With the 2025 holiday season fast approaching, shopping app marketers are presented with both significant opportunities and increasing challenges. Factors such as seasonality, evolving privacy regulations, and recently introduced U.S. tariffs are influencing consumer purchasing behavior and channel performance. To succeed in Q4, brands must focus on early strategic planning, full-funnel AI integration, and omnichannel optimization, while adapting to economic trends and prioritizing long-term user retention.
Planning early
The fourth quarter, highlighted by major holiday sales events like Singles' Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, offers concentrated opportunities within a brief period. However, the most effective campaigns are initiated well ahead of these peak moments. Marketers should utilize 2024 performance data to identify valuable audiences and effective creative approaches, conducting early testing while cost-per-install (CPI) rates remain reasonable (these spike during peak season).
It is equally important to ensure that attribution and measurement frameworks are optimized before peak activity begins. The implementation of additional U.S. tariffs in May 2025, for example, led to a shift in consumer purchasing patterns, with many choosing to buy earlier in the year. This volatility underscores the necessity for marketers to be prepared for both anticipated and unexpected fluctuations in demand.
Harnessing AI across the full marketing funnel
AI has evolved into a critical component for driving results at every stage of the marketing funnel, from audience segmentation and creative optimization to churn prediction and adaptive budget allocation.
In creative development, AI-enhanced tools accelerate large-scale production, automate ad concept generation, and enable dynamic adaptation of formats to suit user preferences, such as displaying banner ads for mobile web users and video content for app users.
AI-driven personalization now allows marketers to adjust recommendations and messaging in real time based on user behaviors such as cart additions, product views, or even location data. This capability is essential for converting increased holiday traffic into loyal customers and sustaining engagement into the new year.
Furthermore, AI-powered predictive models facilitate more precise budget management by forecasting channel demand and reallocating resources in response to changing performance indicators. Platforms like Shopify Magic are already demonstrating efficiency gains by reducing forecasting time and increasing traffic.
Optimizing omnichannel user journeys
Modern consumers interact across multiple platforms, for example, beginning their journey on social media, using voice search for price comparison, and completing purchases either in-app or on desktop. Unifying these interactions requires seamless integration across channels.
Mobile web has re-emerged as a critical discovery point, necessitating investment in smooth web-to-app transitions, deep linking and conversion-focused landing pages. Implementing tools like Smart Banners and QR code integrations can effectively drive app installations from various sources while minimizing user friction.
Additionally, marketers should explore channels such as Connected TV (CTV), chatbot-assisted shopping, and augmented reality (AR) experiences, each providing distinct opportunities to engage consumers during busy holiday periods.
Adapting campaigns to regional and economic trends
Tariffs and inflation impact markets differently. In the U.S., rising costs have made consumers more sensitive to price, whereas growing markets such as Brazil, Thailand and Malaysia are experiencing robust session and install growth.
Localization will be critical for success this season. U.S. shoppers now seek greater value through cashback offers, bundled deals and price comparison features. Shopping apps should emphasize these offerings and tailor messaging to appeal to budget-conscious audiences. For international markets, adapting creative assets, incentives and user interface design to reflect local preferences and digital habits is essential.
Prioritizing retention to sustain growth beyond the holidays
Holiday marketing efforts should extend beyond acquisition to focus on long-term user retention. Despite an 18% year-over-year decline in installs during H1 2025, session numbers remained stable, indicating that engaged users persist. Retention strategies, including reattribution, loyalty initiatives and personalized re-engagement, are key growth levers.
The share of global reattributions rose to 0.18 in H1 2025, up from 0.14 in 2023, reflecting increased emphasis on winning back previous users. With day-one retention rates for shopping apps around 13%, there is substantial opportunity to enhance engagement through improved onboarding, tailored experiences and responsive support.
Achieving long-term success through agility and precision
Success in the upcoming holiday season will depend on proactive preparation, personalized marketing and rapid adaptability to market shifts. Brands investing in AI, privacy-centric performance and holistic user journeys will be best positioned to achieve sustainable growth. Amid heightened competition and complexity, organizational agility will serve as a decisive advantage.
