Why Your Holiday Ads ROI Doesn’t Matter (Yet)

The real ROI of Q4 shows up in Q1.

The real value of Q4 isn’t the short-term revenue spike but the audience and data foundation it builds for Q1 and beyond.

The purchase path data I’ve seen across brands reinforces this idea. Using five-year lookback windows from my clients’ Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) instances, the data consistently shows that Q4 shoppers often make another purchase within three months. These repeat purchases start meaningfully changing the unit economics of customer acquisition and strengthening organic visibility across product lines. This shows that strategic holiday spend can deliver returns long after the season ends.

When it’s time to defend your budget, position Q4 spend for what it is: a prepaid customer acquisition voucher for Q1, bought at a 50 percent discount. This framing eases CFO concerns about short-term efficiency when you have the data to show you are buying future Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) that outweighs the immediate cost. Effective brands measure beyond short-term revenue by tracking LTV, New-to-Brand (NTB) acquisition, and repeat purchase rate.

If you don’t have AMC, start by tracking NTB Purchase Share during Q4 and revisit those shoppers in Q1. Quantifying how many came back and bought more can demonstrate long-term value without a complex tech stack. 

But the groundwork for that ROI is laid earlier than you think.

Many brands still invest the majority of their ad dollars in an extremely short holiday window and hold their breath for marketing KPIs hour by hour throughout Cyber Week. However, there are two challenges with this.

First, ROAS and ACoS are shaped by two unpredictable variables that marketers do not have direct control over: cost-per-click (CPC) and conversion rate (CVR). When those shift drastically due to surges in shopping behavior (for example, we often see CVRs double in a matter of hours or days once deal periods begin around November 21), performance can look unstable even when it isn’t. If you react by lowering bids or cutting keywords that are performing, you’re playing a losing game of whack-a-mole and risk losing reach right when shoppers are ready to buy.

Second, the data shows that purchasing behavior is spread over a much wider window. Aligning spend with real shopper behavior makes every dollar work harder, and brands that stay active through this lead-in period capture the surge when shoppers move from browsing to purchasing. Brands should think of holiday in three phases with long bookends: late summer through early November builds awareness and consideration. Mid-November through Cyber Week drives conversion. Early to mid-December is for remarketing and retention, which trickles into that Q1 payoff mentioned before. Each phase compounds on the one before it. Instead of aiming for perfection in ad performance during a handful of days, focus on building momentum in the weeks and months preceding.

The payoff from investing early in generating demand dwarfs the effect of focusing so heavily on demand capture during Cyber Week, but requires time-sensitive shifts to your media planning. For example, video is one of the best ways to prime consumers earlier in the buying journey, but many DSPs and publishers of premium video placements (from Disney to Netflix, to Amazon) shift toward guaranteed buys during the holidays. Late planners or brands trying to react to in-flight micro trends during peak periods will be priced out of top placements. Securing them early gives you an edge competitors can’t match, and primes consumers for purchase of your products before the competition heats up.

Measure the health of Q1, not just the success of Q4.

When brands treat the holidays as an investment in future performance rather than a sales sprint, they start the new year ahead. The best-performing brands keep investing through the holidays and enter January with stronger visibility, more efficient ad spend, and shoppers who convert faster.

Watch your post-holiday data closely. Consistent traffic to product detail pages and steady organic conversion rates are signs that your strategy is working. These indicators show that visibility and intent built during Q4 are carrying into the new year.

The smartest brands see Q4 (and earlier) as the start of a new growth cycle, not the entire moment of payoff. Every dollar spent builds data, loyalty, and future revenue. That is how short-term spend becomes long-term strength, and how real ROI is earned.

If you want to refine your Amazon holiday planning or evaluate your Q4 to Q1 performance, connect with our team.