This year, festive shoppers plan to celebrate as much as they can. They’re finally ready to throw the parties that they've been dreaming of for the past few years. Big Halloween bashes. Formal winter fests. Huge festive dinners with everyone they’ve been waiting to see.

But big is only half the story. During the pandemic, people adapted. They swapped the big parties for intimate gatherings with immediate family and close friends—organising events such as gift-wrapping parties or festive film nights. And now these smaller mini moments are here to stay too.

Our research shows that this is a festive season unlike any other. One that blends big and small, monumental and mini, tradition and innovation. And for festive shoppers, it’s all starting right now. Which means that your festive season needs to start now, too.

In Australia, 75% of people on Pinterest say they use the platform to plan for both big and small moments in their lives. That means everything from the giant winter holidays, to smaller traditions they’ve created with family or friends and want to keep going for years to come. This year, they plan to have more “mini moments” throughout the holiday season, punctuating their bigger festivities with every chance they can get to celebrate, connect and create new traditions.¹ That includes fun traditions like friendsmas, summer BBQ's and festive family film nights.

This is especially true on Pinterest, where people are more likely to plan fun festivities throughout the season. People who use Pinterest are 85% more likely to enjoy creating new holiday traditions, compared to people who don’t use Pinterest.²

More moments mean more ways to win
Adding more seasonal moments to your festive season ad mix pays off. In 2021, Pinterest advertisers who activated against multiple seasonal moments saw a 4x higher increase in conversion rates than those who only activated for Christmas.²

In other words: Don’t save all your spend for December. Those big festive moments do still matter, but you’re better off allocating your festive season campaigns and budget throughout a longer, more varied season. Take advantage of the smaller micro-moments throughout the season AND the bigger, more traditional moments for maximum payoff.

On Pinterest, the holiday season kicks off with Halloween and goes well into January of the following year. But here's the thing: the planning starts way before the celebrating. To maximize your holiday opportunity, you need to start promoting your holiday ideas and products months before the actual moments hit.

For example: take Halloween. As we all know, it’s celebrated on October 31st. But our data shows that the peak ad opportunity for Halloween actually runs all the way from August to October.⁵ Brands that wait for that last month, miss out. Brands that start running their Halloween content during the winter reach more shoppers, and reach them earlier in the planning process.

Consistent, timely marketing throughout the season leads to better results. Brands on Pinterest see 5x more conversions when people are exposed to their ads earlier in the season, compared to brands who wait to advertise later on.⁴

Michaels saw this work last year with their multi-objective holiday marketing. They simultaneously ran different campaign objectives geared toward getting shoppers at every step of the marketing funnel throughout the season. Michaels only saw a 6% overlap in audiences for each objective, showing that Pinterest was effective at reaching shoppers in every phase.⁶

Think about this opportunity spread over so many holiday marketing moments throughout the season—there’s always someone in each phase getting ready to plan, shop or buy.

As festive shoppers prepare for a celebration-packed season, they're actively searching for all sorts of ideas for the festive season. And Pinterest is where they come to find them. Take advantage of this moment in time and influence their big and small festive celebrations while they’re still in planning mode—not documenting them after the fact.