As holiday shopping kicks off earlier this season, advertisers are feeling the pressure to find new ways to reach enthusiastic buyers. Cookies are no longer the foundation of digital advertising. Today’s top shopping and content channels—including connected TV (CTV), out-of-home (OOH), gaming, and audio—don’t use cookies at all, marking a major shift in strategy for brands looking to stay visible.
For the 2024 holiday season, U.S. holiday retail spending is expected to climb to a record $5.26 trillion. This projection emphasizes the importance of reaching audiences across the digital landscape. But for brands to capture early-season buyers and stand out, they need to move beyond cookies and build a future-ready holiday strategy. Brands need to make a fundamental change by abandoning outdated approaches and embracing more effective, innovative audience strategies.
Holiday Shopping Starts Earlier—So Should Your Strategy
Holiday shopping is starting earlier and earlier, with over half of shoppers beginning their holiday purchasing by October. The pandemic shifted many shoppers toward early buying habits, a trend that has only strengthened as consumers now seek deals earlier in the season. For advertisers, this means traditional campaign timelines are no longer as effective. Retailers must act now to capture this early buying wave.
A cookieless strategy is particularly critical for advertisers still reliant on Chrome’s cookie-based inventory. Limiting campaigns to third-party cookies misses out on significant traffic from Safari, Firefox, and Edge, which make up nearly half of online browsing. By expanding reach across all browsers, brands can engage with broader audiences and avoid a narrowed focus during this competitive season.
Early shoppers often have higher intent, making it critical for advertisers to engage with them right now. Brands can take advantage of early campaign insight to make better decisions and adjust in real-time to capture buyers’ attention when it matters most. Lean into cookieless, your consumers are there – you should be too.
‘Tis the Season to Reach Beyond Cookies
Brands need to broaden their strategies to include a range of channels and formats. This year, we’re seeing more holiday campaigns shift to a cross-channel approach that blends CTV, gaming, digital audio, mobile, and more. Each channel offers unique opportunities to connect with shoppers, creating a dynamic digital presence that traditional cookie-based advertising simply can’t achieve.
In particular, CTV and audio channels have seen tremendous growth and are instrumental in holiday strategies this year. Consumers are interacting with content across multiple devices and expect seamless, personalized experiences. Brands can reach audiences across all these touchpoints, building a campaign that resonates with consumers no matter where they are. Whether it’s a branded CTV experience, an ad during a gaming session, or a targeted audio spot, brands can amplify their presence.
Brands that leverage these strategies will enjoy a more comprehensive view of their audiences, tracking engagement across all digital experiences and shaping campaigns that deliver stronger results. By using advanced data-driven approaches, marketers can achieve the same level of personalization and relevance.
Spread Holiday Cheer Across Unaddressable Inventory
Not only do addressable solutions allow you to engage with new audiences but also begin testing and expanding to channels beyond traditional web environments. Instead of cookie-dependent supply, focus on a holistic view of high-quality interactions and customer engagement.
Brands can leverage people-based identity solutions, first-party data, and contextual targeting. By tapping into first-party data, brands can tailor messages based on real behaviors, reaching shoppers throughout their purchasing journey. Leading up to the holidays, activating data from various touchpoints is essential for capturing intent-driven moments that influence buying decisions. For example, analyzing patterns from CTV viewership, audio streams, and mobile engagement can reveal powerful insights about customer preferences, purchase readiness, and even potential product affinities.
While cookieless strategies can initially feel unfamiliar, they offer benefits beyond holiday campaigns. The data gathered from CTV, OOH, and other cookieless channels bring valuable insights into consumer behaviors that can extend well past the season. By tracking engagement and response across these environments, brands can build a holistic understanding of their audiences.
A cookieless approach isn’t just an adaptation for this holiday season—it’s an investment in future-proofing your marketing. Brands that adopt and refine their cookieless capabilities now will set themselves up for greater agility in 2025 and beyond, when further privacy regulations are expected.
This Holiday Season, Outdated Methods Won’t Deliver
With consumers moving fluidly between CTV, mobile, and digital audio, it’s crucial for brands to adopt a cookieless strategy that connects with audiences across every touchpoint.
Addressable solutions offer both scale and flexibility, enabling brands to tap into unique holiday moments and drive true engagement. By broadening your reach beyond cookies and using identity-based insights and first-party data, your brand can deliver the kind of personalized experiences that today’s consumers expect—without overspending on cookie-dependent inventory.
The takeaway? To be competitive this season, prioritize a future-ready strategy that keeps pace with where shoppers are today. Capture attention from the first gift on a shopper’s list to the last-minute sale, and set your brand up for greater agility in 2025 and beyond.
