When to start holiday marketing: Strategies for before, during, and after Cyber Week

When should you start holiday marketing? Black Friday gets the headlines. Cyber Monday fills inboxes. Super Saturday brings out the last-minute shoppers who swore they were going to finish their shopping weeks ago.

But, for most businesses, the the time to start is actually well before these key dates. Shoppers are researching and buying earlier, which makes late summer and early fall important times to build awareness and learn what works. But starting earlier doesn’t mean you should also stop advertising at earlier dates.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday will always remain major sales moments, but significant shopping continues through December and even after Christmas. The strongest holiday marketing strategy covers the full season, shifting from discovery to acquisition to conversion as shopper intent changes.

The holiday shopping season has stretched in both directions. People start researching and buying earlier, yet plenty of shoppers are still making purchases sometimes well into the New Year. That means the question isn’t simply how much you should spend on Black Friday. It’s when to start holiday marketing, how to adjust your strategy as demand changes, and how long to keep your ads going.

For growing businesses and lean marketing teams, that requires a different kind of holiday plan. Instead of treating Cyber Week as one giant sprint, think of the season as a series of connected opportunities to get discovered, win new customers, and convert shoppers when they’re ready to buy.

Holiday marketing still matters. A lot.

Let’s start with one big clarifying point here. Holiday shopping may start earlier, but that hasn’t made the traditional peak shopping days irrelevant. In fact, some of the biggest days are getting bigger again.

eMarketer forecasts that the five days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, often called Cyber Five, will generate more than $50 billion in U.S. ecommerce sales in 2026. Black Friday ecommerce sales are projected to grow 7.7%, while Cyber Monday is expected to remain the biggest online shopping day of the year, generating a projected $16.27 billion in sales.

The broader holiday season matters, too. eMarketer forecasts more than $1.4 trillion in U.S. retail sales during November and December 2026, with ecommerce alone expected to top $300 billion.

Those are big numbers. They also mean a lot of brands are competing for the same shoppers at the same time.

So, a couple things become clear here. The big shopping days remain big shopping days. However, for small and midsized businesses the takeaway shouldn’t be to save everything for a massive Black Friday push. The better approach is to make sure your brand has already earned some attention before competition reaches its peak. (Source: eMarketer, Holiday Shopping 2026)

So, when should you start holiday marketing?

For many businesses, holiday marketing should begin in late summer or early fall, with advertising active by September or October. The exact timing depends on your products, audience, sales cycle, and promotional calendar, but waiting until the week before Black Friday can leave you trying to introduce your brand at one of the most competitive moments of the year.

And we’re not just pulling this speculation out of thin air. There’s been plenty of historical shopper behavior behind that recommendation.

NRF reports that roughly two in five holiday shoppers begin browsing and buying before November. In its 2025 holiday survey, 42% planned to start before November, with shoppers saying they wanted to spread out their budgets and avoid the stress of last-minute shopping.

eMarketer simultaneously points to the same shift. Its 2026 research found that shoppers have become more intentional under financial pressure in recent years, with 31.7% reporting that they planned purchases earlier during the 2025 holiday season. Another eMarketer article noted that even later into November shopping accelerates quickly with 71% of U.S. adults planning to start buying before Black Friday, siting an Attentive report.

For marketers, this changes what “holiday season” should mean. If shoppers are researching gifts in September and comparing products in October, showing up for the first time on in late Fall or the winter means entering the conversation after some shoppers have already decided which brands they’re considering. Shoppers holidays may start after thanksgiving but for brands they start when the dog days of summer are coming to an end.

Starting early gives your marketing time to work

The value of an earlier start goes beyond capturing early sales. It gives your brand more opportunities to build familiarity as your target audiences are building interest in your product categories.

Because, in reality, a shopper who encounters your brand in September may not be ready to buy. That’s fine. They might watch a video, visit your site, explore a product, or simply remember your name. When they encounter you again as their intent increases, you’re no longer a complete stranger competing for attention alongside every other Black Friday promotion.

Starting early also creates something marketers desperately need during the holidays: time to learn.

You can test different messages, products, offers, audiences, static ads, and video before your most important shopping days arrive. Instead of discovering on Black Friday that a creative concept isn’t resonating, you can use earlier activity to understand what’s working and put more investment behind it as demand builds.

If you’re working with a platform that allows for simple, quick campaign setups we recommend preparing two to three months before the season and using earlier moments to test creative, offers, messages, and campaign approaches before competition intensifies. Better yet, find a partner thatt can leverage AI to test and optimize campaigns for you. A good example of this is, Criteo GO, which uses 20+ years of commerce data to continuously improve campaign performance and ensure your ads are being served to the right person at the right time.

In short: think of the early season as more than a warm-up. It’s where you build the audience and the learnings that can make your peak-season marketing stronger.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday should be peaks, not starting lines

Starting earlier doesn’t mean pulling budget away from Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Instead, this early start gives you time to ensure you’re firing on all cylinders during this pivotal time.

It’s true that things like Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days are stretch out the holiday season longer and longer, but many still wait for historically big sales events when they expect to find stronger deals. The job for marketers is to be present for both behaviors.

Earlier in the season, marketing can focus more heavily on discovery. Introduce products, reach prospective customers, tell your brand story, and give people a reason to explore.

As interest grows, the balance should shift toward customer acquisition. The shoppers who have encountered your brand can now be encouraged to make their first purchase.

Then, as Black Friday and Cyber Monday arrive, conversion becomes increasingly important. Higher-intent shoppers are in market, traffic is surging, and your advertising can take advantage of the groundwork you laid to turn that demand into purchases.

Your holiday budget doesn’t need to be evenly distributed across that entire journey. In fact, it probably shouldn’t be. Your strategy should follow shopper intent rather than treating every week like Black Friday. Heck, who knows? Maybe your brand’s individual Black Friday isn’t during the traditional day at all.

Don’t let Cyber Monday become your finish line

After weeks of preparation and the intensity of Cyber Week, turning down holiday advertising as we head into the end of the year can sound pretty tempting. Both from a work-load and a budgetary standpoint.

Shoppers, unfortunately for tired marketers, haven’t received that memo. NRF found that as of early December 2025, consumers had completed only 51% of their holiday shopping on average. And despite the popularity of early shopping, 60% of consumers expected to finish their shopping in December.

That leaves a considerable amount of shopping after Cyber Monday—especially if you want to take advantage of high-intent opportunities like abandoned cart campaigns.

It also creates opportunities to refresh your message. Someone shopping in early December isn’t necessarily responding to the same motivation as someone researching in October. Shipping deadlines, product availability, convenience, gift inspiration, last-chance offers, and urgency can become increasingly relevant as the month progresses. The calendar gives marketers who run season-long holiday campaigns multiple opportunities to run new campaigns with fun new messaging.

Super Saturday deserves a spot on your holiday marketing calendar

Black Friday and Cyber Monday may be the best-known holiday shopping events, but Super Saturday, the final Saturday before Christmas, is a reminder of just how much demand remains late in the season. Because, let’s be real, there is always someone we remember at the last minute to buy a gift for.

NRF estimated that a record 158.9 million U.S. consumers planned to shop on Super Saturday in 2025. For brands, that creates a very different marketing opportunity from the early-season discovery phase.

Shoppers are running out of time. They may know what they need but not where they’ll buy it. Others may still be searching for inspiration. Your advertising can respond with clearer product messages, relevant offers, availability, urgency, or reasons why your brand is the best choice for this late season gifting.

Even as late as Super Saturday is, the season isn’t quite finished.

Holiday shopping doesn’t stop the last week of the year

The last couple weeks of the year may feel like the natural endpoint of holiday marketing. But once again, shopper behavior suggests otherwise. NRF found that 70% of consumers planned to shop during the week immediately following Christmas in 2025. The leading reason was taking advantage of holiday sales and promotions, followed by spending gift cards. And that’s just in the United States. Not every shoppers’ holiday season peaks on the 25th and some countries like the UK even have shopping events like Boxing Day occurring on the 26th or later depending on the locale.

That pattern isn’t a one-off. NRF has reported similarly high levels of end-of-holiday shopping in previous years, making the very last week of the year a recurring extension of the holiday shopping season.

The opportunity also changes after the gift wrap comes off. We can’t forget . Some are making exchanges and finding something else they want. Others are shopping for themselves after spending weeks buying for everyone else. Existing customers who discovered your business during the holidays can also become audiences worth engaging again. A lot of consumers are off of work, it’s a great time to advertise to them and convince them to casually window-shop your products either online or in person.

Simply put, the customers, campaign learnings, creative insights, and audience signals you gained during the season can become the foundation for what comes next. Holiday marketing should never end with a hard stop.

Make your holiday marketing strategy move with the shopper

All of this makes the modern holiday calendar sound a little intimidating. Start earlier. Stay active through Cyber Week. Keep going through Super Saturday. Don’t forget post-holiday-season shoppers.

For a lean marketing team, that’s a lot of moving pieces. Luckily, there is nothing to fear. In today’s day and age, the solution doesn’t need to be more manual campaign management. There are easy, hands-off ways to build a marketing strategy that can adapt as shopper behavior changes.

The best bet is to work with an AI-native, commerce-built advertising platform. An AI-powered advertising platform can help you continuously optimize decisions such as targeting, bidding, creative, and budget allocation while campaigns are running. Instead of manually trying to predict every shopper journey, marketers can establish the outcome they want and give AI more opportunities to learn from performance throughout the season—particularly valuable when your goals change as the holidays progress.

Early on, you may want to drive discovery, reaching high-intent prospective shoppers before they’ve settled on what or where to buy. As interest builds, the priority can shift toward acquiring new customers and turning that consideration into a first purchase. When shopping intent is at its highest, you can focus more heavily on maximizing conversions, including bringing interested visitors and existing customers back to buy.

Platforms like Criteo GO can help you bring those goals together in one AI-powered advertising platform, helping reach shoppers across the open web, apps, social, and multiple ad formats. Criteo AI continuously optimizes targeting, bidding, and creative across channels, reducing the amount of manual tuning required as the season changes.

More holiday moments call for more creative

A longer holiday marketing season creates another challenge: creative fatigue.

The ad that introduces your brand in September shouldn’t usually be the same ad telling someone there’s still time to order a gift in December. And shoppers don’t encounter brands in only one format. Someone might first discover a product through video, encounter a static display ad while researching, and see another message when they’re finally ready to purchase.

Producing enough creative to support all those moments has traditionally been difficult for small teams.

This is another area where AI can take some weight off marketers’ plates. Criteo GO can automatically generate creative variations and supports display, native, social, and video advertising. Marketers can also use Criteo AI to create additional images and text, while its URL-to-video capability can turn a website URL into video creative.

But this doesn’t mean that all thought can be taken out of creative production. You don’t want to produce endless variations for the sake of it. Instead you want to have enough creative flexibility to match the moment.

For example, early-season video can help introduce the brand. Product-led static ads can make offers and pricing easy to understand. Peak-season creative can emphasize the strongest reasons to buy. December messaging can evolve around urgency and last-minute needs. Post-holiday creative can speak to gift-card holders, repeat customers, and entirely new reasons to shop.

The best time to start holiday marketing is before you need holiday sales

So, when should you start holiday marketing? There isn’t one date that works for every business, but waiting until Black Friday, or even post-Halloween, is increasingly difficult to justify.

Starting in late summer or early fall gives your brand time to build awareness, reach early researchers, test creative, and learn before competition intensifies. Black Friday and Cyber Monday can then become performance peaks rather than cold starts. December gives you another substantial window to convert shoppers, while Super Saturday and post-Christmas shopping extend the opportunity even further.

The holiday season isn’t one moment anymore. Your marketing shouldn’t behave like it is.

Frequently asked questions about when to start holiday marketing

When should I start holiday marketing?

For many businesses, holiday marketing should begin in late summer or early fall, with advertising active by September or October. Starting before peak shopping periods gives brands time to reach shoppers during the research phase, build awareness, test creative, and learn what performs before competition intensifies around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The right start date ultimately depends on your products, sales cycle, audience, budget, and promotional calendar.

When should I start Black Friday marketing?

Black Friday marketing should start before Black Friday week. While promotional and conversion-focused messaging may become more aggressive as the event approaches, brands can begin building awareness and consideration weeks or months earlier. EMARKETER notes that many consumers start buying before Black Friday, while NRF consistently finds that a substantial share of holiday shoppers begin browsing and purchasing before November.

Is Black Friday still important for holiday marketing?

Yes. Earlier holiday shopping hasn’t eliminated Black Friday’s importance. Many independent research firms find that Black Friday is continuing to grow in importance, not shrink away. Black Friday should be treated as a peak within a longer holiday marketing strategy, rather than the day the strategy begins.

Is Cyber Monday still a major shopping day?

Yes. Just like Black Friday, Cyber Monday remains important. In fact, many research firms predict Cyber Monday to remain the largest U.S. online shopping day of 2026, with billions in online sales. Brands should prepare for Cyber Monday demand while recognizing that shoppers may have encountered, researched, or even purchased from them earlier in the season.

What is Super Saturday marketing?

Super Saturday marketing focuses on reaching shoppers on and around the last Saturday before Christmas, one of the final major shopping moments of the holiday season. NRF estimated a record 158.9 million U.S. consumers planned to shop on Super Saturday in 2025, making it an important opportunity for brands to reach late shoppers with timely products, offers, and messaging.

Should holiday marketing continue after Cyber Monday?

Yes. Cyber Monday is not the end of holiday demand. NRF found consumers had completed just 51% of their holiday shopping on average as of early December 2025, while 60% had previously said they expected to finish their shopping during December. Continuing advertising gives brands an opportunity to reach shoppers who still have gifts to buy after Cyber Week.

Should you keep advertising after Christmas?

For many businesses, yes. NRF found that 70% of consumers planned to shop during the week after Christmas in 2025, particularly to take advantage of promotions and spend gift cards. Post-holiday advertising can also help brands re-engage holiday customers, support repeat purchases, and carry learnings from peak season into an always-on strategy.

How can AI help with holiday marketing?

AI can help marketers manage the complexity of a longer holiday season by continuously learning from campaign performance and optimizing decisions such as targeting, bidding, and creative. For example, Criteo GO uses commerce-trained AI to optimize advertising across channels and can also help create ad assets, including generating video ads from a website URL. That can make it easier for lean teams to test and scale different creative approaches as shopper intent changes throughout the season.