Holiday Rush vs. Everyday Sales: Building Sustainable Facebook Ad Campaigns

Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Done and dusted. And wow, this year didn’t disappoint!

Shoppers in the U.S. spent a record-breaking $13.3 billion online during Cyber Monday alone, up 7.3% from last year. 

At Customers.ai, we also saw our ecommerce clients crush it on Black Friday, with 12.5 million emails captured and 30 million emails sent. 

But now comes the tricky part – transitioning from the high-stakes, big-budget energy of BFCM to the steadier rhythm of post-holiday campaigns. 

Here’s the good news—people are still shopping. The holidays aren’t over and there’s plenty of opportunity to keep the momentum rolling.

The key? 

Sustainable Facebook ad strategies that balance ROI with consistency, keeping your audience engaged without burning through your ad budget. 

In this post, we’re spilling the tips to help you scale smart, build year-round campaigns, and make sure the holiday cheer lasts well into January.

Ready to make it happen? Let’s dive in.

Why Post-Holiday Facebook Ad Campaigns Need a Shift in Strategy

The holiday season is like the Super Bowl for ecommerce – high stakes, massive ad budgets, and a short window to make a big impact. 

From the urgency of Black Friday to the record-breaking online shopping on Cyber Monday, brands pull out all the stops to get in front of eager shoppers.

But as soon as Black Friday and Cyber Monday end, the game changes. 

The competition starts to cool down and the audience’s mindset shifts. No more doorbuster deals or FOMO-fueled shopping frenzies. 

Instead, consumers move into a more deliberate mode – finishing their holiday lists, prioritizing their budgets, and even scouting for post-season bargains.

This shift in behavior is reflected in ad trends, too. 

Did you know Facebook Ads campaigns typically see a 15% lower CPM in January compared to Q4? 

That’s right. Once the frenzy dies down, the cost to reach your audience becomes more affordable. 

This is the perfect time to adjust your strategy and stretch your ad dollars further.

So, what does this mean for your Facebook ad campaigns? 

It’s time to pivot from high-intensity seasonal marketing to sustainable, everyday strategies. 

Let’s break down the key differences between these two approaches and why a shift in focus is critical to maintaining your ROI post-holidays.

Seasonal Campaigns vs. Everyday Marketing: The Key Differences

1. Competition Levels

• Seasonal: During Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the competition is intense. Every brand, big or small, is fighting for attention, driving up CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) and CPCs (cost per click).
• Everyday: Post-holidays, the competition drops, giving you an opportunity to capture audiences at a lower cost—if you play your cards right.

2. Consumer Mindset

• Seasonal: Shoppers are primed to buy—urgency, discounts, and FOMO drive immediate conversions.
• Everyday: After the holiday buzz, consumers slow down. They’re more budget-conscious and deliberate in their purchasing decisions.

3. Campaign Goals

• Seasonal: The focus is on driving quick sales, often through discounts and time-sensitive offers.
• Everyday: It’s all about consistency. You’ll need to prioritize engagement, loyalty, and repeat purchases to keep revenue steady.

Shifting to Evergreen Strategies

Once the holiday hype fades, your approach has to shift, too. 

Seasonal campaigns rely on urgency, but sustainable growth requires campaigns that are always relevant, no matter the time of year.

What are evergreen strategies? 

These are campaigns designed to drive consistent results year-round. They focus on timeless messaging, products, and offers that aren’t tied to specific holidays or events. Think of them as the steady engine that keeps your business moving long after the holiday fuel runs out.

The holidays might be winding down, but that doesn’t mean your momentum has to. Let’s talk about scaling down budgets without losing results.

Scaling Down Facebook Ad Budgets Without Losing Momentum

The holiday rush might be over but that doesn’t mean your ad spend should come to a screeching halt. 

Instead of going from 100 to zero, it’s all about recalibrating your strategy. Scaling down your budget thoughtfully can help you maintain visibility, engage your audience, and keep driving sales – all without burning through your marketing dollars.

Here’s how to optimize your ad spend post-holidays:

1. Focus on High-ROI Audiences

Instead of casting a wide net, zero in on the groups most likely to convert:

• Repeat Customers: These are your MVPs. They’ve already bought from you, and with a well-timed follow-up offer, they’re more likely to come back.
• Warm Leads: Retarget shoppers who browsed your site (hello visitor identification) or added items to their carts but didn’t complete their purchase. Use Facebook Ads to bring them back with personalized reminders or discounts.

Pro Tip: Use Customers.ai Custom Audiences to create highly targeted segments that can be synced to Facebook. For example, you could retarget customers who purchased during Black Friday with a complementary product ad or a bounce-back offer (“20% off your next purchase!”).

2. Shift from Awareness to Retargeting and Engagement Ads

During the holiday season, awareness campaigns are essential to grab attention. Post-holidays, your strategy should shift toward:

• Retargeting Ads: These keep you top of mind for audiences who’ve already interacted with your brand.
• Engagement Ads: Encourage post-purchase actions like following your page, leaving a review, or engaging with your content.

Example: Say you ran broad awareness campaigns during Black Friday to attract new shoppers. Now, take those same shoppers and retarget them with product-specific ads based on their browsing history. If someone looked at winter boots but didn’t buy, show them a carousel ad featuring the boots with a “New Year Special” discount.

3. Gradually Reduce Spending While Maintaining Visibility

Scaling down doesn’t mean turning off the lights. The goal is to adjust your budget while staying visible to key audiences.

Here’s a budget reallocation framework to guide you:

• Awareness (Top of Funnel): Reduce this to 10–15% of your total spend. Focus on organic reach and let paid ads target high-value audiences.
• Consideration (Middle of Funnel): Allocate around 25–30%. Use these campaigns to retarget warm audiences with tailored offers or content.
• Conversion (Bottom of Funnel): Keep this at 55–60%. Prioritize ads designed to drive purchases, such as retargeting cart abandoners or upselling to recent buyers.

Pro Tip: Monitor your performance metrics closely. If your ROAS is strong in a particular audience segment, you can shift more budget there to maximize returns.

Scaling down your ad budget doesn’t mean scaling back your results. Next up, let’s talk about how to find the evergreen elements from your seasonal campaigns and use them to keep your Facebook Ads working year-round.

Finding the Evergreen Gold in Seasonal Campaigns

Seasonal campaigns might revolve around the holiday hype, but that doesn’t mean their success has to be limited to a specific timeframe. 

The best brands know how to extract evergreen value from their seasonal efforts, transforming short-term wins into long-term gains.

Here’s how you can find the golden nuggets in your holiday campaigns and use them year-round:

1. Analyze Your Top-Performing Creatives, Messaging, and Offers

Take a close look at what worked during your Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns:

• Creatives: Which ad visuals drove the highest click-through rates? Were carousel ads more effective than videos?
• Messaging: Did your audience respond better to urgency-driven language (“Hurry, ends tonight!”) or value-based messaging (“Save big on must-haves!”)?
• Offers: Which discounts or bundles brought in the most sales?

Pro Tip: Use Facebook Ads Manager to break down performance metrics by audience segment, placement, and ad format. This helps you identify patterns that can guide your future campaigns.

If there was one thing I could have a marketer obsess about, it would be this 2×2 matrix. Ad creative is a power law game: 90% of your results will come from <10% of ads (the "hits"). The brands that win in 2025 will be the ones that effectively move from the left side of the 2×2… pic.twitter.com/tAP2z8EIWj

— Sam (@DigitalSamIAm) December 10, 2024

2. Highlight Products or Services That Gained Traction

Your holiday campaigns likely spotlighted a mix of products but not all of them will perform equally. Pinpoint the ones that resonated most with your audience.

• Best-Sellers: Which products flew off the shelves? Keep these front and center in your evergreen campaigns.
• Hidden Gems: Did a lower-profile product unexpectedly gain traction? This could signal untapped demand worth exploring further.

Example: A beauty brand might discover their holiday gift sets sold exceptionally well, even beyond Black Friday. They could repurpose these bundles as “self-care kits” for a January wellness campaign.

3. Repurpose Holiday Content for Year-Round Use

Seasonal doesn’t mean disposable. With a few tweaks, your holiday creatives and messaging can stay relevant long after the holidays:

• Adjust the Language: Swap out holiday-specific phrases like “Holiday Special” for broader terms like “Limited-Time Offer” or “Winter Sale.”
• Reuse Visuals: If your ads featured cozy, wintry aesthetics, they can still resonate in January and February.
• Highlight Year-Round Benefits: Shift the focus from gifting to personal use. For example, a fitness product promoted as “The Perfect Gift for Him” can be repurposed as “Start Your New Year Strong.”

As Courtney Fritts pointed out in our 2024 Holiday Guide, Advanced Meta Ads Strategies to “Sleigh” Black Friday, use your best performing creative from the year to guide your ads. It works both ways!

Brand Spotlight: Starbucks

Starbucks does an incredible job of repurposing seasonal elements for long-term campaigns. 

Their famous holiday cups and festive drinks create buzz during the holidays, but they don’t stop there. By January, they pivot to highlighting year-round best-sellers like lattes and teas while introducing “winter warmers” with similar cozy vibes. 

This seamless transition keeps the brand relevant without reinventing the wheel.

4. Example: Turning a “Holiday Special” into a “Limited-Time Offer”

Let’s say you ran a “Holiday Special” campaign for a premium product bundle. Instead of shelving it after the holidays:

• Rename it: Rebrand it as a “New Year’s Deal” or “Limited-Time Offer.”
• Refresh the messaging: Replace gift-giving language with self-care or start-of-the-year themes.
• Extend the life cycle: Run the campaign through January or even position it as a quarterly promotion.

By analyzing what worked, highlighting key products, and repurposing your content, you can turn the success of your seasonal campaigns into evergreen gold. 

Keeping Audience Engagement High After the Holidays

The holiday frenzy might be over, but this is not the time to let your audience forget about you. 

To keep the post-holiday momentum alive, you need to stay visible, relevant, and most importantly, engaging. Here’s how to do it:

Spotlight New Arrivals and Promotions

Shoppers love a reason to stay excited. Keep your brand top of mind by showcasing:

• Fresh inventory: Highlight products that align with January vibes, like fitness gear, planners, or cozy essentials for winter.
• Post-holiday deals: Run campaigns that offer discounts on leftover inventory or “start the new year right” promotions.

Example: A home goods store can pivot from “Holiday Hosting Essentials” to “New Year Home Refresh” ads, promoting stylish storage solutions or home decor updates.

Get Personal with Data-Driven Messaging

Use the purchase history from your holiday campaigns to create hyper-relevant ads:

• You bought X, you might like Y: Recommend complementary items or accessories for their recent purchase.
• Exclusive loyalty rewards: Offer returning customers a personalized discount or early access to new arrivals.

Facebook Ads Pro Tip: Dynamic Ads let you automate personalized recommendations so every shopper sees products they’re most likely to buy.

Turn Engagement into a Two-Way Street

Post-holiday isn’t just about selling—it’s about connecting:

• Run polls or quizzes in your Facebook Ads to make customers feel involved (“What’s your 2024 goal: fitness, travel, or self-care?”).
• Share user-generated content (UGC) to showcase real customers using your products.
• Host Q&A sessions or post tips that add value, like “5 Ways to Style Your Winter Wardrobe.”

Example: A beauty brand could feature customer reviews or repost holiday makeup looks with captions like, “Here’s how our customers are glowing into the new year!”

Stay Consistent with Retargeting and Loyalty Campaigns

Retarget shoppers who visited your site or purchased during the holidays:

• Use subtle reminders to encourage repeat purchases, like “Time to restock your favorites!” ads.
• Offer loyalty perks, such as points for future discounts or VIP early access to sales.

Consistency is key. Keep your campaigns active so your brand stays on their radar, even as their shopping habits slow down.

The post-holiday period isn’t just about wrapping up (get it?). I’s about setting the stage for what’s next. 

Whether you’re promoting new arrivals, building community, or nurturing loyalty, consistent engagement is the key to turning one-time holiday shoppers into lifelong customers.

Using Customers.ai to Build Sustainable Facebook Ad Campaigns

Building sustainable Facebook ad campaigns requires two key ingredients: knowing your audience and delivering ads that feel relevant and timely. 

That’s where Customers.ai comes in. 

By combining advanced visitor insights, smart segmentation, and personalization, Customers.ai empowers ecommerce brands to get more out of their Facebook ad spend year-round.

Segment Smarter, Not Harder

The key to post-holiday success is knowing who to target and Customers.ai’s segmentation tools make it simple:

• Group audiences by behavior, demographics, or intent.
• Retarget high-value customers with tailored offers or complementary products.
• Build Lookalike Audiences of your top shoppers to expand your reach with confidence.

Know Your Visitors Like Never Before

Insights matter. With Customers.ai’s visitor tracking, you can dig into:

• Which products or pages are getting the most attention.
• How users navigate your site, helping you refine both your ads and your messaging.
• What content sparks engagement so you can replicate that success in future campaigns.

Automate Personalization at Scale

Personalization isn’t optional anymore, it’s essential. Customers.ai makes it effortless to:

• Deliver dynamic product ads tailored to individual shoppers.
• Sync email follow-ups and Facebook Ads for a seamless, multi-channel experience.
• Keep your audience engaged with messaging that feels relevant and timely.

Retarget with Precision

Not all retargeting is created equal. Customers.ai helps you:

• Re-engage cart abandoners with offers that convert.
• Retarget warm leads based on their browsing habits or wishlist activity.
• Combine retargeting with SMS or email campaigns for maximum impact.

Customers.ai equips you with the tools to turn holiday momentum into lasting success. 

Whether you’re segmenting smarter, personalizing better, or retargeting with precision, it’s all about keeping your Facebook ad campaigns sustainable.

From Seasonal Peaks to Steady Growth

Black Friday and Cyber Monday may have been the highlight of the holiday season but they’re just the beginning when it comes to building long-term success. 

Transitioning from seasonal peaks to steady, sustainable growth requires thoughtful Facebook ad strategies – ones that focus on segmentation, personalization, and consistent engagement.

Now’s the time to take a step back and reflect on your holiday campaigns. What worked? What didn’t? 

Use those insights to refine your approach, identify evergreen opportunities, and map out a plan for consistent ROI. 

By leveraging smarter segmentation, better retargeting, and ongoing audience engagement, you can turn your holiday highs into year-round wins.

Ready to level up your Facebook ad campaigns? Customers.ai is here to help. With tools that make audience insights, personalization, and automation simple, you’ll have everything you need to grow sustainably and profitably – all year long.

Get your free Customers.ai trial and start building Facebook ad campaigns that work smarter, not harder.

Important Next Steps

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