The Connected Holiday: CRM Strategies for 2025
The holiday season is no longer a frantic sprint of one-off campaigns, it’s a high-stakes, months-long journey where brands must guide customers seamlessly from discovery to purchase and beyond.
Yet too many still treat the holidays as a series of disconnected communications, missing opportunities to build momentum and loyalty. Outside of online marketplaces, most retailers are vying for just a single purchase from each customer, making every touchpoint matter. When campaigns push unrelated products in a fragmented way, they fail to move the customer closer to conversion.
The brands that win will take a customer-first approach, crafting a holistic holiday experience that meets shoppers where they are and nudges them forward at every step.
To create a journey that is seamless, personalized, and competitive, focus on these strategic levers shaping Holiday 2025.
25 Percent of Consumers Start Shopping Before November
The debate over “how early is too early” to talk about Christmas has been around for years. While some resist the idea of shopping before November, the reality is many consumers start—and finish—their lists well in advance. October mega-sales like Amazon’s Prime Big Deals Day have shifted spending earlier, with shoppers opening their wallets at the very start of Q4. And in a climate of growing economic uncertainty, deep discounts and promotions often outweigh brand loyalty, as customers compare prices across multiple retailers before deciding where to buy.
What it means for CRM: Incorporate Prime Big Deals Day into your holiday journey planning. Align sales, offers, and outbound communications with any potential Amazon October event to stay competitive and top-of-mind.
AI Is the New Personal Shopper
AI is transforming how customers discover gifts and hunt for deals. Brand-specific AI search traffic is up 1,300 percent year over year, and according to Salesforce, 19 percent of 2024 holiday purchases were influenced by AI-powered interactions. eMarketer projects that 53 percent of U.S. consumers will use generative AI to shop online in 2025.
What it means for CRM: Customers expect answers instantly, with minimal friction. Brands should proactively research how their products and messaging appear in AI-powered search, starting reputation management now to ensure reviews and social conversations reflect the story they want told. And, where possible, incorporate AI-style interactions into CRM channels, such as two-way SMS, in-app engagement, or chatbot-style prompts, to deliver intuitive, personalized responses that mirror the AI search experience.
Make Every Touchpoint Unscrollable
During peak season, customers can receive hundreds of marketing emails a day. To cut through the noise, CRM activations need to be not just relevant but also memorable.
What it means for CRM: Use interactive elements like carousels, embedded video or audio, progress bars, polls, or two-way chat. Leverage AMP for Email to create micro-site-like experiences directly in the inbox, allowing customers to browse, interact, and purchase without leaving the email. This not only streamlines the experience but also increases conversion rates.
Make It Personalized and Persistent
The industry has long moved past putting a customer’s first name in a communication and calling it personalized. These days, customers expect all aspects of the communication experience to be personalized—from the products featured, to offers, channels, timing, creative, and content.
Marketing’s classic “Rule of 7” suggests that, on average, a customer needs to encounter an ad or product seven times before making a purchase. While the exact number will vary based on each individual’s relationship with the brand, persistent personalization across communications ensures repeated exposure to the right products—moving the customer closer to conversion. To maximize impact, brands should maintain consistency not only across owned channels but also by leveraging first-party data to connect paid and owned experiences, creating unified, relevant touchpoints wherever the customer engages.
What it means for CRM: Leverage recent transactions, search history, and propensity models to pinpoint the most relevant product or next best action for each customer. Lead with these recommendations across email heroes, push notifications, website homepages, and more—and deliver them at the optimal moment and channel to maximize engagement and conversion. Extend the experience across both paid and owned channels, using connected identity to unify targeting. This integration boosts visibility and frequency for your next best product, offer, or action—ensuring a consistent, high-impact customer journey.
Include Social as a Key Part of the CRM Journey
Social media continues to drive holiday conversions. 20% of global holiday sales in 2024 came via social platforms. With in-app checkout and shoppable posts, the path from discovery to purchase is shorter than ever. New tools, like Instagram’s broadcast channels and comment-to-DM shopping, blur the lines between social engagement and CRM.
What it means for CRM: Use identity solution and data sources like StatSocial to merge social engagement data with first-party data to fuel follow-up campaigns in email, push, or SMS. If a customer doesn’t convert on social, retarget them with content that reflects what they viewed or engaged with. Incorporate social content
into your CRM messaging, and apply CRM best practices to features like comment-to-DM and broadcast channels to make purchasing effortless.
The bottom line: Holiday 2025 will reward brands that design a connected, persistent journey, not just a calendar of campaigns. By weaving these five trends into a holiday experience, brands can make every interaction count and increase conversion.
For deeper insights into economic shifts, evolving platforms, and changing consumer behavior—and how to turn them into your advantage—get in touch with us today to access our Holiday Impact Report 2025 Edition.
Mariana Skinner is vice president of CRM strategy, Publicis Groupe, ConnectedCRM. Skinner is a data-driven marketer with a passion for creating bold, customer-centric CRM strategies and communications that move the needle. With more than 13 years of expertise spanning CRM and life cycle strategy, digital transformation, strategic consulting, marketing technology, and process improvement, she has partnered with Fortune 500 brands like Marriott and McDonald’s to deliver measurable, market-leading results.