Holiday Email Marketing Guide: Best Practices, Examples, and Use Cases

Holiday campaigns are a time when marketing can work smarter, not louder. During the Christmas rush, brands that combine timely messages, relevant content, and a consistent experience across all channels come out on top.

In this article, we share holiday marketing tips – from creative emails and interactive content to automated scenarios that boost sales without overwhelming your audience. We also explain how an omnichannel CDP helps bring these elements together into a coordinated communication system that drives both acquisition and retention.

What is Holiday Email Marketing?

Holiday email marketing strategy designed to attract customers, especially high-intent shoppers, and maximize sales during peak seasonal periods such as Christmas, New Year’s, and other winter holidays. It relies on timely, relevant, and emotionally engaging seasonal campaigns.

Holiday email marketing ideas go beyond simple promotions or discounts. Effective holiday email campaigns combine personalization, behavioral triggers, and contextual messaging to deliver the right content at the right moment – including gift ideas, limited-time offers, service updates, or post-purchase communication.

As part of an omnichannel strategy, holiday email marketing works alongside other channels to create a seamless customer experience, increase engagement, and generate additional revenue during the most competitive time of the year.

Holiday Email Marketing Stats

For both marketers and consumers, it’s no secret that a significant portion of annual revenue comes from the holiday season. Holiday email marketing alone can account for up to 26% of a brand’s yearly revenue during Christmas and other winter holidays.

However, it’s essential to consider the specifics of these campaigns, as consumers are inundated with emails from brands during this peak period. Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened, which underscores the value of addressing recipients personally.

When you go over holiday email marketing ideas in your head, keep in mind that shoppers are rushing from store to store, finishing important projects, or fully immersed in celebrations. Make sure your emails are optimized for mobile devices. Statistics show that about 41.6% of email opens occur on mobile devices during the holiday season.

Don’t forget about customer list segmentation – it can increase email revenue by an incredible 760% during holiday email marketing campaigns. Personalized messages and offers are what truly engage consumers and boost the chances of repeat purchases while reinforcing brand loyalty.

88% of users check their email multiple times a day, with around 39% checking 3–5 times daily. Ensure you prepare special offers for a targeted audience – the success of your campaign is almost guaranteed.

And finally, some interesting statistics: never discount email as a communication channel, thinking it’s outdated. There’s nothing more enduring than email. The habit of checking email is so deeply ingrained in daily life that email marketing offers a very high ROI, with approximately $36 returned for every $1 spent. This clearly demonstrates that email remains one of the most effective channels for holiday email marketing strategy.

At the same time, don’t forget about the omnichannel experience, as 78% of consumers expect brands to communicate via multiple channels (email, SMS, app notifications, and push notifications) during the holiday season.

23 Holiday Email Marketing Best Practices

Create a Festive Website Design

As the holiday season approaches, the visual look of your website becomes a powerful tool for creating a festive mood for your users. To start, infuse your site with seasonal colors, evoking warmth and holiday cheer. Integrate festive elements into your banners, headers, and product images. As for more creative and attention-grabbing options, consider using thematic graphics, such as snowflakes or twinkling lights.

Ecommerce brands with strict website design and established brand identity can also create a holiday mood without compromising on visual consistency. In this case, you can opt for color palette adaptation, retaining your brand's primary color scheme while incorporating subtle holiday hues. You may also temporarily modify your font styles or sizes for headers or banners with festive-themed typography. This minor adjustment can convey a sense of celebration without going too far from your brand style.

Put Emotions First

In holiday email campaigns, it’s not complex design or unusual mechanics that matter most, but the emotion your email delivers. A warm tone of voice, light humor, and subtle seasonal elements help create a sense of care and a festive mood, rather than just another promotional message. Even a simple idea, when wrapped in the right emotion, can capture more attention, drive higher engagement, and outperform overly elaborate creative concepts that lack a human touch.

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Ensure Mobile Optimization

In holiday email marketing, mobile optimization is not just a best practice – it’s a crucial step toward capturing the attention of today’s on-the-go shoppers. This is just as critical as dark mode optimization.

With mobile shopping steadily on the rise, the holiday season is no exception to this trend. Therefore, ensure you create a seamless and enjoyable mobile experience for your customers.

Start by optimizing your website for mobile devices, paying special attention to its loading speed, intuitive navigation system, and responsive (but still festive) design. Implement a mobile-first mindset in your campaign planning, emphasizing concise and compelling content that resonates on smaller screens.

You can also consider adding mobile-friendly payment options to streamline the checkout process, eliminating any friction that might affect your cart abandonment rate.

Promote Seasonal Products

Fill your campaign with holiday-relevant products and help people find what they’re looking for. Too many options or an extensive product range can slow down decision-making; focusing on one or two specific choices instead can be more effective.

There are a number of products — cozy blankets, clothes, candles, sweets, mugs, decoration, jewelry, and cosmetics, to name a few — that are typically associated with the holiday and rank first among the most popular Christmas gifts. If you produce any category, make it your top campaign priority. If you sell, let’s say, tile or gardening tools that hardly deliver the holiday spirit, focus on Christmas-related colors (red, green, golden, white, blue) and patterns.

Leverage Personalized Product Recommendations

In addition to promoting seasonal products, the strategic deployment of personalized product recommendations can be another highly effective tactic to drive holiday sales and improve customer engagement.

Fortunately, setting up data-driven recommendation blocks isn’t that difficult with the help of Yespo CDP. The platform provides a variety of recommendation algorithms and tools, ensuring that each visitor receives curated selections based on their preferences and historical behavior. These recommendation blocks can be used not only in post-purchase emails but also in back-in-stock alert and price-drop alert emails, helping brands increase engagement and drive additional sales at the right moment.

Come up with a Powerful Christmas Email Subject Line

Creating a great subject line is never easy. And it’s twice as hard during the holiday season when the inbox of your customers will be flooded with numerous Ho-Ho-Ho, Big Christmas Sales, Deal Expires Today, etc. To go beyond, 

>> check our special tips on Christmas email subject lines

and get inspiration to spark the holiday spirit and win hearts.

Based on effective holiday email examples, consider the next tips for creating an attention-grabbing subject line:

Here are a few clever subject line examples for your holiday email marketing:

  1. Santa’s Secret: Save Big This Christmas! 🎅
  2. Jingle All the Way to Big Discounts!
  3. Festive Frenzy: Grab Your Christmas Deal! 🎉
  4. Countdown to Christmas: Exclusive Offers!
  5. Unbox Joy: Your Christmas Sale Awaits! 
  6. 24 Days of Festive Frenzy Starts Now! 🎉
  7. Each Day Brings a New Christmas Treat! 🍬
  8. Open Your First Advent Gift, {FirstName}! 🌟
  9. All I want for Christmas is… 50% off!
  10. Let’s be real: Cookies won’t buy gifts – but these discounts will!

Say “Thank You”

Use your Christmas emails to tell your audience how their support helped you make it through 2023.

What's more, ask what gave them comfort and inspiration to move on. Ask about their plans for the future and what they expect 2024 to bring. To make the feedback process easier and faster, use an AMP form that enables you to write answers straight in the email. In our editor, we have a ready AMP form block, so all you need to do is drag it to the template and fill it with your own questions. Your recipients won't have to upload a site page or Google Form to drop several lines, so you have more chances to get a response.

Later, you can compile the most inspirational answers into a separate campaign, sharing the word of optimism with your whole community.

Offer Gift Guides

More than any other holiday, Christmas is about family reunions, meetings with not-seen-for-a-long-time friends, and Friday parties with colleagues.

And gift giving is typically a key element of any of these events. A heartwarming gift for mom, a memorable present for your college bud, something for Tiffany from the Sales Department — finding the perfect gift can be really challenging and time-consuming. The challenge doubles when people don’t know much about the recipient (for example, a new workmate or a neighbor who just moved in next door) but still want to commit.

So what a smart email marketer needs to be doing is simplify the gift-finding process, and an extensive and well-structured gift guide inside Christmas marketing campaigns is the straight way to success. You may take the standard for him/for her route or opt for a more diverse division:

Each category can be divided into numerous sub-categories and accustomed to your particular products. For example, craft material sellers can organize gift categories by craft (embroidery, knitting, needle felting, macrame, etc.); sports gear retailers may go for more specified categories (basketball fans, yoga lovers, TRX crew, etc.); perfume brands can split their product range based on the scent (wood, citrus, floral, spicy, etc.). The main condition is that your guide should be easy to navigate and jump to the necessary section.

And in 2026, a gift guide for work-from-homers or study-from-homers will still be rather useful as well.

Propose eGift Cards

For shoppers unsure what to buy as a gift, an electronic gift card is a safe and practical choice. While it may feel less personal, a well-designed eGift card is a great alternative when time is running out or when people are experiencing message fatigue and don’t want to spend extra effort comparing endless offers. Be sure to include this option in your holiday email marketing campaign.

Be as Creative as You Can

Every year during the holidays, marketers try to create the most eye-catching and creative campaigns. But what if it’s enough to lean on Christmas classics and, for example, include reindeer antlers in your email? And don’t forget to add an animated element, like on the next one.

Make Your Holiday Email Marketing Campaign More Dynamic

Spruce up your Christmas email marketing with visually appealing elements to deliver your messages in a more interactive way. Depending on the content and email type, consider using

 

Apart from making your campaigns more entertaining and fun (which is exactly what you want for Christmas), dynamic blocks serve practical purposes – showcasing products from different angles, simplifying instructions, and drawing attention to specific parts of the email body (time limit, promo code, price, etc.).

Run a Time-Sensitive Campaign with a Themed Name

Encapsulate your specific products and offers relevant to the season in a limited time period, and name them correspondingly. 12 Days of Christmas, Two Weeks of Best Deals Only, or Christmas Gift Hunt not only fit thematically but also create a sense of urgency.

To increase engagement from the holiday email marketing campaign, add a GIF to your letter. 

… and present it in the format of an advent calendar.

You may also run a holiday-themed contest or challenge. Encourage people to share their best cookie recipes, house decorations, gift ideas, or even Christmas pajama outlooks. Invite their friends to participate as well to spread the word and grow your contact list.

Create an Encouraging Call to Action

Send Gift or Bring Joy sounds more appealing and holiday-spirited than Buy Now and Start Shopping. A CTA is a key element of any email, regardless of the type, content, and occasion. It may be hard to come up with something more effective than good old Get Started when it comes to regular newsletters, but holiday campaigns give your imagination opportunities to shine. Free Treats, Claim Your Gift, Santa’s Favorites, Spread Holiday Cheer, Handle That Gift List – original CTA wording will help you have a meaningful advantage over other offers.

​​Drive Urgency with a Countdown Timer

A good old countdown timer that sets a deadline for a lucrative offer or free holiday delivery is one of the best motivators to complete a purchase. And such supporting words as “limited edition”, “exclusive”, “x items left in stock”, or “ends midnight” turn a regular product into a highly relevant and desirable item.

Countdown timers are supported by almost all email clients (except Outlook 7, 10, 13, 17) and are easy to add to an email template. You don’t need to be a tech guru to remind your customers that your sales won’t be here for too long. We can almost guarantee that with emails this beautiful, you’ll forget about unsubscribes.

Add a Sense of Mystery 

Here’s a great example of how to get your brand fans excited and looking forward to your next email:

Back up Last-Minute Shoppers

You’d be surprised to find out how many people procrastinate and wait till the last day when it comes to buying gifts. But poor self-organization of some buyers may be an opportunity for your business. A well-planned holiday email marketing calendar helps you support last-minute shoppers with timely, relevant, and useful holiday email campaigns – guiding them through the gift-picking race right when they need it most. 

A good way to do it is to employ geotargeting: offer discounts on in-store purchases, launch shop guide pop-ups, or promote local events (fairs, garage sales, etc.). Ensure people can use your last-minute ideas without facing shipment delays (as is common during the holiday season) or product shortages.

Focus on Gifts for Subscribers

Tell your audience their holiday budget isn’t just for congratulating others. Everyone wants to receive special presents, but the presenters may guess wrong with the gifts, have a bad taste, or even leave you off their holiday list. Which doesn’t mean you can’t treat yourself well this December 25.

So, in your Christmas email campaigns, focus on your audience rather than their family and friends. Think of what they may want this holiday season, and make them feel not as gift buyers but as gift receivers.

Add Extra Value to Your Offer

There are many little things that can turn a good deal into a great one. Offering free extra services is probably the easiest way to win people’s hearts and purses. But free shipping, which in December will be offered by 99,9% of companies, isn’t the only incentive to drive results. Based on your service or product, you can come up with more original and relevant incentives to catch people’s attention:

Any extra bonus gives your offer more chances to get into your reader’s holiday shopping plans.

Run a Charity

Any business can incorporate donation options in their holiday email campaigns. Christmas is that time of the year when people are more likely to give, so why not use it to make a difference. If your company runs non-profit campaigns on a regular basis, share stories of the people in need who received your help. Actually, seeing how their donations may improve lives is the best drive to commit.

The more ways you’ll provide to get involved, the bigger the response you may get. Apart from small monetary donations, offer other ways of participation relevant to your product and audience type. For example, point donation (mile donation/bonus donation, etc.) is the most universal and clear method: people make a purchase, gain points, and donate to the cause or the organization they’re most attracted to. This is a win-win situation – you sell your products and gain a reputation of a committed brand; your customers feel they’ve contributed to something good; people in need get help.

Speak to Customers in Their Language

If you know the preferred language of your recipients, take advantage of this knowledge and compose a Christmas campaign in their native language. You don’t necessarily have to translate the whole body; focus on only greeting phrases instead.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays have standard translations that can be easily found for any language and need no adjustment. You can put them as a headline or include them in the subject line to make your email more personalized and engaging. People like it when their preferences are considered and would appreciate the extra effort you took to sound more human-like.

Propose Holiday Checklists

When it’s not the right moment to push a sale – or when you want to diversify your holiday campaigns – offer a helpful winter or holiday checklist instead. These emails provide practical value, inspire preparation, and position your brand as a useful companion rather than a seller. Holiday checklists can include gift ideas, travel essentials, winter wardrobe must-haves, or pre-holiday to-dos, keeping your audience engaged while gently reinforcing brand relevance without direct sales pressure.

Reactivate With a Winter Email

Use winter-themed emails to reconnect with inactive or less engaged subscribers as part of a thoughtful win-back/reactivation series. Seasonal messaging, cozy visuals, and timely winter-related content help bring attention back to your brand without sounding intrusive. This approach works especially well when paired with light personalization, relevant product reminders, or warm, value-driven messages that gently reintroduce your brand during the holiday season. Generally, it’s a good idea to be included to the holiday email marketing.

Use Highly Converting Widgets

Email campaigns work even better when paired with on-site widgets. For example, you can send an email with a catchy subject line like “Spin the Wheel and Win Your Gift!” that drives users to a landing page featuring an interactive widget. This approach combines the reach of email with the engagement power of gamification, creating a seamless experience that guides customers from their inbox straight to conversion.

It also works the other way around: widgets can capture email addresses from visitors who haven't subscribed yet. Offer a discount or gift in exchange for their contact, then follow up with a personalized email campaign to nurture them toward purchase.

What’s more, you can experiment with different types of widgets, tailoring them to your campaigns. For example:

With Yespo CDP, you can create any type of widget and easily redesign them according to your brand style. Our platform also allows for setting widget display rules in a custom way, promising the highest level of engagement and conversion rate for your winter sale campaign.

Holiday Email Marketing Examples & Use Cases

Nike 

Typically, the brand delights its subscribers with vibrant email banners and collaborations with well-known sports figures. However, it occasionally opts for a playful, humorous style, as seen in the example below.

But let’s admit it – the somewhat comical first banner actually worked, grabbing attention. The email itself has significant strengths, as you would expect from a global brand:

Starbucks

The brand stands out for the wide variety of its offerings – in particular, a memorable Christmas email resonated with coffee lovers, encouraging them to embrace kindness and do good deeds throughout the holiday season. Naturally, the email also featured beverages perfectly suited for the winter period.

Such Starbucks holiday email marketing idea demonstrates how the holidays can be used not just for sales, but also to create an emotional connection with the audience. Through a warm, inspiring message and festive design, the brand shows that even simple gestures – from kind words to exchanging gifts – can become part of a holiday story. At the same time, the email naturally showcases products, highlighting their seasonal appeal without directly pressuring the purchase.

Milk Bar

The brand sent to its subscribers the traditional “sweet” holiday email. The offer centers on early access to a special collection of festive treats, each with a magical description.

The email is clearly commercial, yet it still reminds us that the New Year holidays are approaching, and it’s worth thinking about adding a sweet touch to holiday celebrations. 

LEGO

Some of the most exciting Christmas emails come from brands known for their limited-edition collections. LEGO, for example, has showcased beautifully designed holiday sets in sleek dark-mode emails. The stylish, festive design hints that the holidays are near and subtly reminds fans that these seasonal LEGO sets are must-haves.

With concise presentations, plenty of product visuals, and special offers, these emails are memorable, festive, and highly effective at driving engagement and sales.

Estée Lauder

A globally recognized cosmetics brand incorporated a “spin the wheel” game mechanic, which undoubtedly grabs attention and significantly increases the likelihood of engaging with the email. The email also features sections highlighting trending products and current brand offers. Overall, the email looks very appealing, even though it follows a fairly standard structure typical for commercial campaigns.

Boost Your Holiday Email Marketing with Yespo

Now, when you’re ready to put the above holiday marketing tips into practice, it’s time to craft a winning holiday email marketing campaign. And that’s where our platform steps in to help you do the trick.

First, create a custom Christmas email template. You can choose any of the free standard templates and customize them to match your company’s style. You don’t need to be a tech guru or possess code knowledge to come up with an attractive and appealing design. Our intuitive drag-n-drop editor is easy to use, even for those new to layout designing, so you are able to add any elements you want to the best letter of your holiday email campaigns, namely:

Also, in Yespo CDP, you can create unlimited multilingual copies within one template. Companies with an international market presence may consider composing multilingual campaigns. Unlimited languages are available within one template, so you don’t have to create complex workflows or extra segments. What’s more, there’s one report for multilingual holiday email marketing campaigns, where you can switch between copies in one click without opening additional windows or pages.

To maximize promotional impact, combine personalized promo codes with product recommendations. First, offer people a gift discount, and then, show how they can use it by adding product recommendations based on their previous shopping experience or campaign activity.

Segment your contact base to create a more effective proposition. Various groups require different approaches, so you can segment your subscribers and customers by age, gender, language, location, profession, preferences, previous purchases, etc. in Yespo CDP as well as immediately create a campaign for each of them. However, do not forget about list hygiene; regularly clean your lists by removing inactive or invalid contacts, merging duplicates, and ensuring that your data is up to date.

Conclusion

Holiday email marketing is hard. Campaigns are complex, cover large contact lists, and require strong creative ideas – not to mention endless approvals. There’s never enough time, and just before launch, inspiration and energy tend to “leave the chat”.

That’s why we’ve prepared 25 holiday marketing tips for designing festive emails that are both beautiful and effective, so your offers stay top of mind and drive real responses.

To make marketers’ lives easier during the festive rush, Yespo proposes all tools together in one place: design your emails, segment your audience, launch campaigns, track analytics, and collect first-party data/zero-party data – all on a single platform.

Be creative, but stay smart with your emails even during a post-holiday sales period. And don’t forget that the Yespo CDP team is always here to help you with integrations, campaign setup, and any other questions you may have. 

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