15+ Halloween Marketing Ideas to Surprise Your Customers This Year

Halloween is not only a holiday with pumpkins and costumes, but also a powerful marketing tool that brands use to attract attention and increase sales. In 2024, spending on Halloween celebrations in Europe reached significant levels, with Germany's market for the holiday estimated at more than 200 million euros per year. These figures show the growing popularity of Halloween among European consumers.

In 2024, the average spending on Halloween in Europe amounted to 103.63 USD, a slight decrease compared to the previous year but still indicating a significant interest in this holiday. Generation Z and millennials were especially active, as they are increasingly choosing online shopping to buy costumes and decorations. 

Popular trends of 2024 were:

• gothic elegance: a combination of gothic motifs with luxurious materials such as velvet and silk in dark shades;
• nostalgia: decor in the style of the 70s and 90s, evoking memories of childhood;
• sporty style: sports-inspired costumes, such as cheerleaders and Formula 1 drivers, are on the rise.

These trends open up great opportunities for brands looking to capture consumers’ attention during the Halloween season. And right now, we would like to share with you a curated selection of exciting Halloween marketing ideas that you can put into practice.

What is Halloween Marketing?

Halloween Marketing involves special marketing strategies and campaigns focused on Halloween celebrations. Brands use this holiday as an opportunity to capture the attention of consumers, increase brand awareness, and boost sales. This can include themed advertising campaigns, special offers, creative product packaging, or limited editions, and interactive social media activities.

The secret of Halloween Marketing is that it combines the festive atmosphere with marketing goals. Thanks to bright costumes, pumpkin decorations, and themed events, brands can create an emotional connection with the audience, making the brand more "alive" and closer to the consumer. This approach is especially effective among younger generations, who value creativity and non-standard solutions in communication.

Benefits of Halloween Marketing for Ecommerce

1. Increasing sales. Obviously, the holiday will be most beneficial to themed businesses, such as candy makers and sellers. However, there are a variety of home decorating items that can help consumers create a Halloween atmosphere: lighting, tableware, various textiles, and more. The same goes for costumes. Sellers of apparel, footwear, and accessories can create appropriate sets from their collections that look casual when worn separately and Halloween-y when worn together.

So your opportunities to make money on the holiday are limited only by your assortment and imagination.

2. Improving brand recognition. Build brand awareness with an eye-catching Halloween promotion. Develop a festive campaign that grabs the attention of your customers. It's ideal if your marketing campaigns go viral so that people want to share them with their friends. Perhaps you can achieve this by using some of the ideas in the article and adapting them most effectively for your business.

3. Growing a contact base. During the high season, traffic to ecommerce sites increases as people look for gifts and various holiday products. This is a great opportunity to convert visitors into subscribers to your omnichannel messaging. An effective way to grow your contact base is to attract subscribers through the subscription form on your website. According to statistics, subscription forms on the home page (37%) and on other customer-facing pages of websites (33%) have proven to be the most popular.

Popups can be perfectly integrated into a Halloween marketing campaign by giving them a themed feel. Also, widgets can be a valuable addition to your Black Friday marketing strategy. Here are some ideas on how to use them effectively.

4. Running A/B tests. Holiday campaigns allow you to test your marketing hypotheses. People are engaged consumers during the peak season. They tend to be more active in online stores and marketing campaigns, so it's a great time to find out:

• how subscribers respond to changes in message design;
• which CTAs resonate better with your audience;
• which direct channels are more popular with customers etc.

Once you've tested your hypotheses and are satisfied with the results, you can implement the most effective for your next promotions focused on other fall and winter holidays.

16 Creative Halloween Marketing Ideas from Famous Brands

In search of interesting solutions for Halloween, we looked at the websites and marketing campaigns of well-known companies. Their efforts may inspire you to create your own fun and memorable experiences for your customers.

Visualization 

Decorate your brand’s logo with the thematic details 

The design of your direct channel campaigns should be seamlessly integrated into the appearance of the website, where they lead subscribers. The least you can do is add thematic details to your logo (it's not a difficult task, if you use a logo maker for this purpose) and brand name. For example, replace the letter ‘o’ with a jack-o-lantern, as Hearthsong did.

Animate your website pages

An animation on the website will look interesting. For example, the Think Goodness online store had a bat flock flying around. They are small and do not interfere with site navigation, and they definitely add to the Halloween mood.

Form a special Halloween section

A special Halloween section on the website makes it easier for customers who are looking for relevant products. By the way, you can do the same with the menu in emails.

The Lego website also uses an animated element to draw attention to the Halloween section.

Create bright promotional banners

No Halloween marketing feels complete without a spooky banner on the homepage. Just a touch of seasonal flair can turn an ordinary landing page into a powerful engagement tool. Whether it’s highlighting limited-edition products or adding a bold visual twist, the effect is always striking. Take Heinz’s Tomato Blood Ketchup—a clever example of how a simple idea can dominate a Halloween campaign.

There’s no need to turn your entire site into a spooky Halloween cave, just focus on the most trafficked and important pages. For example, add themed CTA buttons to the home page, decorate the checkout and thank you pages with a nice visual, etc.

Bring the power of animated Halloween elements to your promo

Animated elements instantly draw attention and make any promotion more dynamic. Whether it’s witches, ghosts, pumpkins, or playful monsters, motion adds a festive, engaging touch that encourages users to explore seasonal offers or products.

Offers and discounts promotion

Offer very spooky discounts

In today’s reality, consumers expect Halloween discounts even in categories that are not associated with the holiday at all. The seasonal mood creates an expectation of benefits, and brands are actively picking up on it. A striking example is Epic Games, which annually launches a large-scale Halloween Sale in its digital store. It has become a real tradition for gamers: even games that are far from the Halloween theme get festive price tags, and the company gets additional traffic and audience loyalty.

Give the magic of “golden tickets” in regular orders

Introduce a few “golden tickets” in October orders so that customers receive unexpected gifts—free products, exclusive experiences, or generous discounts.

Actively announce the promotion before sending orders. The possibility of winning can motivate new purchases, not just delight regular customers.

Make sure the prizes are really impressive. A small discount is not worth a “golden ticket”—only valuable and unexpected rewards create a WOW effect.

Don’t forget about gamification widgets

A widget can either gently remind you of additional features or brazenly take over the attention from the content on your site. Whatever your goal, be sure to use this lever of interaction with your audience.

Presentation of goods

Create a landing page with Halloween products

Also, companies develop separate landing pages that contain all the products that might be interesting to customers looking for Halloween items. 

It is convenient to drive subscribers from direct channels to landing pages. Interested visitors are directed to a dedicated online space where their attention is not distracted by other topics. In addition, landing pages are useful in terms of SEO optimization and keyword search traffic.

Landing pages can have a detailed navigation divided into separate categories. Take a look at how BigLots did it.

Or it can be a dedicated page with a complete overview of a particular brand’s products. Take a look at how Target did this for the Betty Crocker brand. The baking products are not entirely Halloween-themed, but they are related to the tradition of treating children to sweets. And the page shows what spooky treats can be made with a particular product. By clicking on the appropriate CTA button, visitors go to the recipe they need.

Highlight Halloween items without a separate section

If you don’t have enough products to create a separate Halloween section—or simply want to keep things simple—you can feature seasonal items directly on your homepage just like Boohoo did.

ZARA used to do the same on their website. This trick ensures that the themed content is immediately visible to visitors and draws maximum attention without requiring a dedicated page, additional working hours, or resources.

At least, it can be an appropriate search filter with themed products, like on the NEXT website.

Present a limited edition of goods

Create a limited-edition series of your products specifically for Halloween. Just look at how the Krispy Kreme chain turned into Krispy Skreme for the Halloween season. Along with the new name came a whole line of Halloween-themed doughnuts and a special promotion: every weekend in October, customers can get a second set of doughnuts for just $1. The company's official website already features an updated logo and atmospheric banners that immerse visitors in the holiday theme.

Boosting sales

Offer to customize your products

If you don't have themed products, or you're not sure they'll sell well, consider allowing clients to customize your non-Halloween items. For example, Yankee Candle suggests customers to personalize the design of their candles with just a few clicks.

Interestingly, even the maker of Oreo cookies offers a similar service to its customers. And let's face it, on a holiday so closely associated with sweet treats, they should sell well without being decorated. However, the company still provides personalized offers.

Engage customers with themed products

Food and product manufacturers have great opportunities to create holiday-themed offerings. For example, Vegan Treats bakery traditionally proposes monster pies and other treats since early September.

T-shirt manufacturers, for example, can add Halloween prints. Also, it's a good reason for restaurants and bars to get creative with their menus, adding salted mummy fingers to Bloody Marys, etc.

Last year, Fanta went a step further and teamed up with the movie Beetlejuice to launch a limited-edition soda. It was a Halloween-themed soda with the movie's characters on the tins.

Boost sales with up-selling

Even non-themed items can become Halloweeny when perfectly paired with other products. This works best for apparel, accessories, home decor, and textile stores. For example, by combining casual clothing with accessories in a single gloomy style, the customer already has a gothic costume, etc. Your job is to help people choose. Check out how it works at Target.

If your site showcases themed products, creating an upsell becomes much simpler and more effective.

You can automate the generation and display of such sets using AI-powered product recommendations. The Yespo omnichannel CDP provides 180 AI algorithms already available in the system. So, companies from different industries can choose from a wide range of algorithms.

Show bundles of Halloween items

Recommendation blocks can also contain sets of complementary products that are often purchased together. You can give a discount on such offers when the customer orders the entire set.

In this way, you help shoppers discover things they may have forgotten about or never even considered. And for businesses, such recommendations help drive cross-selling and up-selling.

Combine a few channels

Launching a special offer is a great way to drive extra attention to your social media channels. For example, Chipotle did this with their Boorito promotion, offering a buy-one-get-one deal for Halloween on a dedicated landing page.

Halloween Online Activities to Entertain Customers

Halloween is a good occasion to engage your target audience through online activities such as contests etc. Here are a few options that involve different communication channels.

Email games to drive customer engagement

Offer your customers something fun to do by giving them a chance to win small gifts, such as free shipping or a reasonable discount. Here are some things you can add to your promo email:

• Find and count the differences between the two pictures (the correct answer will be the number from the promo code for the discount on the order);
• Solve a quiz (with AMP, the subscriber can provide the answer directly in the email);

• Solve a puzzle (requires AMP technology);
• Spin the slot machine (requires AMP technology);
• Spin the wheel (requires AMP technology).

Gamification can be added to emails as well as to widgets. This is a great way to increase your contact base.

A themed photo or video competition

Many people will wear costumes and dress up their children and even their pets. Invite your subscribers to participate in a contest for the best picture/video in costume.

Brands can specify in the terms and conditions that their products must be in the photo. Contestants can email you photos or videos or share them on social media (remember to come up with a catchy hashtag). You can go beyond costumes and have a photo contest with the most original carved pumpkins, the most atmospheric yard, etc. It's great user-generated content that you can use in further campaigns. Don’t forget to invite the website visitors to participate in a contest through popups and gather their contacts.

Guess how many in a jar game

Run an email contest to guess the number of themed items in a jar. Take a photo of a glass jar full of Halloween trinkets, such as candy, cookies, and decorative small items. Ask your site visitors to guess how many things are in it. You can offer several options for people to choose from. Reward the correct answer with a discount on a purchase.

Or run a social media contest for your followers to guess the exact number of items in the jar. Set a time limit, select everyone who guessed correctly, and use a randomizer to pick one or more winners.

Scavenger hunt for the best deals

Create a scavenger hunt on your website. For example, add small decorative elements such as a bat, tombstone, skeleton, witch's hat, spiders, etc. to the most trafficked pages. Place them in such a way that searches are not too easy and visitors are excited. For example, clicking on such elements should take the user to a landing page with a Halloween sale.

Gambody combined a scavenger hunt on the website with a puzzle in an email campaign. Subscribers could try to guess which products were on sale with a holiday discount orr they could go directly to the online store and look for items with a special mark.

Halloween Promotions in Marketing Direct Channels

Use every communication channel available to draw consumers to your website and app. Develop a comprehensive omnichannel marketing campaign in advance to maximize the visibility of your holiday promotion to as many people as possible. Break the campaign into phases:

1. Remind consumers that it's time to get ready for Halloween (2-3 messages);
2. Tell subscribers about an upcoming holiday promotion (1-2 messages);
3. Provide information about the sale and its progression — start, active phase, and end (1 message for each phase);
4. Happy Halloween greetings (1 message);
5. Post-holiday communication.

When using omnichannel communications, rely on the direct channels your customers prefer. Also, pay attention to their unique characteristics that should be considered to achieve business goals. Let's take a quick look at those features.

Email is well-suited to include a wide variety of Halloween offers. Plus, thanks to AMP technology, this channel lets you add gamification. Grab subscribers’ attention with catchy email subject lines and create a memorable design. If you don’t have much time to create it from scratch, you can use the ready-made email templates available in Yespos’ drag-n-drop editor. Similarly, promotional video templates can be leveraged to create engaging Halloween content for social media and email campaigns, saving you time and resources while still delivering a professional look.

The editors’ AI capabilities will also help you with the text of your message: it will generate content, give recommendations on the emotional impact of your message, translate the text into multiple languages, and correct mistakes. Read more about the features here. And for design inspiration, have a look at our blog's selection of email examples.

Web and mobile push notifications help inform users about an important event promptly. For example, the start of a sale or an order confirmation. They are also useful for quickly driving customers back to the website or app with common ecommerce triggers such as abandoned carts and browsing.

App Inbox messages are a notification feed in the personal account of an authorized user of the website and app. Messages are stored in the notification center for a period set by a marketer. It's convenient for the customer to find there, say, a promo code to copy, etc.

Widgets are an efficient way of communicating with all visitors, even those who are not authorized on the site. Use it to inform customers about holiday deals and various promotions.

In-app messages can help guide users to a page with a selection of themed products while they are using the app.

SMS is suitable for informing customers about the most important things, such as the start of a promotion they have signed up for, receiving payment, sending orders, etc.

Each channel has its advantages, but they are most effective in omnichannel marketing campaigns when they support each other. The most efficient way to deliver an omnichannel personalized experience to consumers is to use the Customer Data Platform. The omnichannel CDP Yespo automatically collects data from all kinds of sources, aggregates it, processes it, and makes it available for use. The platform is a hub for all data management and building, launching, and tracking the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

Creating the holiday campaign requires ecommerce businesses to work in several fields, such as direct communications, website appearance, and online activities for the target audience. We’ve selected interesting Halloween promotional ideas for each of these areas.

Final thoughts

More than just a holiday for costumes and candy, Halloween is a great opportunity for ecommerce businesses to engage their audience, increase sales, build brand awareness, expand their contact base, and enhance their marketing strategies. You can attract customers with themed products, limited editions, and customization options, adding personalization that makes your products even more appealing to potential buyers.

The festive atmosphere you create in communications and the spooky transformed website will leave a lasting impression on the targeted audience. This can lead to increased brand awareness and a stronger connection with your customers. Engaging consumers through creative and entertaining campaigns, such as games or contests, might allow you to collect valuable data for future marketing efforts.

However, it's important to remember that Halloween marketing is most effective when delivered through omnichannel campaigns. Using the Yespo CDP simplifies this process by allowing you to aggregate data, run and track marketing campaigns, and deliver a personalized experience to your customers.

Also, keep in mind that a successful Halloween campaign is just the beginning of the holiday season. So, check out the November marketing ideas to get ready for new challenges. And maybe you'll find inspiration for your future campaigns in the Autumn GIF Ideas article.