The 2026 holiday season is approaching, and while consumers are still willing to spend, they are becoming much more selective about where that money goes.
Shoppers are researching earlier, comparing more options, looking harder for value and increasingly using AI to help make decisions. At the same time, brands are competing for attention during a season where consumer budgets remain under pressure.
For businesses, the opportunity is still significant. Canadian retail sales excluding automotive and gas grew around 4% in Q4 2025, despite expectations for relatively flat holiday spending.
The lesson? Cautious consumers are not necessarily inactive consumers.
Winning Holiday 2026 will come down to being visible early, communicating your value clearly and staying flexible enough to react as shopping behaviour changes.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday may get most of the attention, but the customer journey starts weeks before the deals arrive.
Last holiday season, research and comparison activity increased throughout November, with many consumers building their shortlist during the four weeks leading up to Black Friday.
October and November also played a major role in driving overall Q4 retail growth.
That means brands should not wait until Black Friday to become aggressive.
Start using September and October to:
By Black Friday, many customers already know which brands they are considering. Your job is to make sure yours is one of them.
Affordability remains one of the biggest concerns influencing consumers in 2026.
But value does not simply mean offering the lowest price.
Consumers are weighing price against quality, convenience, product benefits, reviews, shipping and overall experience.
This becomes especially important around Black Friday. Last season, 73% of Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers said they added products to their carts and waited to see whether better deals would appear.
Consumers know promotions are coming, and many are willing to wait.
Instead of competing entirely on discounts, give shoppers more reasons to choose you.
Value can mean:
Your marketing should answer a simple question:
Why is this product worth buying from us?
The brands that answer that clearly will be less dependent on offering the deepest discount.
One of the biggest changes heading into Holiday 2026 is how consumers research products.
More than half of Canadian holiday shoppers used AI platforms or AI-powered features during the 2025 holiday season, and 64% said they wished they had used AI more to help with their shopping.
Search behaviour is becoming more conversational too.
Instead of typing:
"Christmas gifts for dad"
someone might ask:
"What is a good Christmas gift under $100 for a dad who loves cooking and already has most kitchen gadgets?"
This creates a new challenge for brands.
Your website and product information need to provide enough context for search engines and AI tools to understand exactly what you sell, who it is for and why someone should choose it.
Before the holiday rush, improve:
SEO is no longer only about matching keywords. It is increasingly about giving platforms enough useful information to confidently recommend your products.
Consumers have never had more ways to compare brands.
Price comparison, reviews, social media, marketplaces, search engines and AI can surface alternatives almost instantly.
As a result, even loyal customers may switch if a competitor offers better value, faster delivery or a stronger promotion.
Holiday marketing should therefore focus on both defending your customers and winning new ones.
Keep an eye on:
You do not need to copy your competitors.
Instead, ask yourself why a customer might choose them over you, then make sure your marketing addresses that gap.
Every holiday season brings surprises.
Weather changes can suddenly increase demand for seasonal products. Inventory can sell faster than expected. Shipping delays can change where people buy. Competitors may launch unexpected promotions.
Your media strategy needs room to respond.
Avoid creating a rigid budget plan where every dollar is committed months in advance.
Instead:
The best holiday plan is not the one that predicts everything correctly.
It is the one that lets you react quickly when things change.
During Black Friday, generating revenue is usually easier.
Generating profitable revenue is the harder part.
Before increasing budgets, make sure you understand:
A campaign can have a strong ROAS and still be less profitable if it relies heavily on discounted, low-margin products.
Your holiday reporting should therefore go beyond revenue alone.
Knowing your numbers gives you much more confidence when deciding whether to increase budgets during periods of strong demand.
Q4 is not the time to discover that your tracking is broken or half your products are missing important information.
Advertising platforms increasingly rely on product feeds, conversion data and automation to determine where your budget should go.
Before peak season, audit:
Better product information also helps your ads appear for a wider range of relevant searches and shopping queries.
Treat your feed like an advertising asset, not just a technical requirement.
Focus on the foundation.
Fix tracking, improve feeds, calculate profitability targets, build landing pages and start testing creative.
Begin building demand.
Launch holiday messaging, gift guides, prospecting campaigns and early promotions while competition is still relatively manageable.
Scale what works.
Increase visibility as research and comparison activity peaks. Refresh creative, monitor competitors and prepare remarketing audiences for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Adapt to urgency.
Messaging should gradually shift toward shipping deadlines, availability, gift cards, local pickup, easy returns and last-minute gift ideas.
Holiday 2026 will not simply be about spending more on ads during Black Friday.
Consumers are starting their research earlier, becoming more demanding about value and using more tools to decide where to spend.
The brands best positioned to win will be the ones that prepare early, communicate their value clearly, invest across the customer journey and stay flexible when demand changes.
The holiday opportunity is still there.
The challenge is making sure your brand is the one shoppers choose.
Don’t wait until Black Friday to start preparing. Webtmize can help you build and execute a data-driven holiday strategy across SEO, AI visibility, paid media, content and ecommerce.