How to Distribute Ad Spend Across the 2025 Holidays: Heatmap Calendar, 6 Tips for Holiday Ad Spend

Tariffs, economic uncertainty, low consumer spending — what does this spell for advertisers during the 2025 holidays? 

We have good news: at the end of the day, best practices for holiday advertising stay true. In addition, the bleak forecasts may not impact your overarching strategy.

Here’s how we recommend you approach the 2025 holiday season in regards to your ad spend, with tactics to persuade reluctant buyers and maximize CPM.

Should You Adjust Your Holiday Forecasts for Weaker Growth?

eMarketer predicts deceleration in total US retail sales growth for November and December 2025, with a mere 1.2% increase compared to a 1.5% full-year growth. This is still growth, though not as rapid as some might expect from the holiday season.

What can you do with those predictions and forecasts you’ve meticulously built?

Adapt expectations, don't abandon them

Instead of relying solely on 2024 or 2023 Q4 performance, adapt your holiday forecasts based on the current year's trends. 

How has your year trended overall compared to previous years? If you have still seen rapid growth, expect it during the holidays, too. Overall, your forecasts will depend more on your company’s growth rate than on larger economic factors—it may be affected by factors outside your control, but it’s not the only determinant.

Look toward industry norms

EMARKETER predicts growth in some industries, like books, music, and video. Auto and parts, on the other hand, will see contraction. The holiday mainstays will see growth, and if you’re making a big push for the Cyber Five, you’re likely housed within those mainstay categories.

Pay attention to what’s happening in your industry and see if it matches your company’s experience through 2025:

(Source: EMARKETER)

Your 2025 Holiday Spend Calendar

So, what’s new this year? You may need to get a head start if you want your brand awareness campaigns to have any impact.

Here’s the general heatmap of CPM for the 2025 holidays, based on our experience with thousands of advertisers. Green is lower CPM, red is the highest CPM, and yellow are days where CPM heats up:

As noted in our latest State of Digital Advertising report, display prospecting and retargeting CPMs have been rising, shrinking the YoY gap and signalling the ever-growing demand for digital advertising.

Traditionally, the holidays are the hottest CPMs of the year. If you aren’t a business that benefits from holiday shopping, this heatmap may be the opposite for you, with the lowest spending on the Cyber Five to avoid competing with the onslaught of ads.

Which High-ROI Activities Should You Put Budget Toward?

CPMs typically spike from November through Cyber Five. To maximize your budget, focus on strategic activities and worry less about experimentation.

1. Focus on successful strategies

47% of holiday gift buyers will either buy fewer gifts or spend less on gifts due to concerns about tariffs this year.

With consumers being more selective these holidays, focus on strategies that you know will generate returns. This isn’t the time to experiment with new channels or tools and burn precious budget. 

Retargeting is one popular holiday strategy when budgets are tight because you can focus on warm leads, increasing your chances of closing a sale.

When prospecting, start early on channels where you gather the most interest. This time of year isn’t ideal to start testing brand new prospecting strategies if you don’t know much about your ideal target market, particularly if shoppers are cautious with their money this year. It can be a costly investment if starting anew. 

2. Double down on warm audiences

A budget-conscious holiday also means focusing on the audiences that are easiest to convert. Know your ICP and where to find them, focusing less on secondary personas or audience discovery if you don’t have the extra budget.

Work with existing customers or, as we’ve mentioned, retarget website visitors. These are users already on their way to becoming fans.

You can also use customer lists to activate third-party audiences with data providers, e.g., Experian. Be highly specific with the audiences you prospect toward and you’ll see better ROI for a holiday strapped for cash.

3. Highlight your bestselling products and services

Promoting your bestsellers and impulse buys will carry you through the holidays while shoppers are uncertain about buying more this year. EMARKETER notes that shoppers are deal-conscious this year, and you can play into that by offering sales on your most popular items or promotions for small-ticket items.

Use incentives to your advantage. Free shipping, discounts, and giveaways are customer expectations around the Cyber Five. The word "free" helps you stand out from competitors, even if you simply offer a free gift with purchase. Because, truly, who doesn’t love free stuff?

4. Use only your best-performing channels

It’s not worth spontaneously prospecting on a new channel — leave your holiday Reddit ad dreams as dreams for now, unless Reddit has done well for you historically.

Advertisers tend to revert to familiar, high-ROI channels like display and social ads when the going gets tough. Experimentation with new channels decreases as time constraints and end-of-year budget freezes take hold.

Social in particular is playing a bigger role than ever. According to Bazaarvoice, TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram are driving the biggest gains in holiday gift influence. Younger shoppers will be using these platforms for inspiration for the 2025 holidays, so be sure to have visibility where your audience lives.

5. Take an omnichannel approach to the best performers

Obviously, focus on the channels that make you the most money. However, a word of caution: you can’t go with one or two channels or devices and expect long-term wins.

In the coming holiday season, mobile commerce is expected to grow 7%, almost twice the growth of ecommerce overall. 

With the rise of social commerce and social media gift influence, you need campaigns that roll up to one goal — coordinate targeting and bidding on web, mobile, and social to drive higher ROI. You could use AdRoll’s automation builder, marketers can scale these campaigns with ease.

6. Mind the Cyber Five, but start sales earlier

Given the mixed feedback on Black Friday from shoppers, how much should advertisers allocate to the Cyber Five?

Don't abandon the Cyber Five; consumers may say they’ll spend less this year, but what they say and do is often in conflict — and, what’s more, consumer behavior will be dependent on tariffs and macroeconomic changes. The Cyber Five is still valuable, and the crux of holiday advertising.

However, balance the Cyber Five with early sales. Since sales are starting earlier, with Amazon and Walmart frontloading October with holiday sales, you should distribute that budget more evenly across the entire holiday season. This includes tentpole events in October and early November while still heavily investing in the peak traffic days of Cyber Five.

Ultimately, the key to a successful 2025 holiday season lies in adaptability and a focus on proven, high-ROI strategies. By starting early, prioritizing retargeting, leveraging incentives, and using AI to enhance your efficiency, you can maximize your ad spend and achieve your holiday goals.

Ready to Run Holiday Campaigns with Ease?

If you want a happy holiday season, invest in tools that enable omnichannel, full-funnel advertising. AdRoll helps advertisers through holiday campaigns year after year, and using the right platform can make all the difference, particularly in tough times with tight budgets.

Want to give AdRoll a shot? Check out our platform today.

Last updated on September 10th, 2025.