Christmas Advertising Campaigns: 7 Great Ads and 10 Ideas for Your Store

Most Christmas ads are forgotten by January. A handful have run for decades, and every November people ask when the Coca-Cola trucks are coming back and what Kevin the Carrot will do next.

The difference isn't the budget. The Christmas marketing campaigns that last tell one story and repeat it, on every channel, year after year. A small online store can do the same at its own scale.

The season is worth the effort: US holiday sales grew 4.1% last season, according to the NRF.

What makes a great Christmas marketing campaign?

The best Christmas advertising campaigns tell one simple story and come back every year, like Coca-Cola's trucks, John Lewis's films and Aldi's Kevin the Carrot. An online store can copy the pattern at small scale: one festive offer, the same visuals across ads, social and email, and a landing popup that continues the ad.

Five things keep showing up in the campaigns below:

• One story. A boy and his penguin, a father and a record. One idea, told simply.
• A recurring signature. A truck, a cup, a character people recognize before the logo.
• A gift, not just a product. The ad ends with someone giving something.
• Something people can join or share. A cup to photograph, a tour to visit, a chocolate bar that supports a charity.
• One offer on every channel. The ad, the post, the email and the store say the same thing.

Why a campaign and not just a sale? A sale ends with the discount; a campaign gives shoppers a reason to come back next December.

7 Christmas advertising campaigns to learn from

Each of these turned into a tradition or tied the ad to something you could buy, and each has a lesson a small store can use.

1. Coca-Cola: Holidays Are Coming

Coca-Cola's red trucks, decorated with Christmas lights and driving through snowy towns, first aired in the US in November 1995. In Great Britain, the Christmas Truck Tour marked 15 years with 15 stops, alongside on-pack QR codes for prizes and a partnership with the food charity FareShare.

Why it worked: the truck became the signal that the season had started, and then an event people can visit.

What a small store can copy: pick one festive signature, like a color or an illustration, and use it every Christmas on your ads, emails and popups.

2. John Lewis: Monty's Christmas and Where Love Lives

In Monty's Christmas (2014), a boy named Sam spends the season with his penguin, Monty, and on Christmas Day gives him the gift he wanted: a penguin companion. Monty and Mabel then showed up in store windows, books and merchandise.

The 2025 ad, Where Love Lives, follows a father who finds a present from his son: a vinyl record of Alison Limerick's 1990 club track. Saatchi & Saatchi built the campaign on one insight: when you can't find the perfect words, you can still find the perfect gift. A limited-edition record of the song was on sale.

Why it worked: both stories end with a gift, and the gift carries the emotion.

What a small store can copy: end your ad with a gift idea, not a percentage, and make that product one click away from the ad.

3. Aldi: Kevin the Carrot

Aldi's carrot mascot turned ten in 2025, and the anniversary ad paid tribute to Love Actually. It ran as a series: a 10-second teaser first, then two longer ads.

Why it worked: a familiar character told in episodes gives people a reason to watch the next part.

What a small store can copy: run your campaign in episodes on social and in email, each one pointing to that week's offer.

4. Apple: A Critter Carol

In A Critter Carol, woodland animal puppets find a lost iPhone 17 Pro and use it to film themselves singing. The owner then finds the phone with the Ping feature on his Apple Watch.

Why it worked: the products do something in the story; nobody holds them up to the camera.

What a small store can copy: show your product in use at Christmas, not sitting in gift wrap.

5. Starbucks: holiday cups

Starbucks first offered holiday cups in 1997, and they were predominantly red for the first time in 1999. People share photos of the cups every year.

Why it worked: the packaging is the campaign, and every customer carries it out of the store.

What a small store can copy: give Christmas orders festive packaging or a handwritten note. Shoppers who like it post the unboxing.

6. IKEA: Silence the Critics

In Silence the Critics, a family is getting ready for Christmas guests while the objects in their home start rapping about how tired the place looks. IKEA products fix the problem by the end.

Why it worked: it makes a real Christmas worry funny.

What a small store can copy: name your shopper's Christmas stress, like last-minute gifts, and show your product as the way out.

7. Sainsbury's: Christmas is for Sharing

Sainsbury's 2014 ad, made with the Royal British Legion, retold the 1914 Christmas Day truce. The chocolate bar a soldier gives in the film was sold in Sainsbury's for £1, with all profits going to the Legion.

Why it worked: the gift in the ad was a real product, and buying it did something good.

What a small store can copy: make the product in your ad a real, limited Christmas item. Add a charity element only if you actually donate.

How to plan your Christmas campaign calendar

Plan the campaign in September and start talking about it in early November. The season then runs in four phases, each with its own job:

• Black Friday and Cyber Monday: collect and convert. Use the traffic to grow your list; see these Black Friday marketing ideas.
• Early December: gifts. Gift guides, bundles and gift-led ads carry your main story.
• The last shipping days: urgency. Use your carrier's real last shipping day as the deadline, and say it clearly.
• After Christmas: Boxing Day and New Year. Gift card holders and new budgets. See our ideas for Boxing Day marketing and New Year marketing campaigns.

For the other dates in the year, keep a marketing holidays calendar next to this plan.

10 Christmas campaign ideas for online stores

Grouped by channel. Pick one story and one offer first, then use them everywhere.

Ads

1. Run gift-led ads, not discount-led ads

Show a gift situation in the ad, like "for the dad who has everything", and put the discount second. That's the John Lewis lesson at small-store scale.

For product feed ads, start with a few Christmas catalog ad examples to give your feed a festive backdrop.

2. Make the landing page continue the ad

A shopper clicks a Christmas ad for a gift set and lands on a generic 10% welcome offer. The story breaks right there. Show visitors from your ads a popup with the ad's offer and visuals instead. With traffic source targeting, a popup can match Google Ads, Facebook, organic search or any utm_source you name.

3. Retarget the near-buyers

Cart abandoners and repeat product viewers are your cheapest Christmas sales. Retarget them with ads that state the real deadline (more on the abandoned cart on Shopify), and catch them on your store with an exit-intent popup that repeats the ad's offer.

4. Christmas social media campaigns: giveaways and UGC

Give your giveaway a festive rule: share a favorite Christmas memory, or tag the person you're buying for. Repost customers' unboxing photos (the Starbucks lesson).

Run the same giveaway on your store with a giveaway popup, so visitors who never see the post can enter with their email.

5. A 12 days of Christmas (or advent) campaign

Reveal one offer or product a day on social and in email, in episodes like Aldi. Our 12 Days of Christmas marketing strategy answer covers the setup. On your store, each day's offer can be its own popup with a start and end date (campaign scheduling).

6. Grow the list before December

Your list is the cheapest Christmas audience you have, so build it before the peak. In November, offer new visitors a welcome discount or early access to your Christmas collection for their email (how to build an email list from scratch).

OptiMonk collects the subscriber and sends them to your email or SMS tool, such as Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Omnisend, Attentive or Postscript. The messages go out from that tool, and subscriber recognition hides the signup popup from people already on your list.

The Heirloom Hearth (designed for Made In)

A list-building offer dressed for the season: a festive headline, 15% off the first order and one email field. Show it to new visitors in November, before the gift rush starts.

See this popup

7. Personal holiday emails to your best customers

Send your loyal customers a short thank-you before the rush, with early access or a small extra (holiday email marketing ideas). When they come back to the store, a returning visitor popup can show the same perk instead of a first-order discount.

8. Gift guides and a gift-finder quiz

Group products the way people shop for gifts: by recipient ("Gifts for her"), by budget ("Under $50") and by interest. The same guide works as a two- or three-question quiz popup, like the Burrow example below.

Warmth in Winter (designed for Deciem)

A three-question product finder: each answer narrows the choice down to the right product. Swap the questions for who the gift is for and what they like, and the same format becomes a gift-finder quiz.

See this popup

9. Limited-edition products and bundles

A Christmas-only flavor, color or gift set gives shoppers a reason to buy now and gives your ad something real to show, like the Sainsbury's chocolate bar. Give these limited-time offers a real end date, and show bundles in a popup with product recommendations.

10. A real deadline countdown and an after-Christmas offer

Count down to your actual last shipping day with a countdown popup, and never quietly extend it. After the cutoff, switch to gift cards for late shoppers, then tease your New Year sale; a short flash sale after Christmas suits people spending gift money.

Christmas popups that match your campaign

Your ads bring the visitor; a popup is where the campaign continues on your site. The OptiMonk agent designed these three Popup Library popups for real brands, each for a different campaign moment.

Cozy Cabin Retreat (designed for Sunday Scaries)

A welcome offer for ad traffic: a seasonal worry as the hook, $20 off the first order, and a close link with a sense of humor.

See this popup

Editorial Minimalist (designed for Zara)

November list building in the brand's own style. Christmas doesn't have to be red and green: a black-and-white photo with a fir tree still says "holiday" and still looks like the brand.

See this popup

Holiday Hosting Expert (designed for Burrow)

A gift guide turned into a three-step quiz that opens with a real Christmas question: how many guests are coming.

See this popup

More ideas: 12 Christmas popup examples and all Christmas popups in the Popup Library.

To build your own, describe it to the OptiMonk agent in one sentence, for example: "A gift-set offer for visitors from my Christmas Instagram ads, after 5 seconds." The agent designs the popup in your brand, builds a separate mobile version and sets the targeting. You review it and switch it on.

Christmas slogans for your ads and popups

Short lines work best in an ad and a popup headline. These are written for this article, not taken from brand campaigns.

Gift-led

• Wrapped by Friday. Loved by Sunday.
• The gift they'd never buy themselves.
• For the one who says "nothing, really".

Urgency

• Order by [your last shipping day]. Unwrap on time.
• Last call for Christmas delivery.
• The tree's up. Your gifts aren't.

Cozy

• Cozy season starts here.
• Made for slow December mornings.
• Less rushing. More unwrapping.

Pick one and use it all season: in the ad, the email subject and the popup headline.

Christmas advertising campaign FAQ

When should I start my Christmas advertising campaign?

Plan it in September, so your offer, creatives and channels are ready. Start growing your email list in early November, and run gift-led ads from Black Friday until your last shipping day.

What channels work best for Christmas campaigns?

Paid social, search and shopping ads bring new shoppers; email and SMS, sent from your own email tool, bring back existing ones. On your store, popups carry the same offer, and gamified popups like a lucky wheel give people a reason to sign up.

How can a small store compete with big Christmas ads?

Keep it narrow: one idea and one visual, repeated on every channel. Your own list costs less to reach than ad audiences, so build it first. For other occasions, see these holiday marketing ideas.

What is a 12 days of Christmas marketing campaign?

It's a series of offers or reveals over 12 days before Christmas, one a day, usually on social and in email. Our Christmas marketing ideas for ecommerce explain how to plan one.

What makes a Christmas ad memorable?

One simple story, a signature people recognize every year, and an ending built around a gift, as in Coca-Cola's trucks and the John Lewis films.

Your Christmas popup is one sentence away

Tell the agent who should see your Christmas offer and when, in one sentence. It designs the popup and its mobile version, and you switch it on.

Free to start. No credit card.