Holiday advertising strategies for your product category

Product categories have unique browsing and buying behaviors, which become even more pronounced during the holiday season. This guide analyzes holiday trends by product vertical, offering tailored advertising strategies to align with shopper behaviors.

This guide includes content from the Ads Strategy Guidebook for holiday marketing 2025. View the entire guidebook here.

Consider creating distinct campaigns for your seasonal and year-round product lines. Leverage Sponsored Brands video ads that link to your Brand Store, encouraging shoppers to explore your full catalog. For example, during holiday periods, you could feature a table lamp with seasonal decorations.

Develop content showcasing seasonal offerings and gift opportunities:

• Use Sponsored Brands video to demonstrate product features and functionality. For example, you could show how a smart light can create holiday ambiance.
• Make your products appealing for gifting by highlighting deals. On your Brand Store, use the automated "All Deals page" in the navigation menu. This displays current offers with an automated promotional banner that updates when offers expire.

Align spending with seasonal trends and shopping patterns:

• Apply match types strategically: Use broad match for seasonal terms ("holiday home decor"), exact match for everyday products ("power tool gift sets"), and category keywords ("power drill") to help reach gift shoppers browsing without specific products in mind.
• Plan budget for the entire season, not just November: Early November (holiday decor planning), late November including Black Friday through Cyber Monday (major purchases), mid-December (last-minute accents), and post-holiday (re-engaging customers).

Address key purchase barriers through content:

• Leverage Sponsored Brands video ad format highlighting fit and styling (e.g., "One holiday dress, three festive occasions").
• Design Brand Store pages moving from "Holiday Gift Guide" (Nov) to "New Year, New You" (Jan), with product guidelines and return policies.
• Use lifestyle imagery showing products in seasonal settings (e.g., beauty gift sets in holiday packaging, winter boots in snow). Make the most of the free creative tools available in the advertising console to build engaging visuals in a few clicks that can help you stand out from the crowd. Leverage our AI builders, video builder, or access free stock images directly from Shutterstock.

Reach audiences exploring fashion trends and beauty gifts:

• Start with automatic targeting to help match your ads with relevant customer searches, then leverage theme targeting to automatically source and update keywords tailored to your landing page.
• Consider keyword match types with aligned bidding strategies: exact match ("sequin party dress") with more aggressive bids, phrase match with moderate bids, and broad match ("holiday beauty gifts") with conservative bids. Implement cost controls to help manage bids automatically.
• Explore dynamic bidding options during peak shopping periods to help increase sales opportunities when customers are browsing seasonal items like beauty gift sets or party wear.

NULL, a men's cosmetics brand in Japan, worked with Amazon Ads to help increase their presence in a competitive category. After implementing their advertising approach, NULL observed a 1.7x increase in year-over-year sales.¹

NULL used multiple advertising solutions together. They started with automatic targeting to help identify relevant shopping queries, then focused on queries that showed strong performance. They also explored exact match queries to help improve efficiency.

• Start with automatic targeting in Sponsored Products to help discover relevant seasonal shopping queries.
• Use video formats in your Sponsored Brands campaigns to help demonstrate products visually.
• Consider using multiple advertising solutions together—Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Brand Stores, and Sponsored Display—to help reach shoppers throughout their journey.

Develop content that helps shoppers understand technical features and compare options easily:

• Use Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display video ad formats to help showcase product capabilities in real-life settings, such as laptop performance or wireless accessory features.
• Design Brand Stores pages with comparison visuals: "Holiday Gaming Guide" (GPU/RAM comparison) or "Student Tech" (battery life/weight specs).
• Use technical specification charts in A+ content highlighting key features for different use cases.

Balance technical terms with gift-themed searches:

• Consider various keyword approaches: Phrase match for specific product features ("32GB RAM laptop"), broader terms for seasonal shopping ("tech gifts").
• Review and adapt budgets during different shopping periods. For example, consider increasing budgets for wireless accessories during Black Friday through Cyber Monday, when shoppers may be looking for tech gifts.
• Explore dynamic bidding options for your Sponsored Products campaigns for high-interest tech products. For example, when shoppers are actively browsing gaming laptops as gifts, dynamic bidding can help adjust bids based on likelihood of sales.
• Consider using cost controls for your Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display campaigns. It dynamically adjusts bids to get the most clicks while keeping your average cost per click (CPC) near your desired target. Factor in increased traffic when setting your CPC target.

Showcase product benefits for gift giving and personal fitness goals:

• Organize your content by sport category (fitness equipment, winter sports gear, outdoor recreation) and skill level (entry level to advanced). Create seasonal themes that align with both gift giving and personal purchase intent, such as "Holiday Gift Guide for Athletes" (November–December) and "New Year Fitness Goals" (December–January).
• Use Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display video ad formats to help showcase product applications, such as winter sports gear or home fitness equipment.
• Design Brand Store pages that organize products by activity and expertise level, including technical specifications and buying guides (“Compare features across different treadmill models”).
• Consider including product feature information and real-life scenarios in your content to help inform purchase decisions. For example, you could showcase how ski jackets perform in different weather conditions.

Align with gift-oriented and personal purchase intent:

• Gift-related terms and fitness goal terms may help reach relevant audiences. For instance: "gifts for runners" or "home gym essentials."
• Consider implementing cost controls to automatically adjust budgets during different shopping periods. This approach may help maximize opportunities when demand increases, such as fitness equipment leading up to New Year's or winter sports gear during holiday gift-giving periods.
• Dynamic bidding can help increase sales opportunities during peak periods. This may be particularly relevant for higher-priced items like home gym equipment in late December or winter sports gear during Black Friday through Cyber Monday.

Sources

¹ Advertiser-provided data, JP, 2023–2024.

² Amazon internal data, WW, 2023.