Not all holiday campaigns make a measurable impact. Those that do start with a strong foundation, powered by first-party identity, intent, and transaction signals, scalable identity resolution, granular audience targeting, and closed-loop measurement.
Once those fundamentals are in place, the next step is creative: how you bring the message to life.
Looking back at our brand partners’ 2024 Programmatic Direct Mail holiday campaigns, a few creative trends stood out as key performance amplifiers.
These are the creative strategies that elevated performance in 2024—and the lessons you can apply to make your 2025 holiday campaigns even more relevant, engaging, and successful.
1. Know Your Audience Before You Create
Segmentation and personalization are most effective when built on robust, first-party data.
In 2024, the highest-performing Programmatic Direct Mail holiday campaigns used PebblePost’s shared intent, identity, and transaction data to deliver creative matched to real consumer behaviors, such as intent, lifecycle stage, or past product interest. This resulted in higher engagement and more substantial returns.
Examples included mailing gender-specific creative to shoppers who viewed gender-specific items online (i.e., men’s jackets), or tailoring messages to lifecycle stage:
- Prospects: Introduce the brand and build trust through value-driven messaging and social proof.
- Active customers: Highlight new arrivals or complementary items tied to prior purchases.
- Lapsed customers: Re-engage with empathetic copy and incentives, such as limited-time offers or free shipping reminders.
And don’t underestimate dynamic personalization. Brands inspired action by including relevant, local store details and personalized offers.
Pro Tip: Combine segmented creative with a general version to maximize reach. Personalization drives intent-based engagement, while generic creative still captures incremental conversions.
2. Craft a Focused and Festive Message
Holiday creative works best when it’s seasonally relevant and simple.
When your Performance Marketing Engine ensures your message reaches the right person, simplicity becomes your biggest creative advantage. In 2024, brands that maintained a focused messaging approach, whether promotional or non-promotional, performed best.
- Non-promotional creative leaned into gifting moments and storytelling, often featuring minimal copy and strong visuals to create a festive, aspirational feel.
- Promotional creative zeroed in on one clear offer or product with a bold, singular CTA. Simpler, cleaner layouts replaced multi-message mailers.
Pro Tip: Make your holiday theme unmistakable at a glance. Visual cues, like color palettes, icons, or photography, should immediately signal the season and support the offer.
3. Pick the Right Format for the Job
Form follows function and audience.
Choosing the correct format helped brands make their data-driven audiences more actionable, whether through high-impact storytelling or fast, frictionless conversion paths.
- Multi-fold mailers excelled at storytelling and showcasing a wide range of products—ideal for gift guides or brand introductions.
- Single-panel postcards were cost-effective and excelled at clear, quick messages and focused offers.
Testing both revealed that no single format wins every time; success depends on the audience, offer, and timing.
Pro Tip: Use multi-folds for richer narratives and postcards for sharp, conversion-focused campaigns.
4. Design for Action: QR Codes, Layouts, and CTAs
The best creative makes next steps effortless.
Great creative doesn’t replace performance strategy; it enhances it. The most successful 2024 mailers made it easy for well-targeted audiences to take the next step, bridging online and offline through thoughtful design and clear CTAs.
Clean, high-contrast designs with concise copy tended to outperform dense or overly complex layouts, particularly for prospecting audiences.
From there, it comes down to the details—how you bridge channels and prompt response through smart use of QR codes and clear calls to action. Here are some best practices for each.
QR Code Best Practices
- Size: At least 1″ x 1″
- High contrast (dark code, light background)
- Short URLs or branded links
- Leave white space around the code
Place QR codes on the back or mailing panel and use them to drive meaningful actions, such as finding a store, exploring a gift guide, or signing up for SMS/email notifications.
CTA Best Practices
CTAs were strongest when direct, concise, and visually prioritized, such as “Shop New Arrivals,” “Find Your Nearest Store,” or “Refresh Your Space.”
Bottom-center placement or directly below the main image yielded the best results.
Pro Tip: Pair a bold headline, focused image, and clear CTA for a frictionless path to conversion.
In Sum, Keep It Simple, Seasonal, and Relevant
The 2024 holiday season reinforced that creative is most effective when it’s built on first-party intent, identity, and transaction data.
Once you’ve laid that foundation, great creative becomes a performance accelerator, so long as you understand your audience, simplify your message, choose formats strategically, and design for action.
Apply these insights to your 2025 holiday campaigns to cut through the clutter and drive measurable outcomes.
Looking to drive incremental performance for your marketing campaigns this holiday season and year-round? Reach out to see how PebblePost can help.
