How to Build a Holistic Holiday Marketing Strategy: A Balanced Approach to Brand and Performance

As the year draws to a close and the holidays quickly approach, marketing teams may be feeling the pressure to focus heavily on driving immediate revenue, rather than building their brand for the long-term. The stakes are high around the holidays, and the pressure to prioritize quick wins can be overwhelming, especially when every other brand is vying for the same customer attention. 

But is sacrificing long-term brand affinity for short-term performance gains the right move?

In this guide, we’re making the case for a balanced, holistic approach that integrates both goals to maximize impact during the holidays. We’ll leverage new insights from our 2024 Holiday Advertising Trends Report to discuss the benefits of this strategy, why Connected TV (CTV) is an ideal channel to achieve it, and offer practical tips for creating a holiday campaign that drives both brand awareness and revenue growth. 

Determining Your Goals: Brand Awareness vs. Direct Sales

During the holiday season, marketers often find themselves at a crossroads, having to choose between a campaign focused on brand awareness, or on direct sales. Brand awareness campaigns are aimed at enhancing recognition and building a brand's reputation over time, while performance campaigns are designed to drive immediate sales and revenue.

More often than not, marketers feel the pressure to prioritize immediate sales during the holidays — and it’s understandable, given the surge in consumer spending. However, a singular focus, either on brand awareness or direct sales, can have significant drawbacks.

For example, building brand awareness is a smart long-term strategy, but focusing solely on it can entail missed sales opportunities and delayed impact on your company’s revenue. 

On the other hand, concentrating all your efforts on driving immediate sales can undermine efforts to build long-term customer loyalty. Without a focus on building your brand, customers may not develop a strong, emotional connection with your company — a crucial factor for repeat business and customer retention. 

Additionally, a heavy emphasis on direct sales can make your brand appear too sales-driven, potentially rubbing customers in the wrong way. Today’s consumers don’t want to feel like they’re being sold to. Instead, they want authentic brand experiences that align with their personal values and interests.

The key is to build a balanced holiday strategy that drives both brand awareness and immediate sales. This brings us to our next section.

The Benefits of a Holistic Approach

71% of marketers agree that both brand awareness and increased sales are essential goals for their holiday campaigns. This balanced approach provides several benefits:

• Stronger brand recognition: While brand awareness is often mistakenly overlooked as a “fluffy” goal with no tangible business impact, it’s often the first step in achieving performance marketing success. A strong, recognizable brand creates a sense of familiarity and trust, making consumers more likely to choose it when they are ready to make a purchase.
• Enhanced sales performance: A recognizable and trusted brand can lead to better conversion rates. When consumers are familiar with a brand and have a positive perception of it, they are more likely to convert when exposed to direct sales campaigns.
• Competitive edge: During peak holiday events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the market becomes highly competitive. Brands that have invested in both awareness and sales efforts are more likely to stand out in a crowded marketplace and attract consumer attention.

So, where do you start?

CTV: The Ideal Channel for a Dual-Focus Strategy

One of the most effective channels to deliver on this dual focus is Connected TV (CTV). In fact, our survey revealed that 65% of marketers use CTV for both brand and performance goals. This makes sense, as CTV has the unique ability to capture the attention of a precisely targeted audience, making it ideal for both brand storytelling and driving the right outcomes.

Here are just some of CTV's unique advantages:

• Targeted audience reach: CTV empowers marketers with advanced precision targeting tools, which is ideal for both brand storytelling and direct response campaigns. This ensures that you can personalize the right brand messages to relevant audiences, while performance-driven ads can be tailored to those more likely to convert.
• Engaging ad formats: CTV offers a diverse range of ad formats that support both brand-building and performance goals. For example, longer, narrative-driven ads are perfect for storytelling and enhancing brand awareness, while shoppable, interactive ads and retargeting campaigns can drive direct conversions.
• Seamless multi-channel campaigns: CTV allows for integration with other digital marketing initiatives, enabling a cohesive cross-device, multi-channel strategy. Marketers can retarget viewers who have seen a CTV ad with follow-up ads on their mobile or desktop devices, creating a seamless and consistent holiday campaign experience. This also makes for better ROI: 72% of marketers say they use CTV in their holiday campaigns because — when used alongside channels like social and display advertising — it can significantly drive incremental lift.

5 CTV Strategies for a Holistic Holiday Campaign

1. Create a balanced media mix.

Integrate both brand-building and performance-driven content to engage consumers across various stages of the customer journey.

• Brand-building content: This can include storytelling ads, commercials that highlight your brand’s values or unique selling propositions, and festive content that aligns with the holiday spirit. During the holiday season, consumers are often in a discovery phase, looking for gift ideas or the best deals. Brand-building content helps boost awareness, ad recall, and a strong emotional connection with your audience. 

• Performance-driven content: This can include promotional offers, limited-time discounts, or product-specific ads that drive urgency and prompt viewers to act quickly. As consumers move closer to making a purchase, they require more direct and actionable messaging. Performance-driven ads can encourage conversions and drive immediate actions such as clicking a link, visiting your website, or making a purchase. 

You can balance these types of content within a single CTV campaign. For example, a campaign might start with high-reach brand-building ads and then shift towards more targeted, conversion-focused ads as the holiday season progresses. Check out our 2024 Holiday Campaign Buying Guide to get a sample timeline of when to deploy each type of content.

2. Diversify your ad formats.

Incorporate a mix of ad formats to cater to different stages of the customer journey. Use brand-building ads to generate awareness ahead of the shopping season and start leading customers through your buyer’s journey. Then, integrate targeted promotions that drive your audience to conversion.

At the awareness stage, consider long-form video ads that tell a compelling story around your brand or product. This format is ideal for grabbing your audience’s attention and fostering an emotional connection. 

Then, boost the frequency of your ads to stay in front of audiences who were exposed to your brand awareness efforts. Use formats like shoppable videos or ads with embedded QR codes that lead directly to your site or landing page. In this stage, your goal is to help consumers explore more about your products after initial awareness. 

Finally, activate direct response ads as tentpole events like Black Friday approach. These should be short and impactful ads with a strong call-to-action, such as, “Get up to 70% off on Black Friday!” or “Shop the sale until 12/24.” Dynamic ad formats that update in real-time to reflect inventory, pricing, or promotional changes can also be effective here.

3. Leverage data to enhance ad placements and content effectiveness.

As your holiday campaign kicks off, it’s a smart idea to keep an eye on real-time data and adjust strategies on the fly. 

Utilize viewer analytics to understand which ads are performing well in terms of engagement and conversions. This data can help identify which creative elements resonate most with the audience and which platforms or times are most effective for ad placements. Data-driven insights also allow for more personalized ad experiences. Understanding the preferences and behaviors of different audience segments can help tailor content that speaks directly to their interests, increasing the likelihood of engagement and conversion.

Additionally, you can leverage real-time performance metrics to adjust your budget allocation. For example, if a particular ad format or time slot is driving higher engagement or conversion rates, more budget can be allocated to these high-performing areas.

4. Have retargeting strategies ready to go.

By retargeting consumers who have already engaged with brand-building content, you can increase the likelihood of conversion. Develop a sequence of ads that guides consumers down the holiday funnel. For example, a viewer might first see a brand awareness ad, then a retargeting ad that highlights product features, followed by a conversion-focused ad offering a holiday discount or bundle deal. Ensure you have re-engagement strategies ready to go to reach them across different platforms with personalized content based on their previous interactions. 

5. Measure ROI from different angles.

As you wrap up your campaign, measure both brand lift and performance metrics to gauge success and understand the full impact of your holiday campaign.

At tvScientific, we offer a range of in-house solutions designed to give you a clear, detailed view of how your campaign has enhanced your business and integrated into your media mix:

• Spike lift: Compares pre-impression vs. post-impression traffic to your site to measure how much of an immediate impact your CTV campaign had
• Halo effect: Takes a look at conversion rates across all channels and measures how much of lift your other channels had due to your CTV campaign
• Always-on incrementality: Using data science, we compare your CTV audience's actions to a synthetic control group to measure how many incremental actions CTV drove for your business.
• PSA Test: This is the purest form of measuring incrementality. We can set up an A/B split test with your commercial and a PSA ad to measure incremental value against the same audience.

To learn more about CTV measurement and reporting, get in touch with us.

‘Tis the Season for Holistic Holiday Strategies

Balancing both brand and performance goals is the secret to maximizing your holiday campaign impact. CTV offers a powerful channel to achieve this dual focus, combining targeted reach and engaging ad formats with seamless cross-channel integration. As the holiday season approaches, marketers should invest in CTV to enhance brand awareness, drive immediate sales, and build long-lasting customer relationships for sustained success.

Ready to take your holiday campaigns to the next level? Download Unwrapped: 2024 Holiday Advertising Trends Report for more insights and strategies.