Consumer Trends Every Marketer Should Know Before the Holidays

Holiday shopping now stretches across most of the fourth quarter. People begin researching and building lists in October, spending accelerates sharply around Thanksgiving, and a significant share of shoppers are still making decisions well into December.

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Holiday shopping starts early and spending peaks later

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Shoppers begin preparing for the holidays well before the traditional late-November rush.

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In a 2026 Basis survey conducted with GWI, 68% of consumers said they planned to shop early to avoid delays. That reason matters. These consumers are not necessarily moving purchases forward because they expect the best promotion in October. They are giving themselves more time to find what they need and avoid problems later in the season.

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Much of the actual spending still concentrates around Thanksgiving. PwC found that consumers expected about 40% of their planned gift spending to fall between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. Adobe’s measured online spending from the 2025 season showed a similar concentration. Cyber Week accounted for $44.2 billion of the season’s $257.8 billion in online spending, or roughly 17% of the total in five days.

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People may start shopping early, but much of the spending still happens later in the season. That can leave weeks between when someone first starts researching a purchase and when they actually buy, and plenty of that activity continues after Cyber Monday.

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In early December 2025, consumers had completed just over half of their holiday shopping. NRF also found that 158.9 million people planned to shop on the final Saturday before Christmas, compared with 157.2 million the previous year.

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Price promotions can help determine when many of those purchases happen. PwC found that 79% of consumers said deals and discounts influence when they shop. Yet the Basis research found that only 26% of gift buyers planned to seek out more deals than usual.

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Those findings suggest that shoppers do not have to spend the entire season actively searching for promotions for discounts to affect their timing. When the offer appears can still influence when someone is ready to complete a purchase.

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By late November, a substantial discount can therefore place a brand alongside many competitors making similarly aggressive offers. The weeks before that peak provide a different opportunity.

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October gives shoppers time to become familiar with a brand

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By October, many consumers are already researching holiday purchases and putting together their plans, even though much of their spending will come later.

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That gives marketers an opportunity to reach people before the busiest shopping period begins. The immediate outcome may be a site visit, time spent looking at a product or simply the first exposure to a brand. The purchase may still be weeks away.

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For that reason, October conversions alone give an incomplete picture of what an early holiday campaign is accomplishing. Someone researching a gift in October may leave a site without buying and return when they are ready to spend later in the season.

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That makes this month especially useful for prospecting. Past customers already have some familiarity with the brand, but households the brand has never done business with may be encountering it for the first time.

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An audience provider can identify those prospective customers by name and address based on criteria such as geography and buying behavior. Reaching them while they are still researching and considering their options gives the brand time to become familiar before the heavier spending period begins. When that period arrives, the first introduction has already happened.

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Late November puts the offer in front of a more familiar audience

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By Thanksgiving week, more shoppers are ready to move from researching to purchasing, and the campaign can shift with them. This is the point when brands can put their strongest discount or promotional offer in front of the households they reached earlier in the season.

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Those shoppers will be seeing promotions from many companies at once. A meaningful discount may be necessary to compete during the period, but the offer itself may look similar to what other brands are putting in front of the same consumer.

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Earlier exposure changes the context in which that promotion appears. Someone who encountered the brand while researching in October may recognize the name when the late-November offer arrives.

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We cannot assume that familiarity will increase the likelihood of a purchase. What marketers can control is whether the same households have a chance to see the brand earlier and then receive the offer when they are closer to buying.

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That makes audience continuity critical. If the people reached in November have little connection to the people reached in October, the campaign loses much of the value of starting earlier. The brand may have spent October building familiarity with one group of households, only to put its strongest November offer in front of a different group.

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Keeping the same defined audience in play gives the campaign a better chance to carry that earlier exposure forward. The message can change as shoppers move closer to a purchase, but the households receiving it do not have to change with it.

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December still has a product-discovery audience

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Cyber Monday does not mark the end of holiday decision-making. Plenty of consumers enter December with gifts still to choose and purchases still to make.

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That makes December more than a period for reminding previous site visitors about products they already considered. Some shoppers are still deciding what to buy in the first place.

For marketers, that keeps prospecting relevant later in the season than a Cyber Week-centered plan might suggest. A household reached earlier may now be ready for a specific promotion, while another household may still be looking for ideas and comparing products.

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The message can change accordingly. Late-season advertising can continue to introduce products to undecided shoppers while giving people who already know the brand a reason to return.

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The practical question is how long the holiday campaign remains active. A plan that ends after Cyber Monday also ends the brand’s opportunity to reach consumers who are still choosing and shopping in December.

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Holiday planning should account for the full decision cycle

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Holiday shopping unfolds over several weeks, and consumers can be at very different points in the decision process depending on when a brand reaches them.

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A stronger holiday plan accounts for that progression from the beginning. The purpose of an October campaign may be different from the purpose of a campaign running closer to Christmas, so the message and the way performance is evaluated should change with it.

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The individual parts of the plan also need to connect. Reaching people early has more value when the brand can continue communicating with them as they move closer to a purchase. Keeping that connection intact gives each stage of the campaign a clearer role instead of treating every month as a fresh start.

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Planning around the full holiday decision cycle gives marketers more room to meet shoppers where they are throughout the season and evaluate each part of the campaign based on what it was actually meant to accomplish.