Holiday Advertising Strategies 2026: How to Win the Video Funnel

For years, "holiday marketing" meant a sprint: a few loud weeks between Black Friday and Christmas Eve. That model is gone. The 2026 shopper does not decide at the shelf or the checkout. They decide over months, inside content: a gift guide watched in October, a review re-watched in November, and a haul that sparks next year's list in January. And increasingly, they decide with AI at their side.

For the 2026 Holiday Playbook for Video Advertising, we analyzed more than 11.6 million videos and 627 billion views across the US and Europe. One finding shaped everything else: video isn't a format in your holiday plan. Video is the funnel. Here is how shoppers actually move through it and how to win each stage.

Video is the Funnel, not a Format

More than 80% of consumer internet traffic is now video, so whoever your audience is this season, they are watching more than they are reading. The numbers show it: 63% of shoppers say online video inspired their holiday purchase decisions, and holiday shoppers who use YouTube spend 1.7 times more than those who don't.

The takeaway is simple. The holiday decision no longer happens at the register. It happens across content, over weeks, on every screen. If your plan still treats video as a top-of-funnel awareness tactic, you are showing up for one scene of a much longer story.

The Seven Stages of the Holiday Video Funnel

Holiday demand does not move in a straight line. In our data, it moves through seven stages of watching, each with its own content, context, and moment to win:

1. Inspiration: demand begins as someone else's story

2. Validation: confidence is built before the cart

3. Comparison: shoppers decide what to leave behind

4. Purchase: a deadline or sale triggers the buy

5. Sharing: one gift creates the next wish list

6. Returns: the journey continues past the receipt

7. Self-Gifting: the last gift of the season is for ourselves

Most brands pour budget into stages three and four. The advantage this year is in the stages they ignore. Here are five ways to win the whole funnel.

Five Ways to Win the 2026 Video Funnel

1. Show up before intent exists

The widest, earliest stage is enormous. Inspiration content alone drew more than 149 billion views across the US and Europe, and shopping and product discovery were the fastest-growing categories we tracked, up 41% in the US and 45% in Europe. No one wakes up wanting a specific air fryer. They watch a creator make crispy potatoes, and a want is quietly planted.

The move: sit inside the discovery content shoppers already watch, from gift guides and hauls to recipes and reviews, so you are part of the spark, not the interruption after it.

2. Win the AI-assisted researcher

Between wanting something and buying it sits one question: can I trust this? This year, shoppers answer it with AI. In our playbook, 61% now use AI to compare prices and 89% double-check AI recommendations against other sources. Easier research has not shortened the journey; it has raised the standard of proof, with holiday shoppers now taking nearly four validation actions per purchase, up from 1.6 before AI.

The move: appear alongside the reviews, unboxings, and creator content shoppers use to build confidence, so your brand is validated at the most relevant moment, especially in the videos where it is already mentioned.

3. Plan to the rhythm, not the weekend

Holiday shopping strategies follow a four-month rhythm, not a single promotional weekend. 51.9% of shoppers begin by October. October starts discovery, November builds confidence and conversion, December brings urgency and sharing, and January reopens the cycle through returns and self-gifting.

The move: give every month a different job. Inspire in October, reassure and convert in November, create urgency in December, and re-engage in January. One season, four months, four messages.

4. Match the creative to the screen

A shopper may discover on mobile, research through video or AI, watch brand stories on CTV, and buy on desktop. Each touchpoint has a different job. Short video inspires; long video helps shoppers decide; CTV builds memory on the biggest screen.

The move: match the creative to the task. Inspire on mobile and CTV, inform through AI and video, and make purchasing easy on desktop.

5. Don't go dark after the sale

This is where most brands leave money on the table. The funnel does not end at Purchase; it loops. Sharing turns every haul and unboxing into the next shopper's inspiration. Returns reopen the season in January with intent already loaded. And self-gifting, the quietest stage, is where the highest intent hides, as shoppers reward themselves with a fresh-start purchase.

The move: stay present past checkout. Fuel the unboxing and haul content your purchase moment creates, and meet January's self-gifters in the "new year, new me" content they turn to, while competitors go quiet.

Holiday Ad Hall of Fame: 3 lessons from 2025

Last season's most talked-about campaigns each carry a lesson for the funnel.

Amazon: Joy Ride

Rather than launch something new, Amazon revived its 2023 film "Joy Ride" for 2025, again following three lifelong friends rediscovering the joy of sledding, set to an orchestral rendition of The Beatles' "In My Life." System1 awarded it 5.9 stars in the UK and 5.7 in the US, and it led System1's early UK festive ranking. The lesson is not that familiarity automatically wins, but that a distinctive, emotionally proven story can hold its effectiveness when it is brought back with consistency. That is how you keep winning the inspiration stage.

John Lewis: Where Love Lives

Saatchi and Saatchi's "Where Love Lives" centered on a teenager giving his father a 1990s vinyl record, using music and memory to express what words could not. DAIVID found that 55.8% of viewers felt intense positive emotions, making it the retailer's most emotionally engaging Christmas ad since 2016. The lesson: a clear human insight, delivered with emotional specificity, still cuts through the seasonal clutter.

Coca-Cola: Holidays Are Coming

Coca-Cola's 2025 "Holidays Are Coming" generated the season's largest volume of social conversation, with nearly 50,000 posts and more than a million engagements, according to Sprout Social data reported by Campaign. But only 37% of that sentiment was positive. The lesson for 2026 is the one this playbook is built on: AI-enabled production can manufacture scale and attention, but attention is not the same as affection. Emotional resonance and brand warmth still have to be designed and tested deliberately.

The Real Advantage: Contextual Intelligence

Look across these stages, and one thread connects them. The journey is now non-linear and spread across more touchpoints than any audience profile can follow. As identity signals weaken, what a shopper is watching becomes the clearest read on what they intend to do next.

That is the case for contextual intelligence. Audience tells you who. Context tells you why now. Everyone has data; the advantage is knowing what to do with it. Silverpush reads the context around every video a shopper watches and turns it into a media signal you can act on, so your brand shows up at the right stage, from inspiration through purchase and into the loop beyond.

What's next: the AI-assisted shopper

The decision cycle will remain, but AI will move shoppers through it faster, recommending gifts, comparing options, and increasingly acting on the shopper's behalf. Agentic commerce is projected to reach 3 to 5 trillion dollars in global revenue by 2030. The brands that win will be the ones that make their products, content, and offers easy for both people and machines to understand and recommend.

To sum up

This holiday season is more video-first and more AI-assisted than ever. Win it by showing up before intent forms, earning trust in the validation moment, planning to the four-month rhythm, matching creative to the screen, and staying present long after the sale. With contextual intelligence reading the moment and video carrying the story, this can be your most successful season yet.

Seize the season with advanced tools and strategies to make your holiday campaigns stand out. Start early, personalize, retarget, and embrace the festive spirit. With the right approach, this holiday season can be your most successful yet.