make $7 more in revenue and move more stock.
- Tiered version: "$10 off $70, $25 off $125" gives your bigger spenders a reason to go further.
- Message: "Spend $70, save $10. Our holiday sale starts now."
Keep the threshold within easy reach. If it's too far above what people usually spend, most shoppers won't bother trying to hit it.
Free shipping over a set amount
Shipping costs are one of the most common reasons shoppers abandon a cart. A free shipping threshold removes that objection and lifts your basket size at the same time.
- Offer: "Free shipping on orders over $70." If shipping costs you $8 an order, the extra item a shopper adds to qualify usually covers it.
- Message: "Free shipping on orders over $70, right up to our holiday shipping cutoff."
Free shipping also works well alongside other offers, so it's a good one to keep running through the whole season while your discounts change.
Bundles and gifts with purchase
Bundles suit gift buyers who want something ready to give. Gifts with purchase add value without cutting your prices.
- Bundle: three bestsellers that cost $75 separately, sold as a gift set for $60.
- Gift with purchase: a free tote bag that costs you $4, with any order over $80.
- Message: "The gift set that sorts your list: three favorites for $60."
Both are easy to feature in ads and emails, because they give you something new to show rather than just a lower price.
Early access and referrals
These reward the people who already like you, and they don't need a big discount to work.
- Early access: 20% off for subscribers, starting 48 hours before your public sale.
- Referral: "Give $10, get $10." Friends get $10 off their first order, and your customer gets $10 credit when they buy.
- Message: "You're on the list, so you get in first. 20% off starts now, 48 hours before everyone else."
You don't need to run every one of these. Two or three well-chosen offers, spread across the season, will go further than a different discount every day. The timeline below shows where each one fits.
Your holiday campaign timeline
The holiday season isn't one sale. It's a run of moments, and each one needs a different message. Work back from Black Friday and plan each stage before the first one starts, so you're not writing emails at midnight in the middle of the rush.
Four to six weeks before Black Friday: plan and build
Pick your offers, set up your customer segments and build your sale landing pages. Get your ads and email campaigns drafted and scheduled. This is also the time to grow your list: add a sign-up form or pop-up with an incentive, such as "Join the list for early access to our holiday sale." Every subscriber you add now is someone you can reach for free in a few weeks.
One to two weeks before: tease and open early access
Let subscribers know something is coming, then open early access for your best customers or your whole list.
- Teaser: "Our biggest sale of the year is almost here. Subscribers get in first."
- Early access: "Your early access starts now: 20% off for the next 48 hours."
Early access makes your subscribers feel valued, and it spreads your orders over a few extra days, which takes some pressure off your store on the big day.
Black Friday: go big and stay clear
This is your main event. Send your sale email in the morning, make sure your ads point to the right landing page, and keep the message simple: what the offer is and when it ends. A short reminder later in the day can catch people who missed the first email.
- Launch: "Our Black Friday sale is live. Up to 30% off sitewide."
- Reminder: "Still deciding? Your Black Friday deals are waiting."
Keep the offer the same across your emails, ads and site all day. Mixed messages make shoppers hesitate, and on Black Friday a hesitant shopper often goes elsewhere.
Cyber Monday: give people a new reason to buy
By Monday, shoppers have seen a lot of the same offers. Give them something different, such as a new product focus, an extra free shipping deal or a bundle you didn't feature on Friday. Send a last-chance email to your most engaged subscribers in the evening.
- Launch: "Cyber Monday only: free shipping on everything."
- Last chance: "Last call. Cyber Monday deals end at midnight."
Once Cyber Monday ends, end its offers too. Deals that quietly run on make your next sale feel less special.
December: shipping cutoffs and last-minute gifts
After Cyber Monday, the message shifts from discounts to getting gifts there on time. Remind shoppers of your shipping cutoff dates well in advance, then switch to options that still arrive after they pass, like express shipping or gift cards.
- Before the cutoff: "Order by [date] for delivery before the holidays."
- After the cutoff: "Too late to ship? Send a gift card in minutes."
Put your cutoff dates everywhere shoppers will see them, from your emails to a site banner and your checkout page. A clear date often does more to prompt a purchase than another discount.
After the holidays: follow up and keep them coming back
The customers you won over the holidays are your best chance at repeat sales in the new year. Thank them, make returns easy, ask for reviews, and give first-time buyers a reason to come back.
- Thank you: "Thanks for shopping with us this season. Here's 10% off your next order."
- Review request: "How are you finding your order? We'd love to hear what you think."
Finally, look back at which messages and offers performed best. Those results are the starting point for next year's plan.
Make your emails work harder
Email is where most of your holiday timeline happens, and small improvements add up across a season of sends. A few rules of thumb:
- Segment your list. Send different copy and offers to repeat customers, one-time buyers and subscribers who have never bought.
- Send at the right time. Use your email tool's send-time options, or look at when your past emails got the most opens.
- Test subject lines. A/B test your biggest sends, and carry what works into the next one.
- Design for phones first. Use a single-column layout, a readable font size and one clear button that's easy to tap.
- Track what happens after the click. Add UTM tags to your links, so you can see which emails actually lead to sales and not just opens.
- Save your last-chance email for your most engaged readers. A few days before a sale ends, send a final reminder to the subscribers who open most often.
None of these need much time on their own, but together they make every email in your timeline more likely to be opened and acted on.
Bring back the shoppers who leave
Most visitors leave without buying the first time, especially when they're comparing gifts across several stores. Retargeting ads let you show your offer again to people who have already visited your site.
Meta and Google both let you build audiences from your own site visitors, using the Meta Pixel and the Google tag. Show those visitors ads for the products they looked at, or for the offer they haven't used yet. Exclude people who have already bought, and cap how often each person sees your ads, so a reminder doesn't turn into an annoyance.
Pair your ads with abandoned cart emails, which reach shoppers who got as far as the checkout. The Black Friday store prep guide covers setting those up.
Get your store ready for the traffic
Great marketing brings in the shoppers, but your store still has to be ready for them. A slow or crashing site can waste a whole season of ad spend in an afternoon. For a full checklist covering early prep, sale days and the January cleanup, see our guide to getting your ecommerce site holiday ready.
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