Black Friday and the holidays present unique challenges and opportunities for advertisers in financial services, SaaS, and lead generation. These brands typically can’t run retail sales or discount their offerings, which means they need different strategies to compete in a crowded ad landscape with rising costs and distracted audiences. Here are 12 effective ways non-ecommerce advertisers can maximize Q4’s final weeks and capitalize on end-of-year demand:
1 ) Expect Higher Holiday Ad Costs – Budget Smart, Don’t Go Dark
Your CPMs will spike in Q4 and sometimes dramatically. Meta advertisers see CPMs jump every year during November’s holiday rush, and similar surges happen across platforms as brands flood the market. You’ll pay more to reach the same audiences, which means tighter margins and lower efficiency.
But here’s the key, don’t turn off your ads entirely. While cold prospecting might not pencil out, your warm audiences can still be worth the investment. Even with inflated CPMs, campaigns targeting high-intent users won’t see CPA and ROAS deteriorate at the same rate.
The move? Set realistic expectations, trim low-performers, and stay focused on audiences closest to conversion. Be thoughtful about your spend, but stay in the game.
2 ) Align Campaigns with Holiday Staffing – Or Risk Losing Leads
If your sales team is off during the holidays, seriously consider scaling back lead generation. When someone fills out a form and doesn’t hear from you for three weeks, they’ve already moved on. Cold leads go ice cold, fast.
Decision-makers are on vacation, response times lag, and by the time January rolls around, that interested prospect has forgotten about you or found a competitor who answered faster. If you can’t follow up promptly, dial down your spend. It’s better to slow down lead generation spend than to waste budget collecting leads you’ll never convert. Save your dollars for when your team is ready to strike.
3) Take Advantage of “Q5” – The Post-Christmas Sweet Spot
The week of Christmas and New Years is advertising gold. Once retail promotions end, most advertisers pull back hard and CPMs plummet to their lowest levels of the year, often bottoming out by New Year’s Day.
Meanwhile, your audience is engaged. They are browsing on new devices, planning for January, and actually paying attention. For lead gen businesses in SaaS, finance, or professional services, this window often outperforms early December. You’ll reach high-intent prospects at a fraction of the cost with less noise competing for their attention. Conserve budget for the last 7-10 days of the month to capitalize on cheap, effective impressions when the retail advertisers have exhausted theirs.
4 ) Plan Ahead for Q1’s Fresh Start
The holidays aren’t just an endpoint, they’re your launchpad for Q1. Many B2B companies reset budgets in January, and individuals adopt “New Year, new me” mindsets for business goals just as they do for personal goals. Conversion rates often spike starting December 26th and into January as buyers hit the ground running.
If you haven’t started yet, start your “2026 planning” messaging in December so you’re top-of-mind when budgets unlock. Have Q1 campaigns, creative, and offers ready to deploy immediately in January. While competitors ease back into work mode, you’ll already be capturing high-intent leads and booking meetings. Use the late-December lull to finalize assets and strategy so when January 1st hits, you’re already winning.
5) Use Downtime to Implement Media Mix Modeling (MMM)
The holiday slowdown is the perfect time to upgrade your analytics with Media Mix Modeling. MMM analyzes historical data across all channels to isolate what’s actually driving results and reveals where your budget delivers real ROI versus where it’s wasted.
Why now? Building an MMM requires clean data and focused analysis and it’s easier to tackle when you’re not distracted with daily campaign management. The payoff is massive, you’ll enter Q1 with data-driven proof of which channels work, making budget allocation decisions (and CFO conversations) easier.
6) Identify Skill Gaps and Fill Them with Fractional Talent
Year-end is the perfect time to audit your marketing team and plug in those gaps. Missing expertise on creative, paid media, graphic design, or looking to go-to-market with a new strategy? Consider bringing fractional marketers (or analysts, CMOs, content writers, etc.) who work part-time or on a contract basis,that can provide specialized skills exactly when needed. This flexible model lets you get “the right expertise at the right time, without slowing down” or overloading your core team.
7) Refresh and Create New Creative Assets
Amid the holiday hustle, it’s easy to postpone big creative projects. But if your industry is slow, seize the chance to produce fresh marketing creative for 2026. Whether it’s filming new video ads, designing new landing pages, or developing content offers (like ebooks or case studies), use this downtime to build up your creative inventory.
Fresh creative will be crucial for the new year, and having it ready can shorten your launch timelines. As one marketing firm noted, making sure the “time spent perfecting your marketing collateral” will result in a pipeline of opportunities next year.
8) Educate Yourself and Your Team on AI
Marketing teams need to treat AI as a core competency, not a side project. This means structured training, not just “figure it out yourself.” Nearly 90% of marketers already use AI tools, but most cite lack of training as the biggest barrier to real impact. Business leaders expect AI-driven skills gaps to surge over the next three years, putting pressure on teams to upskill fast.
The best marketing organizations build baseline AI literacy for everyone. From how it works, its limits and basic prompting to layering role-specific training. For example, media buyers can learn AI-assisted bidding, creatives could learn AI-enhanced ideation, and analysts might QA outputs and integrate them into actionable insights.
Now is your chance to carve out formal time and budget for hands-on workshops around real workflows and treat AI upskilling as an ongoing program, not a one-off lunch-and-learn.
9) Prioritize Brand Building Over Short-Term Sales
Focus on long-term brand equity by keeping thought leadership content and ads running across Meta, Google, LinkedIn, and YouTube to maintain share of voice when competitors go dark and ecommerce is in a frenzy. Decision-makers are still researching and if you’ve built brand trust and familiarity, they’ll think of you when they’re ready to transact. Share client success stories and industry insights instead of aggressive pitches. Grow your first-party audience (email lists, webinar sign-ups, remarketing pools) to engage potential clients and plant seeds for future conversions.
10) Nurture Leads and Stay Socially Active
Just because the holidays are coming up doesn’t mean you should halt all communications. Your prospects may not be in the office, but guess what, they’re still on their phones and laptops. In fact, people often spend more time on social media and email during their holiday downtime (scrolling through feeds, catching up on newsletters).
Take the opportunity to nurture your existing leads and customers with valuable content. This could be a “year-in-review” newsletter, a helpful end-of-year checklist relevant to your industry, or even a simple season’s greetings note expressing gratitude. The key is to remain visible in a low-pressure way.
11) Optimize Your Conversion Funnel and Tech Stack
If new leads are slower in December, pivot to improving how you handle leads, present and future. Audit your entire marketing and sales funnel for friction points. For example, test your landing pages and forms: Are they mobile-friendly and fast? Do they have clear messaging? Many companies use the year-end lull to do a “website/content/CRM clean-up.” It’s an ideal time to update outdated content, refresh your webinar slides, improve SEO on key blog posts, or integrate that new marketing tool you purchased but haven’t fully deployed.
You could call this work unsexy, but this work will pay dividends throughout the year ahead.
12) Tailor Your Messaging – Be Festive, Not Forceful
Finally, adjust your marketing tone to fit the holiday context. A hard sell can come off tone-deaf when everyone is in holiday mode. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t promote your business; rather, frame your messaging with empathy and seasonal relevance. For example, content that acknowledges year-end challenges or offers help with New Year planning will likely resonate better than an aggressive sales pitch. One tip for B2B holiday outreach is to “give your audience a break from the usual salesy content” and keep things light, informative, and with a festive tone.
In practice, this could mean writing an email subject like “Wrapping up 2025 – 3 Tips for a Successful New Year [from Company]” instead of “Buy XYZ Now before Year-End!”. Share a bit of holiday cheer on social media, maybe your team’s charitable activities or a simple thank-you to clients to humanize your brand.
In Summary:
The holidays may not be your peak selling season, but with the right strategy, lead generation businesses can thrive during Black Friday and beyond. The key is to be proactive and smart: anticipate higher costs and plan around them, adjust timing to when your prospects (and team) are most responsive, and use any downtime to strengthen your marketing foundation.
By implementing 1 or all of these 12 tips, you can keep your pipeline flowing and maybe even turn the year-end into a surprise win. Remember, while the ecommerce players battle it out in Q4, you’re playing a longer brand equity game. Stay focused on providing value, optimizing your approach, and planting seeds that will grow in the New Year.
