As the festive season inches closer, a new study conducted by Comscore shows that marketers are ready to splash out, with a keen eye on digital avenues and instant sales to capitalize on the year's most profitable period.
The survey, focusing on those who hold the purse strings for programmatic holiday advertising, reveals a trend towards securing budgets early, with 75% of holiday funds earmarked by September, jumping to a near-total 97% by October's end. Yet, November is when the spending spree really hits its stride, with over half of the marketers planning to invest heavily.
Interestingly, the shadow of recession and inflation that hangs over the economy isn't deterring these marketers—86% are set to either sustain or increase their ad spend from the previous year, showing an optimistic outlook for the holiday season's commercial potential.
Mobile ads are taking the lead, with a vast majority of marketers opting to place ads on websites and browsers across desktops and mobile devices, steering clear of social media. Meanwhile, Connected TV (CTV) and Over-The-Top (OTT) ads are also popular choices, with linear channels and audio ads following behind.
This holiday, it's all about making a mark, as brand awareness campaigns are receiving the lion's share of advertising budgets, followed by initiatives aimed at drawing in new customers and keeping existing ones engaged.
As for data, while the holiday figurehead Santa might be partial to cookies, marketers are thinking differently. They are increasingly relying on first-party data to direct their campaigns, with contextual data also playing a key role. Third-party data remains a part of the strategy for more than half of the respondents, whereas new identifiers like The Trade Desk's Unified ID 2.0 are less favored.
In a nutshell, the marketing world is abuzz, positioning itself to make the most of the holiday cheer, undeterred by economic worries and adapting to a changing data landscape.
Read next: Holiday Shopping 101: Google’s Most Popular Product Listings For 2023 Unveiled
The survey, focusing on those who hold the purse strings for programmatic holiday advertising, reveals a trend towards securing budgets early, with 75% of holiday funds earmarked by September, jumping to a near-total 97% by October's end. Yet, November is when the spending spree really hits its stride, with over half of the marketers planning to invest heavily.
Interestingly, the shadow of recession and inflation that hangs over the economy isn't deterring these marketers—86% are set to either sustain or increase their ad spend from the previous year, showing an optimistic outlook for the holiday season's commercial potential.
Mobile ads are taking the lead, with a vast majority of marketers opting to place ads on websites and browsers across desktops and mobile devices, steering clear of social media. Meanwhile, Connected TV (CTV) and Over-The-Top (OTT) ads are also popular choices, with linear channels and audio ads following behind.
This holiday, it's all about making a mark, as brand awareness campaigns are receiving the lion's share of advertising budgets, followed by initiatives aimed at drawing in new customers and keeping existing ones engaged.
As for data, while the holiday figurehead Santa might be partial to cookies, marketers are thinking differently. They are increasingly relying on first-party data to direct their campaigns, with contextual data also playing a key role. Third-party data remains a part of the strategy for more than half of the respondents, whereas new identifiers like The Trade Desk's Unified ID 2.0 are less favored.
In a nutshell, the marketing world is abuzz, positioning itself to make the most of the holiday cheer, undeterred by economic worries and adapting to a changing data landscape.
Read next: Holiday Shopping 101: Google’s Most Popular Product Listings For 2023 Unveiled
