The holiday season is one of the most lucrative and competitive times of the year for app marketers. With users in the mood to browse, buy, travel, and celebrate, it’s a golden window to capture attention, drive installs, and boost engagement. 

As shoppers embrace gifting, experiences, self-improvement, and more, the period presents the perfect opportunity to connect your app with seasonal behaviors – but success depends on how effectively you plan and execute.

By developing tailored mobile user acquisition strategies and creative campaigns that resonate with the festive mindset, you can strengthen visibility, fuel app installs, and turn short-term peaks into long-term growth.   

In this blog, we’ll explore how to craft high-performing seasonal campaigns that resonate with the festive mindset and keep your app top of mind during the busiest shopping season of the year.

Key Takeaways

• Adapt creatives and messaging to align with seasonal moods and trends.
• Use limited-time offers to drive urgency and engagement.
• Upweight marketing budgets to capitalize on peak seasonal activity.
• Leverage user-generated content (UGC) to boost authenticity and reach.
• Optimize Apple Search Ads and Custom Product Pages to maximize visibility.

Upgrade your Creatives to Match the Season

To stay competitive and maximize results, your creative approach must reflect the holiday spirit. Users are actively searching for seasonal inspiration, so aligning your visuals, copy, and value proposition with this period can dramatically increase engagement.

1. Seasonal Visuals

Incorporating festive design elements such as colors, typography, and imagery helps your app feel relevant and timely. Use holiday cues that create an emotional connection, ensuring to stay on brand and balanced. 

Pair this with seasonal messaging that captures attention, whether that’s highlighting limited-time features, discounts, or ways your app enhances the holidays. Done well, these creatives signal that your app is current, relatable, and part of the seasonal excitement.

2. Themed Messaging

Adapt your tone and messaging to reflect the joy and energy of the season. Phrases like “Get in the Holiday spirit” or “Make gifting easier this year” can help your campaign feel conversational and relevant.  If you’ve added new features or updated your app for the holidays, make sure they are clearly showcased in your ad copy and store listing. This is a great way to let users (new and returning) know that you have fresh and relevant content, products, and deals for the season.

3. Create Value for Users

Ask yourself how your app adds value during the holidays. Whether it helps users manage gift lists, discover deals, or stay organized, communicate that benefit clearly. The goal is to position your app as useful, not just festive.

4. Limited-Time Offers 

Exclusive promotions and time-sensitive deals are powerful conversion drivers. Use clear CTAs like “Limited-time offer” or “Ends soon” to build urgency. In your visuals, spotlight these offers alongside seasonal products or app features.

For instance, Mixbook – an online photo book and personalized gift creation platform – ran a paid acquisition campaign offering 50% off during the holiday season. The combination of festive imagery and a compelling offer helped the brand capture high-intent users when purchase intent was at its peak.

Source: Mixbook Facebook Ads

Upweight Your Budgets for Seasonal Campaigns

The holidays aren’t the time for evenly distributed spend. Competition is higher, but so is opportunity, meaning strategic budget allocation is key.

Focus your spend where you can achieve the greatest impact and concentrate on high-performing channels and audiences rather than spreading budgets thinly. A good approach can be to prioritize one or two paid acquisition channels that align closely with your highest-performing segments, to ensure you’re investing where impact will be the greatest. 

For example:

• Travel apps often see surges in December and again in January, when users plan trips for the new year. Increasing budgets during these moments ensures you capture high-intent users when they’re most likely to convert.
• Shopping apps should front-load investment in November and early December to align with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas activity. Visibility during these periods delivers stronger ROI than a steady year-round spend.

By investing more heavily during high-intent windows, you’re positioning your app to be seen when users are most motivated to act. 

Source: Jet2holidays Christmas Screenshots

Leverage User-Generated Content (UGC) to Drive Engagement

Seasonal campaigns don’t have to rely solely on paid creatives. User-generated content adds authenticity, builds trust, and stretches your budget further. 

UGC allows users to share real experiences, and during the holidays, these organic stories resonate more than any brand-produced ad. 

Some ways you can harness user-generated content effectively:

1. Showcase genuine testimonials: Feature authentic reviews in your app store listings and ads. For example, a productivity app could highlight how users managed their holiday planning with ease.

2. Run holiday-themed contests: Encourage users to share festive photos or stories connected to your app, such as “Best Holiday Recipe” or “Gift Guide Challenge.”.

3. Create a holiday hashtag campaign: Build a seasonal hashtag to increase visibility and encourage sharing.
4. Feature user success stories: Share real examples of how users benefited from your app during past holiday seasons to demonstrate real-world value.
5. Incorporate UGC in Ads: Ads featuring real users often outperform studio-produced creative in engagement and CTR.

Benefits of UGC:

• Wider reach: User posts expose your app to their personal networks.
• Increased trust: Audiences are more likely to believe peer recommendations over branded messages.
• Cost-effectiveness: Repurposing authentic content reduces production costs.
• Higher engagement: UGC blends naturally into social feeds and typically generates higher engagement on social media.

Use Apple Search Ads to Accelerate Your Seasonal Growth

Apple Search Ads (ASA) are one of the most effective ways to reach high-intent users, people already searching for apps like yours. During the holidays, when search behavior shifts and competition increases, optimising your ASA strategy is essential. 

1. Seasonal keyword research: Identify seasonal search terms and trends using ASO tools. Keywords like “holiday planner,” “gift ideas,” or “Christmas shopping” can unlock new audiences during this period.
2. Seasonal Custom Product Pages (CPP): Custom Product Pages allow you to tailor visuals and messaging for specific keywords or campaigns. Update your CPPs with festive creatives, special offers, or limited-time product features to deliver a more relevant user experience.
3. Plan for Higher Competition: Expect CPCs to rise during peak seasons, so factor that into your forecasts. To maintain ROI, prioritize creative testing – visuals, messaging, and offers that can help you convert at a higher rate when competition is stronger.

Maximizing Lifetime Value of Seasonal Installers

Seasonal campaigns can generate huge bursts of installs, but the real value lies in retention. Many users acquired during holiday periods are motivated by discounts or limited-time offers – meaning they risk churning once promotions end.

To counter this, segment seasonal installers early and design retention campaigns around their behavior:

• Offer exclusive post-season promotions or loyalty rewards.
• Send early-access invitations for future sales or events.
• Reinforce values through personalized push notifications or in-app messages that highlight ongoing benefits.

By nurturing these users beyond the holiday period, you can turn one-off installs into long-term, high-value customers.

Seasonal Growth Beyond Retail

While shopping and eCommerce apps experience some of the most visible holiday peaks, seasonal user-acquisition opportunities span almost every vertical. The key is to identify the moments that matter most for your audience and align your campaign strategy around them.

Travel & Experiences: December and January are peak planning months. Apps can use “escape the cold” or “plan your next adventure” narratives to capture high-intent travelers and early-year bookings.

Fitness & Wellness: The new year is synonymous with fresh starts. Fitness, nutrition, and mindfulness apps can capitalize on this momentum with “reset” or “new routine” messaging.

Finance & Money Management: After the holiday spending rush, users often turn to budgeting and saving. Finance apps can position themselves as the go-to solution for taking control in January.

Entertainment & Streaming: With people spending more time at home, apps in entertainment, gaming, and streaming can highlight shared experiences, relaxation, or discovery.

Food & Delivery: From festive feasts to New Year get-togethers, delivery and recipe apps can tap into convenience, celebration, and seasonal indulgence.

Productivity & Learning: As goals and resolutions take shape in early Q1, these apps can drive engagement by helping users stay organized, productive, and inspired.

Conclusion

The holiday season presents a unique opportunity for app marketers to connect with users at scale, but seizing that opportunity takes strategy, timing, and creativity. 

 From festive creatives and limited-time offers to smart budget allocation, user-generated content, and Apple Search Ads, every element of your user acquisition strategy should work together to maximize performance.

And remember, seasonality isn’t just about the holidays, it’s about harnessing moments. By aligning your app marketing with user behaviors and mindsets throughout the year, you can build campaigns that not only drive downloads but sustain growth long after the festive season ends.

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