The 2025 holiday email marketing playbook: How to win customers and keep them
It's the most wonderful time of the year…for business. The festive season is here, and when it comes to your retention strategy, it’s not a question of if you’ll participate in the holiday rush, but how you’re going to stand out in inboxes overflowing with offers.
This isn’t just about discounts. The goal is to build a thoughtful, omnichannel festive presence. One that your shoppers can genuinely get behind, that inspires gifting, and keeps them coming back for more in the new year.
This is our updated 2025 guide to navigating every phase of the festive season and making sure your holiday strategy is the gift that keeps on giving, for your brand and your customers.
Holiday Email Planning
Start Early
You need to get planning well in advance. Content, design templates, and strategising the campaign rollout take time. As does integrating it across channels (that means thinking beyond email). How are you teasing your festive drops on SMS? Are you using WhatsApp reminders for follow-ups? What’s the post-purchase plan for January?
Get all of this locked in early, so when the rush hits, you’re not scrambling.
Know your audience
The key to staying relevant is staying memorable.
Your customers will remember when you pushed that product they told you they were looking for. They won’t remember when you used their first name in an email (sorry).
Get creative with your data and try to really understand their preferences with pop-ups, surveys, and personalised opt-ins. Once you start collecting the right signals, and not just basic demographics, you can segment and market intentionally.
Tip: High-value customers should get tiered engagement. Give VIPs early access to sales and festive drops, plus double loyalty points if applicable. Send your first-time shoppers gift-focused content or low-barrier offers.
Templates and design
Use eye-catching templates
Festive emails should sparkle a little bit, just make sure they still feel like your brand. Design with intent. A subtle snowflake pattern is lovely. A full sleigh-ride of glitter, bows and six different fonts is less so (unless extravagance is your niche).
Remember, festive doesn’t mean “busy”. Our top-performing holiday emails last year used:
One strong hero visual
A seasonal CTA tweak
Branded colour overlays instead of full redesigns
Small design changes can drive big results when they’re strategic and not chaotic.
Prioritise accessibility
Holiday design must still be functional design. Around 15% of your shoppers rely on accessibility features and festive campaigns should be inclusive. Use:
High contrast
Readable font sizes
Alt text on every image
Mobile-first layouts
Beyond the ethics, accessibility increases clicks, conversions, and trust.
Testing & optimisation
A/B test everything that earns its keep
Don’t guess, test. Leading up to the holiday period (and during), try variations of:
Subject lines
CTAs
Layouts
Promotional angles
Offer positioning
What works in October may flop in December. Test early, test often, then scale what works (but remember to only test one element at a time for accurate results).
Analyse & iterate
Check performance while campaigns are running and not weeks later. Real-time insights help you adapt send times, double down on winning audiences, and personalise offers based on live purchasing behaviour.
Klaviyo also lets you send sample tests to a portion of your audience, for example, a 40% split between two variants. After a short delay (e.g., 2 hours), Klaviyo automatically sends the winning version to the remaining 60%. Test first, scale second is smart optimisation while the momentum is still high.
Revamping your Subject Lines
Lead with curiosity
Wondering what copy to test? When the inbox is crowded (which it will be), intrigue wins. Think:
“Unwrap this early…”
“The cosy edit has landed”
“For the ones who already finished their Christmas shopping”
Play with festive wordplay sparingly
A sprinkle of humour goes a long way. A barrage of puns? Not so much. Use seasonality to stand out, not to sound like a Christmas cracker, and only if it’s on brand.
Tip: Specific > loud.
For example, “Your gift guide is waiting” will always beat “The Holidays are HERE!!!”
Integrating your channels
Where email reaches, WhatsApp and SMS can follow. Use each channel intentionally:
Email → storytelling & visuals
SMS → urgency & reminders
WhatsApp → conversational follow-ups + VIP alerts
Tip: Consider building a holiday conversational flow on WhatsApp. Prepare it beforehand, and once users engage via a campaign, the conversation can continue without costing anything extra on Klaviyo (campaigns cost credits). That means quizzes, gifting guidance or preference-based recommendations can run in real time.
The festive season is omnichannel, so your strategy should be too.
Managing the Post-Holiday Dip
The real retention challenge starts in January. Try:
Moving leftover December stock with January sales events
People love self-improvement in the New Year. Align comms with goal setting and fresh starts.
Bounce-back offers included in December purchases.
Basically, keep the momentum going.
Best practices for holiday sending
1. Timing & cadence
Your audience doesn’t all shop at once, so build a rhythm:
Early December → discovery & gift guides
Mid December → urgency & shipping remindersLast week → digital gifts & e-gift cards
Post-Christmas → “Treat Yourself” campaigns (Q1 retention begins here)
Use sending windows strategically. High-intent hours convert, especially when paired with SMS or WhatsApp reminders. Be mindful that people start their days a tad later during the festive season.
2. Segment with purpose
Not everyone is there for the same reason, so generic blasts just won’t cut it. Use behavioural and predictive signals to tailor your messaging:
VIPs → Give early access, priority service, and double loyalty points.
First-time buyers → Offer low-barrier incentives and “gift guide for beginners” content.
Lapsed customers → Try “We saved your favourites” or “Here’s what’s new since you last visited.”
High-intent browsers → Trigger dynamic reminders or last-chance messages tied to viewed items.
Gift-focused shoppers → Push bundles, gift wrapping, curated gift guides and smaller gifts that can be bought in bulk. Remember to also inform of delivery cut-off dates.
3. Automate the customer journey
Let your flows work harder while your campaigns create excitement:
Abandoned Cart: add gifting angle + shipping countdown
Browse Abandonment: displaying collection banners so that they can come back and see similar items
Festive Welcome Flow: themed intro + offer + social proof
Post-Purchase: “gift received?” flow + review ask + cross-sell
Q1 retention flow: prepare shoppers for new routines, new habits, new purchases
Don’t wait for January to think about January.
4. Drive engagement beyond clicks
Inbox noise is higher than ever right now so engagement must evolve:
Post-purchase polls → gather insights for January segments
Gift quizzes via WhatsApp or SMS
Seasonal loyalty boosts (“double points this week”)
Spotify playlists or UGC invites
Wishlist reminders across channels
Make festive campaigns feel less transactional and more interactive. Those engagement signals = segmentation fuel for the new year.
5. Transparency builds trust
Shoppers want clarity, not surprises:
Delivery cut-off dates
Returns windows
Last-chance sale reminders
Stock warnings (“Only 14 left”)
Live countdown timers (yes—they still work)
Honesty is a good retention strategy, and it reduces customer support tickets too.
Final Thoughts
Festive email marketing shouldn’t just be about selling more because it’s Christmas. It’s really the perfect opportunity to build longer-lasting relationships when your customers are at their most active. One great December can set the tone for your entire Q1.
If your holiday campaigns need stronger strategy, sharper segmentation, or conversion-ready creative, we’d love to help. Book a call with our team to make sure your festive sends are working harder so that you can take a day off this holiday season.
