2025 Holiday Commerce Marketing Trends

With 2025 well underway, marketers are asking an important question: How can my brand prepare for the 2025 holiday season?

In a year marked by constant volatility, many brands have had to be nimble and adaptable, adjusting to the global landscape. When it comes to commerce, it’s no longer enough to “do what worked last year.” To win this season, brands must focus on the latest commerce trends, stay close to the data, and adapt in real time.

MikMak took a look at insights across more than 2,500 global brands to provide you with the tools it takes for your brand to win this 2025 holiday season. In this high-stakes time of year, brands should focus on:

Accelerating sales and growing market share by:

Making every consumer touchpoint shoppable
Equipping teams with the right consumer, channel, and retailer insights

Driving profitability and reducing costs by:

Owning and having a consolidated view of consumer data and audiences to improve performance and lower costs
Understanding and spending on the online and offline channels, campaigns, creative, and audiences that actually convert

Commerce Trends Shaping 2025

The 2025 holiday season will be defined by the convergence of five disruptive forces:

Persistent Economic Pressure and Inflation

As Inflation continues to drive price sensitivity across categories, it is more expensive to bring products to market. Supply chain challenges and global tariffs have shifted the market, and brands need to consider that consumers might be opting for the least expensive option.

Recommendation For Your Brand to Drive Profit this 2025 Holiday Season:

Production, logistics, and media costs are rising. Consumers are reacting by trading down in some ways (switching to private label and budget options) and splurging in others (Home Improvement projects, high quality Grocery items, and travel). Your pricing strategy must flex with demand, and your media must be data-responsive. This way, your brand can focus on where real conversion happens in order to drive sales this holiday season

Tariffs and Shifting Global Trade

As US tariffs disrupt the market in unprecedented ways, brands are facing increasing consumer hesitation and price volatility heading into the 2025 holiday season. Fortunately, data from the MikMak Shopping Index shows that Conversion Rates have remained steady in spite of tariffs, meaning consumers are still shopping. Access to First-party data empowers brands to anticipate changes in shopper behavior and proactively adjust pricing in order to avoid margin erosion or lost demand. Therefore, it is a non-negotiable necessity for growth.

Recommendation For Your Brand to Drive Profit this 2025 Holiday Season:

Global tariffs introduced in Q2 have impacted pricing and planning across industries. Brands that proactively adjust product availability, retailer partnerships, and promotional calendars will be best positioned to retain margin without sacrificing volume.

AI Disruption in Commerce and Media

AI is collapsing the traditional funnel. Generative agents are now handling product discovery, recommendation, and in some cases, even making a purchase. To be eligible for these “agentic” journeys, your brand needs to own its data, optimize product discoverability, and ensure availability is surfaced across LLM-scraped environments like search engines, Reddit, and retail sites.

In fact, the MikMak Shopping Index shows that traffic from ChatGPT to MikMak-powered pages increased 250x between November 2024 and June 2025.

Cumulative Growth in Commerce Loads over TIme

Recommendation For Your Brand to Drive Profit this 2025 Holiday Season:

AI-driven product discovery is already reshaping the way consumers interact with search and social. Brands must future-proof their digital footprint to be eligible for agentic journeys. This optimization includes enhancing product feeds, retailer availability data, and rich product content across every shoppable environment.

50%

of Gen Z and Millennials prefer AI platforms over traditional search engines for product discovery

64%

of consumers say they trust AI recommendations when shopping

250x

increase in traffic from ChatGPT
to MikMak-powered pages from June - Nov 2024

Consumer Loyalty is Your Brand’s Lifeline

Consumers aren’t loyal to brands; they’re loyal to value. That value might be emotional (a trusted heritage brand) or transactional (lowest price wins). In a time when brand loyalty is being threatened by pricing and a volatile retail environment, brands must focus on engaging consumers, and keeping their products in carts no matter what.

Recommendation For Your Brand to Drive Profit this 2025 Holiday Season:

Meet consumers where they are, across social, search, retail, and content. By using first-party data to build personalized journeys, your consumers can purchase your products when it is most convenient for them. Likewise, make every touchpoint shoppable and attributable to get the most out of your marketing dollars and ensure consumers have a seamless experience when buying your products.

Consumers Are Social-First, But Expect Seamless Purchase Options

Brands must “win online to win offline.” Social platforms, influencer-driven discovery, and short-form content drive interest, but the path to purchase must be immediate. If your products aren’t shoppable from the moment of inspiration, your brand is losing market share. Make your products discoverable at every touchpoint using commerce enablement solutions like MikMak.

Recommendation For Your Brand to Drive Profit this 2025 Holiday Season:

Invest in upper-funnel media to bring in new consumers. Brands can drive true incrementality by rebalancing their media mix. Additionally, capturing and acting on real-time data enables brands to pivot their campaigns effectively when volatility strikes.

LISTEN NOW

“The beauty of digital media is that you can measure results in real time and optimize based on what’s working well. Our media plan leverages a mix of upper mid and lower funnel channels to drive awareness, consideration, and purchase intent. MikMak has been a great partner. We use the MikMak platform to provide a seamless consumer journey and path to purchase.”

Chitra Ebenezer |

What Does The Holiday 2025 Season Look Like For My Industry?

The holiday season is never one-size-fits-all. While every brand is navigating the same pressures detailed above, the impact looks different across industries. What drives conversion in Alcohol and Grocery won’t be the same as what captures attention in Beauty or influences gifting in Toys and Electronics. That’s why we’ve highlighted key 2025 holiday commerce trends across a range of categories to help you answer this question:

Cheers to Holiday Sales

Driving Grocery and Alcohol Conversions This Season

The Holiday Gifting Playbook

Winning Share in Toys and Electronics

Marketing Glow Up

How Beauty and Personal Care Brands Can Shine This Holiday

From Guesswork to Growth: How Real-Time Marketing Intelligence Transforms Media Measurement

MikMak Has Been Featured In

From Guesswork to Growth: How Real-Time Marketing Intelligence Transforms Media Measurement

MikMak Has Been Featured In