Retail’s Most Wonderful Time of the Year
How Brands Win the Holiday Season’s Final Push
Holiday shoppers don’t live in one channel anymore. They discover on streaming TV, research on their phones, and walk into stores, all because a digital ad reached them at exactly the right moment.
In the most competitive stretch of the retail calendar, last-minute marketing spend isn’t a consolation prize. It’s an opportunity.
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Retail’s Most Wonderful Time of the Year: How Brands Win the Holiday Season’s Final Push. Fill out the form to get the one-sheet with all the data.
Serving the retail advertisers who rely on one trusted platform to reach holiday shoppers across every screen and every storefront.
Source: Simpli.fi Reporting Dashboard, 2026 year to date
From Their Living Room to Your Door
CTV advertising for retail
The holiday season is peak streaming season. Families are home, screens are on, and attention is high. Reach the right households with unskippable CTV ads on premium inventory, then measure when they walk through your door.
Know the House, Win the Household
First-party data for retail marketing
Holiday shoppers are being targeted by every brand right now. Cut through by using your first-party data to reach the households most likely to buy. Then measure whether they converted online or showed up in store.
Their Cart Isn't Full Yet
Geo-fencing for retail foot traffic
Shoppers are already out there, in stores, near competitors, in high-traffic retail corridors. Geo-fencing puts your brand in front of them while they’re deciding. Foot traffic attribution tells you exactly how many walked through your store door.
One Search Away from Checkout
Keyword targeting for retail advertising
When someone searches “last minute gifts near me” or “open Christmas Eve,” they’re not browsing, they’re buying right now. Own the high-intent keywords that match your shopper in that moment, and connect those searches to real outcomes, online and in store.
Most platforms tell you your ad ran. Simpli.fi tells you it worked.
During the holidays, that distinction is everything. With foot traffic attribution and cross-channel measurement built into one unified reporting dashboard, you can connect every digital impression to real-world outcomes: in-store visits, online conversions, and more.
One platform. Every channel. Proven results.
What happens when the retail plan runs
respond better to local ads (BIA)
research online first (Capital One)
Explore how multi-location retailers can increase visibility, engage high-intent shoppers, and drive measurable outcomes during key promotional periods throughout the year.
— Winning the Promotional Window: Retail Advertising Strategies for Seasonal Sales
Read the article→
research online before buying (AdWeek)
longer native ad dwell (eMarketer)
See how a national jewelry retailer used geo-fencing and native ads to reach shoppers at every stage of the buyer journey and drive in-store visits across hundreds of locations.
— National Jewelry Retailer Reaches Shoppers Throughout Buyer Journey With Simpli.fi
Read the article→What our team says about retail advertising
“Retail is a match made in local strategy. With our targeting, your brand shows up in front of holiday shoppers right where they’re deciding.”
“Our retail clients constantly tell us how wonderful our campaigns are. When the holiday rush hits, they can see exactly what’s driving visits and sales.”
“Working with retail clients puts us in a unique position. We see what moves holiday shoppers, and we build our solutions around it.”
Frequently asked questions about retail advertising
Retail advertising is paid marketing that helps retailers attract shoppers and drive sales, online and in store. It spans CTV, paid search, paid social, programmatic display, native, audio, and digital out-of-home, and it can be targeted by location so ads reach shoppers who are close to your store and ready to buy. See Simpli.fi’s retail advertising solutions.
Start early, stay visible through the final push, and measure real outcomes. A strong holiday retail marketing strategy pairs CTV for attention, first-party data to reach the right households, geo-fencing near stores and competitors, and keyword targeting for last-minute intent, all reported in one dashboard that shows in-store visits and online conversions.
In the final days, shoppers search for things like “last minute gifts near me” and “open Christmas Eve,” and they are ready to buy right away. Last-minute marketing spend works best on high-intent keywords, geo-fencing around stores and retail corridors, and CTV in homes where attention is high, with foot traffic attribution to show what drove visits.
Before the sale begins. Shoppers research and plan purchases ahead of seasonal and promotional periods, and 86% research products online before buying, even when the purchase happens in store, according to Capital One Shopping. Building awareness early keeps your brand visible while shoppers consider options and lets you adjust as behavior changes through the final push.
Omnichannel retail marketing coordinates messaging across every channel a shopper uses, including streaming TV, mobile, search, social, websites, and the store itself, so the experience feels consistent. It matters because shoppers average nearly 11 touchpoints before buying, according to Capital One Shopping. Simpli.fi’s unified media brings those channels together in one platform.
Foot traffic attribution connects ad exposure to store visits using location data. It shows how many people who saw an ad later walked into a store, alongside online conversions and revenue. In a Simpli.fi grocery retailer case study, one campaign drove nearly 31,000 offline conversions at a $4.38 cost per visit, against a $10 goal.
Geo-fencing creates a virtual boundary around a place, such as your store, a competitor’s location, or a high-traffic retail corridor, and serves ads to people on devices inside it. Retailers use it to reach shoppers at the moment they are deciding, then measure how many walk through the door. Learn more about Simpli.fi geo-fencing.
The holidays are peak streaming season, with families at home and attention high. CTV puts unskippable ads on premium inventory in front of the right households, and foot traffic attribution tracks when those viewers later visit your store. Through Simpli.fi, advertisers can access premium CTV inventory programmatically or through deals.
Retail media is advertising that uses a retailer’s own shopper and purchase data to reach consumers, often on the retailer’s site, app, or network. Retail advertising more broadly is how retailers promote their own stores and products. Offsite retail media extends retail audiences to channels like CTV and display, and Simpli.fi offers millions of custom addressable audiences to layer into campaigns.
Simpli.fi is a real-world media platform that combines address-level location intelligence with omnichannel media (CTV, search, social, and display) and measurement that goes all the way to the sale. Retailers use it to reach nearby shoppers, track in-store visits and online conversions, and run campaigns from one unified dashboard. In 2026 alone, 1,000+ retail advertisers and 5,000+ retail campaigns have run on the platform, with over 950 million impressions focused on retail verticals.
The holiday season is here, talk to a retail expert today.
Contact us at hi@simpli.fi.