In our first 2024 Holiday Guide of the season, we laid out a detailed view of the current macroeconomic landscape. Here, we’ll expand on those insights with a highlight reel of top trends that will drive consumers during peak shopping days in Q4.
1. Holiday shoppers plan to start shopping before Thanksgiving.
The (now annual) October Amazon Prime Day sale will mark the unofficial start of the 2024 holiday shopping season, and competing retailers are expected to run major sale events of their own.
2. Consumers will try to stretch their budgets - but they still plan on spending.
EMARKETER reports that most shoppers don't plan to cut back on holiday spending in 2024. American consumers anticipate that inflation-driven cost increases will escalate their holiday expenses.
After a year marked by economic uncertainty, Americans will be on the hunt for deals and sales that will make their holiday budget go further. Salesforce predicts that we can also expect an increased reliance on credit and flexible payment options like Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL).
3. Discretionary spending will get cut as consumers try to make room in their budgets.
Research published by PWC found that 85% of consumers intend to cut back on discretionary categories like dining out and new clothing. The findings suggest that these budget adjustments are being spurred by an effort to prioritize holiday spending.
4. Spending power among Gen Z continues to strengthen.
Although Millennials continue to drive holiday spending rates, Gen Z has started to gain an edge - over the last two years, these young consumers have grown their holiday budgets by +59%.
We’re kicking things off with a universal checklist for digital marketing during the 2024 holiday season. We alluded to some of these tactics in our 2024 Holiday Guide: Getting Prepared for Q4, and will expand on them here with a focus on must-haves for social channels, specifically.
Budgets & Targets
✅ Align on Channel-Specific Targets
✅ Confirm Marketing Budgets Through EOY
Site Readiness
✅ Conduct a Site Speed Check
✅ Launch Dedicated Gifting & Category Pages
✅ Deploy Gift Guides
✅ Increase Bandwidth for Holiday Traffic
✅ Set a Deadline for Code Freezes to Prevent Pixel Issues
Creative & Ad Copy
✅ Finalize Gifting Copy
✅ Revisit Promo Extensions
✅ Prepare Creatives (& Budget for Longer Review Times)
Audience Expansion
✅ Open Lookback Windows
✅ Launch Wider LALs
✅ Launch Holiday-Specific Audiences
✅ Heavy-Up on Prospecting Early On
Shipping Considerations
✅ Identify Shipping Cut-Offs
✅ Launch Gift Card Offerings
Strategic, compelling ad creative is the key to reaching - and expanding - your target audience. Here’s an example of how this approach unlocked new growth for New Engen client Fellow.
🔥 Hot Tip: Run a Sandbox campaign on Meta to pre-qualify ad creative and identify new opportunities. This is a low-barrier, low-cost way to weed out bottom performers and launch new creative into ASC+ campaigns with confidence.
Fortunately, the BFCM playbook for Meta hasn’t changed drastically over the last year. Here are three best practices to follow as you gear up for BFCM/Cyber Week, 2024:
1. Maximize Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns
Scale performance by leveraging multiple creative types. Keep your ASC+ promo campaign live to easily update promotional messaging throughout the holiday season and maintain control over spend.
Use bid multipliers to push spend where we are seeing the biggest results. Device, gender, age, location.
2. Drive for Efficiency
Allocate enough budget to your campaigns to ensure they exit the learning phase. As a rule of thumb, place ad set at 5x your average CPA.
3. Champion a Winning Audience Approach
Don’t discount LookAlike (LAL) and Interest audiences. Ideally, at least 40% of your prospecting budget should be allocated to ASC+, with the remainder distributed across:
Dynamic Ads for Broad Audiences (DABA)
Testing into smaller audience segments using LAL and interest targeting
Expand on top-performing evergreen creative during this period by incorporating promotional elements and messaging. This will allow you to simultaneously extend the impact of your most performant creative while raising awareness about special offers or discounts.
Instead of investing time and resources into producing differentiated ad creative for every BFCM/Cyber Week holiday, focus on creating generic BFCM messaging that can run throughout the spending period. This eliminates the risk associated with launching new ads on peak days and helps insulate against CPM spikes.
Leverage your ad creative within Dynamic Ad (DPA) campaigns - seriously, this one is non-negotiable. Testing conducted by Meta has shown that DPAs with creative elements drive stronger CTR and CVR than those without.
If applicable, be sure to fold Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) messaging into your text and visual assets to reach budget-conscious segments of your audience.
Finally, allow your BFCM efforts to go farther by promoting gift cards when the shipping cutoff date has passed.
In 2023, our advice for how to approach TikTok in Q4 was this:
“The high cost and high demand that come with the holidays make many brands hesitant to test into new channels and lead them to invest in Q1 instead. But TikTok is the exception to the rule - it stands out among other channels for how easy it is to get started on the platform, so long as you’re willing to dive in and get a little scrappy.”
Not only does this guidance hold true in 2024, it’s reinforced by an even greater arsenal of tactics and in-platform tools designed to help brands capitalize on TikTok. So, whether you missed the boat last year or are looking for ways to refine your channel strategy this Q4, here are the best practices and levers to implement on TikTok this holiday season.
If creative resources are limited, take advantage of TikTok’s Creative Exchange Marketplace and gain access to a treasure trove of unique and compelling content.
Don’t let resource constraints hold you back - Spark Ads can be the key to getting your brand on TikTok. This native ad format enables brands to tap into white-listed, organic content about their products, from real TikTok users and content creators.
Submit project briefs through the TikTok Creator Marketplace and get bids from a pool of creators who want to work with your brand.
Investment in brand building efforts is critical to staying competitive and maintaining share of voice long-term. Fortunately, TikTok is a relatively low-barrier channel to amplify your brand and gather performance insights during the high volume holiday season. And brands don’t even need to deploy conversion-based campaigns to see favorable results - running awareness efforts alone can positively impact conversions on other channels.
⭐ P.S. ️Don't forget to use TikTok’s Insights tool to research the top-performing content, hashtags, messaging plays, and more within your industry.