When most brands approach channel allocation, the natural starting point is last year’s results. The channels that performed best typically get the most budget allocated again.
That instinct makes sense, and for many brands last year’s results are the most reliable signal available. But last year’s shopper data suggests the approach can leave gaps. The channels that performed last year may still be working, but holiday shoppers move across more retailers, devices, and touchpoints than any single channel can cover, and a plan built only on last year’s winners can miss where a meaningful share of purchases happen.
How do holiday shoppers move?
Criteo’s Year-End Shopping Decoded report analyzes holiday shopping behavior using commerce data from hundreds of partner brands and retailers. Three trends from the 2025 season stand out:
- Between retailers: When US shoppers browse a category across several retailers, they see six brands on average, compared with two when they stay inside one store. Europe and Japan show the same pattern on a smaller scale.
- Between devices: Mobile accounted for 61% of US sales during Cyber 6 (the six days from Thanksgiving through the following Tuesday), up from 58% the year before. Mobile share also rose in Japan (to 59%) and EMEA (to 39%).
- Over time: A quarter of shoppers start researching nearly two months before they buy (57 days in the US, 59 in Europe, and 76 in Japan), while the fastest quarter decides within minutes.
On their own, each of these looks like a familiar trend. Together, they describe a shopper who rarely stays in one place long enough for any one channel to reach them. That has a practical consequence: the question isn’t which channel won last year, but whether your plan can follow the same shopper across retailers, screens, and weeks.
Why are AI assistants becoming a holiday channel?
AI assistants are one of the fastest-growing new channels of the past two holiday seasons. According to Adobe Analytics data, traffic to US retail sites from generative AI tools rose 693% year over year during the 2025 holidays,¹ and shoppers arriving from those tools converted 31% better than visitors from other sources.²
The base is still smaller than search or email, but shoppers are clearly using AI assistants to compare products, check prices, and find gift ideas. Many advertisers, particularly larger ones, have been slower to follow, often because best practices and measurement for the channel are still taking shape. That gives early movers an advantage this season, one that is likely to narrow by next year.
This is the first holiday season in which advertisers need to plan for AI assistants as a channel, and Criteo has been running ChatGPT Ads with advertisers throughout 2026. In our recent webinar with OpenAI, we shared what we’ve learned about the channel heading into the holidays: it reaches shoppers your other channels don’t, holiday shopping on ChatGPT follows the same seasonal curve as traditional channels, and more creative variation means more delivery, which is what Criteo’s Prompt Smart is built to support.
How can advertisers cover more channels without fragmenting their plans?
The aim is to be present where shoppers are going and to manage those channels as one plan, rather than to spend more on the channels that already perform. Four questions can help:
- Is every channel covered? Shoppers move between the open web, apps, social, CTV, and now AI assistants. For each, is there active spend, or an assumption that last year’s channels will capture the demand? Criteo can activate across all of them, including ChatGPT Ads.
- Is one signal driving it? The shopper comparing six brands across three retailers, in apps and on the web, is one person. Criteo connects those signals across channels to a single shopper, so real commerce signals, based on what people browse and buy across retailers, can inform every channel and the same in-market shopper is recognized wherever they appear. This is where Criteo Commerce Audiences can help you ensure you’re reaching shoppers who are actually on the journey to purchase, versus wasting spend on users who aren’t likely to convert.
- Is the full journey visible? Without cross-channel measurement, each channel reports its own version of the sale. Criteo now provides Path to Purchase reporting for open web, video and CTV, social, and OpenAI, so you can map the journey to conversion instead of only evaluating by last click, and identify which paths, channel mixes, and touchpoints produce the strongest outcomes.
- For global brands, does the plan reflect regional timing? US and European store trends moved in opposite directions last year, and Japan’s peak arrives earlier.
Putting it all together
Last year’s winners are still a good starting point, but they only show where shoppers were, not where they’re going. This season, the practical move is to audit your coverage against how shoppers actually move (across retailers, screens, and weeks), add the channels you’re missing, with a small, controlled test where budget allows, and tie them together with one view of the in-market shopper so you’re not paying to reach the same person three times.
With Black Friday only weeks away, there’s still time to test, measure, and adjust before the peak.
Want a second opinion on your channel coverage? Talk to a Criteo expert.
Sources
¹Adobe, Holiday Shopping Season Drove a Record $257.8 Billion Online with Consumers Embracing Generative AI Tools
²Adobe, AI-driven traffic surges across industries with retail experiencing biggest gains.
