The marketing shift brands can’t ignore this festive season

Holiday shopping has fundamentally changed. Your customers aren’t following a linear purchase funnel — they’re curating visual wishlists, planning experiences months in advance, and discovering products through inspiration rather than search terms.

While every advertiser screams “think about us for Christmas”, the smartest Australian brands have quietly shifted strategy. They’re not competing for attention in November’s chaos — they’re becoming part of the planning process that starts in August.

41% of Pinterest users plan holiday purchases in August or earlier. By October, that spikes to 80%.¹ Traditional holiday marketing assumes customers follow neat purchase funnels. Pinterest data reveals something different: users curate visual wishlists months in advance, with seven in 10 creating festive collections they reference throughout the season.¹

Your customer saves “Christmas table setting ideas” in August, adds “gift wrapping inspiration” in September, then shops those saved boards in November. Each save is a future purchase signal — Pinterest users are seven times more likely to buy products they’ve previously saved.²

This extended discovery cycle creates opportunities that don’t exist on other platforms. You can reach users early in their decision-making journey when they’re searching for inspiration, engage them when they save, organise and curate their favourite ideas, then use these high intent signals to drive them from consideration to action.

The Australian brands getting it right

Freedom Furniture: The quiz-to-purchase pipeline

Freedom Furniture understood that holiday shoppers aren’t just buying homewares — they’re curating experiences. Instead of pushing products, they became the answer to a question customers were already asking: “How do I create the perfect holiday atmosphere?”

Their strategy: Freedom used Pinterest’s board sharing feature to transform product catalogues into dynamic holiday inspiration guides. They paired this with Quiz Ads that helped users identify their entertaining style, creating personalised pathways from inspiration to purchase. A Total Moment Takeover and Premiere Spotlight ensured maximum visibility during peak holiday planning.

The results: By utilising the Pinterest Spotlight feature on their chosen day, Freedom secured the highest share of voice (SOV) in the Australian Retail market.³ Their homewares campaign delivered 63% incremental reach beyond other campaigns, while Quiz Ads achieved 34% lower cost-per-click than benchmarks and 167% higher engagement rates.⁴

Cotton On: Full-funnel fashion success

Cotton On built a comprehensive strategy to raise awareness of new collections while converting high-intent shoppers across global markets. They recognized that Pinterest’s highly engaged fashion audience — particularly Gen Z and Millennials — provided the perfect environment for full-funnel performance.

Their approach: Cotton On aligned their strategy with summer holiday moments, layering upper-funnel tactics like Premiere Spotlight takeovers on top of always-on performance activity. They used diverse ad formats from high-impact awareness placements to shoppable image and video ads, ensuring their seasonal fashion collections reached shoppers during peak holiday planning.

The results: Adding Premiere Spotlight to their summer campaign strategy delivered a three times higher conversion rate and improved return on ad spend (ROAS) across all live campaigns compared to their performance without the Spotlight takeover.⁵ In the US market, they saw a 4x higher save rate and 25% higher average order value compared to Australia, while South Africa delivered 88% more efficient cost per milles (CPMs).⁶

Breville: Meeting intent where it lives

Breville understood something other brands missed: searches for “holiday baking ideas” weren’t just inspiration-seeking — they were purchase decisions in disguise.

Their tactic: Breville spotted the gingerbread trend early on Pinterest and ran with it, creating content that wove their appliances into seasonal recipes and entertaining guides exactly when customers were planning holiday meals.⁷

The insight: Pinterest’s seasonal trend data reveals when customers are actually making purchase decisions — during the planning phase, not the last-minute shopping rush. Catch them while they’re dreaming up their holiday baking, not scrambling for gifts.⁷

The Pinterest advantage

Here’s what makes Pinterest fundamentally different from other holiday marketing channels: 97% of top searches are unbranded, users scroll three times slower than similar platforms, and the positive environment drives two times higher ad trustworthiness.⁸ ⁹ ¹⁰

The upshot is that advertisers running full-funnel Pinterest campaigns during holiday 2024 saw 154% higher year-over-year ROAS growth versus single-funnel approaches.¹¹ Weekly Pinterest users also spend 36% more on festivities than non-users.¹²

While other platforms may chase the last click, Pinterest can build the relationship that makes that click inevitable.

Four strategies that unwrap results

Deck the halls early

The data is clear: holiday purchase planning starts earlier every year.¹ The brands who won the 2024 holidays built relationships during the planning phase when decisions actually happen, not when wallets open.

Be the inspiration, not the interruption

Pinterest’s visual search feature processes millions of discovery moments during holiday season.¹³ Smart brands optimise product imagery for the moments when customers pin inspiration photos, ensuring discoverability regardless of brand awareness or search terms.

Inspiration is a gift — be there when it happens

On Pinterest, advertising feels like discovery because users expect to find new brands and products. The most successful campaigns feel like answers to planning challenges, not interruptions to browsing.

Build relationships that last beyond the season

Pinterest delivers brand awareness that actually drives sales. Users discover ideas months before they buy, save inspiration for future reference, and return when ready to purchase. This extended engagement window beats the last-click competition happening everywhere else.

Your holiday opportunity

The brands that master this approach build lasting customer relationships that compound beyond the holidays. Modern shoppers are curating experiences, and Pinterest is where that curation happens. Ready to get ahead of the curve?

For more insights and inspiration, head to our Holiday Marketing Guide on Pinterest Business

¹ GlobalWebIndex, AU, 2025 Holidays, Mar 2025, study commissioned by Pinterest, monthly Pinterest users

² Pinterest analysis, all generations of users, global, Jun 2023

³ Pinterest Ads Manager, Dec 2024

⁴ Pinterest internal data, Dec 2024

⁵ Cotton On internal data, AU, 2024

⁶ Cotton On internal data, US, 2024

⁷ Breville, internal data, ANZ, Q4 2024

⁸ Pinterest Internal Data, Global, as of June 2023 | Calculated as % of the top 1000 most popular searches

⁹ Lumen x Pinterest Attention Studies, EMEA, 2022–2024

¹⁰ MAGNA, Ad Effectiveness Survey, commissioned by Pinterest, US

¹¹ Pinterest internal analysis, AU, Oct – Dec 2024 compared to Oct – Dec 2023

¹² GlobalWebIndex, AU, Holiday Shopping Research, Mar 2025, study commissioned by Pinterest

¹³ Pinterest Ads Manager, Dec 2024