---
"title": "Make every holiday dollar count: Optimizing to the numbers that matter"
"date": "2026-10-20T22:17:46-04:00"
"url": "https://www.criteo.com/blog/make-every-holiday-dollar-count/"
"description": "Discover how you can get your holiday budget to work harder with smarter bidding, cross-channel optimization, and measurement."
"image": "https://www.criteo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/76c4be70-d53b-4fb2-bd91-907536737496.jpeg"
"author": "criteo_multi_admin"
"category": "Commerce AI"
---

For most performance marketers, the hardest holiday conversations actually happen in December or January when the results are in and leadership, finance, or a client wants to know why ROAS didn’t beat last year’s. 




The terms of that conversation, though, are usually set much earlier in the year. What counts as success, which spend is protected, and which channels are experiments can and should be decided long before the holidays begin. Teams that agree on them with their stakeholders in advance have a much clearer story to tell when the season ends. 




Drawing on commerce data from hundreds of Criteo’s partner brands and retailers, our [Year-End Shopping Decoded](https://www.criteo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/26-Year-End-Shopping-Decoded-Global.pdf) report reveals key learnings from the 2025 holiday shopping season and where marketers can focus their efforts to improve efficiency. 




### **Where do holiday budgets lose efficiency?** 




Three patterns from last year stand out: 




- **More visitors, fewer buyers:** In the US, Q4 retail traffic rose 3% year over year, while conversion rate fell 10% and sales fell 7%. Spend that drove visits without purchases looked productive in traffic reports but didn’t add revenue. 




- **Familiar customers come back:** On Black Friday, the number of first-time buyers at US retailers rose 261% compared with early October. Returning customers surged nearly as much, so first-time buyers made up only a slightly larger share of shoppers than usual (4% more). Black Friday brings existing customers back in large numbers, which makes re-engaging them efficiently just as important as finding new ones. 




- **Prices rise with the season:** As more advertisers compete for the same holiday shoppers, auction prices typically climb through November and peak around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 




At first glance, these look like three separate problems: one about conversion, one about acquisition, and one about price. But beneath the surface, there’s a common concern: holiday campaigns are often optimized toward one set of numbers and judged on another, while costs and shopper behavior shift faster than a fixed plan can follow. 




### **Why should holiday campaigns optimize to the numbers you report on?** 




A common source of year-end friction is a gap between what campaigns optimize toward and what the business actually measures. Ad platform reporting, analytics tools like GA4 or Adobe, and marketing mix models rarely agree, and holiday volume tends to widen the gap. When a campaign is optimized to one number and judged on another, even a strong season can be hard to defend. 




Criteo’s Third-Party Measurement & Optimization (TPMO) is built to close that gap. It brings an advertiser’s own source of truth, whether that’s GA4, Adobe, or an in-house attribution model, directly into Criteo’s optimization. Campaigns then bid toward the conversions the business actually counts, using its own attribution model and window, rather than toward Criteo’s view of performance. 




That makes TPMO more than a reporting choice. When the holiday scorecard is agreed upon in advance and campaigns optimize toward it, the year-end conversation is about the same numbers everyone agreed to watch.  




### **How can marketers protect efficiency as CPMs rise?** 




Every brand’s goals and data are different, so there’s no single playbook that applies to everyone. Once campaigns are optimizing toward the business’s own source of truth, a few principles help get the most out of every holiday dollar: 




- **Start before prices peak:** The average holiday shopper starts researching 17 days before buying in the US and 18 days in Europe, and a quarter of shoppers begin nearly two months out. That means many Black Friday buyers are already researching in early October, before competition for their attention peaks. 




- **Set targets, then check in often:** Teams agree on CPA or ROAS targets for each line of spend, measured in the same source of truth the campaigns optimize toward. Activating TPMO before the rush gives optimization time to learn from the brand’s own conversion data ahead of the busiest weeks, and regular check-ins through November make it easy to adjust quickly if results drift. 




- **Let bidding adjust in real time:** When auction prices change by the hour, static bids result in brands overpaying. Bidding models that adjust to price and to each shopper’s likelihood of converting help maximize results within the budget a brand sets, through Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Throughout 2026 Criteo has [deployed new Deep Learning algorithms](https://www.criteo.com/blog/why-the-future-of-commerce-ai-isnt-one-model/) designed to make exactly these kinds of decisions. By using Criteo platforms, buyers are benefiting from these AI-generated efficiencies. 




- **Be ready for returning customers:** Black Friday brings existing customers back, often to buy something they were already considering. Engaging them with [personalized holiday creative](https://www.criteo.com/blog/holiday-creative/) that reflects live prices and offers puts the right product in front of them at the moment they’re ready to buy. 




- **Be wherever shoppers are:** Every holiday journey is different, and shoppers move across many channels before they buy. Working with a partner that [reach holiday shoppers across channels](https://www.criteo.com/blog/where-holiday-shoppers-are-buying-2026/) and allocate budget dynamically, while optimizing toward your source of truth, keeps efficiency consistent wherever the shopper shows up. Most channel plans were set earlier in the year, but if incremental budget becomes available late in the season, it can fund a small, controlled test of a newer channel like ChatGPT Ads, with its own success criteria so it isn’t judged against well-established channels at year end.  




### **Putting it all together** 




Before the holiday rush begins, it’s worth agreeing on three points with everyone who will evaluate the results: 




- **The scorecard:** the source of truth everyone will use (GA4, Adobe, or an in-house model), with campaigns optimized toward it. 




- **Targets:**CPA or ROAS goals for each line of spend, measured in that same source of truth. 




- **Check-ins:**a regular cadence through the season, so adjustments happen quickly rather than after the fact. 




If performance marketers can settle these three points early on, the year-end review becomes a discussion of results against an agreed plan, rather than a debate over which numbers count. 




**Ready to optimize your holiday campaigns to the numbers your business trusts?**[Talk to a Criteo expert](https://www.criteo.com/talk-to-an-expert/).