In our recent guide, 2025 Holiday Spending Trends and Insights, GroundTruth and our collaborators at Experian dove into the behaviors that will drive holiday shopping this year. We discussed when to time your ads, mismatches between marketer and shopper spending expectations, and how external factors, like tariffs and economic uncertainty, are impacting shopping plans.
That’s all the big picture. In reality, it can be tough to determine how all of these behaviors and factors come together to impact YOUR customers.
Using the information in the 2025 Holiday Spending Trends and Insights report, here are some real-world behaviors you can expect from your customers this holiday season.
How Shoppers Plan to Spend
Per the report, “Consumers are cutting back, but not sitting out. Only 22% plan to spend more this season while 27% say they’ll spend less.”
Those aren’t just numbers. Those are the expectations of real shoppers who are likely already buying for the holidays. That means fewer than 1 in 4 shoppers plan to go bigger than last year, even as inflation (2.9% as of September 2025) virtually guarantees higher prices. That means that the majority of consumers (51%) who are planning to keep pace with last year’s holiday spending will still be buying less.
But you’re a marketer. You’re used to competition over customer loyalty. This year might be more competitive than last year, but that’s familiar territory, isn’t it?
Ordinarily, yes. But this year, 66% of marketers expect spending to be higher than last year, which is completely at odds with what we expect from shoppers. When 2 of every 3 marketers is planning for a big holiday season, that means massive, all-encompassing campaigns, when a strategic focus on high-intent shoppers with value-based messaging is much more likely to deliver ROI.
Where Shoppers Plan to Spend
Fast facts: Nearly 40% of shoppers say they’ll split their holiday shopping evenly between online and in-store. 44% more plan to shop both online and in-store in varying degrees, while just 16% plan to shop exclusively online or in-store. That means 84% of shoppers are going to shop in both channels.
Hybrid shopping is the standard. A robust online presence isn’t enough today, much like how an exceptional brick-and-mortar location wasn’t enough yesterday. Today’s shoppers expect to be able to browse online, buy in-store, and choose fulfillment options that minimize cost and hassle. While the customer journey may not begin in-store, physical shopping remains a critical part of the buying process. In addition to fulfillment, many customers treat physical stores as critical points of validation, with most preferring to assess products in person before buying.
How can marketers tackle this fragmented customer journey? Try these 3 steps:
- Ensure your ads show up early and stay present through December.
- Tailor experiences across screens and stores.
- Adapt in real time. React quickly to behavioral signals and inventory trends.
Marketers need to meet their customers where they are with media that matches expectations. Customers aren’t going to be swayed easily by brand equity this year. You need to be targeted, consistent, and value-oriented across all channels.
How GroundTruth Can Help.
GroundTruth offers every tool marketers need to reach even the most specific audience and prove your ads’ real impact.
GroundTruth Ads Manager provides targeted media across today’s fastest growing digital channels, including CTV, digital audio, mobile, desktop, and more. We offer pinpoint precise location targeting that uses real-time signals to reach people while they shop in-store with On-Premise Targeting, when they’re near a specific area with Proximity Targeting, or within specific geographic areas with Neighborhoods. We also offer real-world behavior-based targeting to reach audiences based on where they actually shop in the real world with Location-based Audience Targeting, combined visitation patterns and demographic data with Behavior-based Audience Targeting, and even Custom Audience Targeting.
We don’t stop at reach. We prove when your ad gets a customer to walk through a retail location’s front doors with Foot Traffic Attribution, helping you drive real business results like in-store sales, sales lift, market share growth, and more.
For more insights on the upcoming shopping season, get your copy of 2025 Holiday Spending Trends and Insights, a collaborative guide from Experian and GroundTruth.
Ready to get started? Create your GroundTruth Ads Manager account today, and start exploring our platform (no minimum spend required). And, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.
