Stop the Scroll: How to Design High-Performing Holiday Ads

Holiday ads compete for attention in a busy market during a relatively short period of time. Crowded user feeds mean that marketing and advertising teams have to design ads that stand out and entice readers to buy quickly.

That said, the holiday season also brings specific opportunities for ad design, as teams look to creative work to increase conversions and purchases. A successful December can end the sales year on a high note, meeting goals and setting the business up for success in the new year. Check out the tips below on how to design high-performing holiday ads, and the Taboola creative team’s playbook for success.

Enhance Your Holiday Ads Performance With These 7 Design Tips

1. Create Visually Striking Imagery and Video

Good holiday design starts with high-quality visuals, festive themes, and a clear product focus. Consider how your design can stand out across images, photos, and videos, paying attention to every detail.

“Be unexpected: Remember that your content will be surrounded by a plethora of similar holiday themes,” advises designer Liz Parmalee. “Instead of using the common hunter green and cherry red combination, consider alternatives like lime green and magenta, or orange and pink. Maybe the traditional ‘Silent Night’ navy turns into a deep purple.”

Consider every detail as you’re designing ads to grab attention during the holiday seasons. “Let your typography stand out — while others may be using script fonts, you could choose something with more personality,” suggests Parmalee. “Rethinking scale and type hierarchy can also help capture the user’s attention without screaming at them with colors or graphics.”

2. Tell an Authentic Story

Try including authenticity and evoking emotion, depending on your product, market, and advertising channels. For the holiday season, you might use ads to tell stories about family, friends, and connection. Taboola’s Holiday Creative Playbook recommends authentic, kinetic creative, like this:

Also consider subtle festive touches or clever, simple wordplay in your ads. You can break out the overall holiday season into sub-seasons, too, like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and New Year’s. Match creative to each of these blocks of time as you also maintain brand consistency and guidelines for good copy, visuals, and calls to action (CTAs).

3. Write Compelling Headlines, Copy, and CTAs

You’ve only got a second to catch a shopper’s attention, whether it’s in an email, on social media, or in a paid ad. Write benefit-driven headlines and CTAs, and include emotional triggers and a clear value proposition. CTAs should be prominent and action-oriented, and you might test different phrasing ahead of time to see what works best.

“Keep it short and punchy,” recommends digital marketing specialist Honey Chhatani. “Make the value proposition immediately obvious — what the offer is, why it matters, and how to act. This is critical when attention spans are short.”

In addition, incorporate seasonal elements like urgency cues, gift-giving language, countdown timers, or last shipping date reminders to drive action, says Chhatani. “Add urgency with phrases like ‘Only a few left’ or ‘Offer ends tonight.’ Real or perceived scarcity can dramatically boost CTR and sales.”

4. Get the Details Right in Advance

The holiday season starts earlier and earlier, with research and initial browsing often taking place in October or even before. Line up your creative with the tactics you plan to use for a robust strategy.

“Sync paid and organic creative,” suggests Chhatani. “Make sure your social, email, landing pages, and ads are aligned in theme, tone, and visuals. A consistent story across touchpoints increases brand recall and trust.” While your message should stay consistent, you can still tailor visuals and tone to fit the platform, so Instagram vs. email vs. search may have subtle variations.

In addition, start teasing campaigns before they go live, Chhatani advises. “Just like Amazon promotes Prime Day in advance, you can create excitement and build purchase intent with early announcements, preview emails, or waitlists.” Use predictive analytics and real-time personalization to serve the most relevant ad variation and placement to each user segment.

The right keywords for SEO are also essential. “Filter out irrelevant or underperforming search terms to prevent wasted spend in paid search campaigns,” says Chhatani. “Focus on keywords that are tightly aligned with your offer and customer intent. Think relevance, not just volume.”

5. Emphasize Brand Identity

The holiday season isn’t the time to rebrand or otherwise dramatically change your company’s brand identity. Instead, it’s an opportunity to reinforce your existing brand recognition and promise. For smaller companies, their holiday creative can do this alongside driving sales. “Focus on creating something simple, distinct, and scalable,” says Parmalee. “The goal is for people to see your logo or brand color across an event hall or in their web browsers and immediately recognize you.”

Smaller businesses or startups in particular can elevate what’s already working without disrupting brand recognition, adds Parmalee: “Try a slow, deliberate enhancement of the elements of your brand that are working well and are already recognizable.”

Consistency is also important for timing and messaging during the holiday season. “Ensure your ad launches, emails, and social posts align for product drops or big announcements,” says Chhatani.

6. Optimize for Mobile First

Holiday shoppers are browsing, researching, and buying on their phones like never before: Mobile devices are expected to make up about 60-63% of online traffic during the 2025 holiday season, with desktop computers making up the rest. “Most holiday traffic is mobile,” agrees Chhatani. “Ensure creatives are designed for small screens — short copy, large and clear CTAs, fast-loading visuals, and vertical video formats where relevant.”

Concise messaging and thumb-stopping visuals can also catch the attention of users quickly. The entire mobile shopping experience should be very smooth and easy: “Prioritize fast load times and seamless checkout UX,” advises Chhatani.

Check out the holiday creative playbook for more on mobile optimization.

7. Test Different Ad Formats and Types

There’s a whole world of ad formats to explore in modern digital marketing, such as carousel ads, motion ads, video ads, and traditional static images. They all have their place in a holiday marketing mix and each can contribute to different goals. Draw on past performance data when you’re building a holiday campaign. “Look at what performed well in past campaigns — what messages, visuals, and formats led to higher engagement or conversions?” asks Chhatani. “Document your findings and build on them.”

There are lots of ways to experiment with engaging users, too. “Motion is a helpful tool for drawing the eye to your ad,” says Parmalee. “It doesn’t need to be an elaborate animation — having an element swish into view or pulse can be enough to catch the user’s eye.”

Performing testing on any new formats is important, especially to understand the line between engagement and overload. “While larger and more complex animations can certainly attract attention, they may also end up being distracting or annoying,” warns Parmalee. “Start with something simple, and conduct an A/B test comparing your animated ad with a static version to measure any differences in engagement.”

Key Takeaways

Creative ad best practices during the holiday generally rely on the same principles as good ad design during the rest of the year. “Marketing design serves a specific purpose: to support the carefully crafted initiatives of the marketing team,” says designer Liz Parmalee. “Consider the story you want to tell, the emotions you want to evoke, and the actions you want the user to take. Everything else is icing on top.”

The holiday season can outperform the entire rest of the year when marketers and advertisers create and promote high-quality, user-focused ads. Designing visually compelling work with short, snappy copy and clear CTAs is essential for holiday success. Teams should also pay attention to consistent brand identity, timing, and ad formats for the best possible holiday ad performance.