Holiday Video Ads: Ideas, Tips, & Templates

Is video a part of your holiday marketing plan? If not, it’s time to reconsider. With 93% of marketers saying they landed a new customer after sharing a video on social, video could help your business shine even brighter this holiday season.

Targeted ads are a great way to make sure your videos are hitting their mark and reaching the people most likely to make a purchase with you. We’ve put together some ideas for ads that you can run to reach potential customers this holiday season.

Holiday Video Ad Ideas

Ready to get down to business? Check out these ideas for a well-rounded slate of holiday ads and greetings, designed to appeal to a variety of potential customers. Create an ad for each idea, or divide your ad spend based on which type of ads your social audience responds to.

If this is your first foray into the world of Facebook/Instagram advertising, or you’re looking for a refresher, check out our blog post on the subject, which has the full rundown on all things targeting with Facebook Ads Manager. If you're already a seasoned expert, we hope these ideas fuel your creativity this holiday shopping season!

Annual Sale

Your annual holiday sale is right around the corner, and the time to let potential customers know is now. If you’re promoting your big Black Friday discounts, consider this your chance to spread the word to a larger audience. Include your best, most noteworthy deals, making sure to highlight big-ticket and popular items to pique customers’ interest.

Looking to save a little extra time? Check out our Saved Brands to make video creation even faster and more efficient. With Saved Brands, it only takes one click to apply your brand’s logo, colors, and font to your entire video. Professional plan users can create one Saved Brand, while Professional Plus users can create multiple Saved Brands, making it simple to save and apply your evergreen brand settings or your holiday campaign branding in seconds.

Try out our Annual Sale template to put the spotlight on your hottest sales of the season.

Thanksgiving Greeting

For your next ad, let shoppers know how grateful you are for their support with a warm Thanksgiving greeting. Whether they’ve made a purchase from your business, subscribed to your YouTube channel, or simply liked a post, your video will not only make them feel appreciated but also increase brand awareness right before the biggest spending season of the year.

Use our Thanksgiving Greeting template to express your gratitude and attract attention.

Hanukkah Greeting

With the Festival of Lights starting earlier than usual this year, it’s time to wish those who celebrate a Happy Hanukkah–while also promoting your gift-worthy goods. Like the gratitude your business expresses at Thanksgiving, sharing a Hanukkah greeting shows that you appreciate the miracle of Hanukkah as well as those who celebrate it.

If you’re in need of Hanukkah-themed media, check out our Select stock library on our Professional plan, featuring 1 million+ photos and videos from Getty Images, or our Premium library on our Professional Plus plan, offering 100 million+ photos and video clips.

Try out our Hanukkah Greetings template to start creating today.

Small Business Saturday

If you’re a small business owner, you know that Small Business Saturday is one of the most important shopping days of the year. In fact, it can have a ripple effect on your business, with 77% of consumers saying Small Business Saturday inspires them to “Shop Small” throughout the year, rather than just for the holidays.

Use video to promote your stellar Small Business Saturday sales and to remind your community (both local and online) how important it is to support small businesses.

Try using our Small Business Saturday Promo template to increase awareness for your own business as well as other small businesses in your local area.

Cyber Monday/Cyber Week

Cyber Monday and the entirety of Cyber Week are like the Super Bowl of online shopping. Use video to build anticipation and get customers excited to spend as soon as the clock strikes midnight on Monday. Include information on your biggest discounts, highlight exclusive offers, and use text, photos, and video clips that incite a sense of urgency.

Bring your Cyber Monday video on-brand by adding your own custom font, brand colors, and brand logo to your video. Discover how easy it is to stay on-brand with our Professional Plus plan and upgrade today to get ready for the holiday season.

Try out our Cyber Monday Announcement template to create an eye-catching video ad easily.

You can also reach new audiences by advertising your Cyber Monday discounts on Instagram Stories. Download the Animoto iOS app or use our vertical Cyber Monday template to create IG Story video ads from your smartphone or desktop computer.

Ad Targeting Gift-Givers

One of the best parts of the holiday season is that your audience for potential customers grows to include anyone purchasing a gift for one of your usual patrons. That said, these sorts of customers will often need a bit more explanation of what you have to offer and why your offerings would be a perfect gift for the person on their list.

Our Bite-sized Product Intro template can work well for videos like this. As you create your video, make clear early on what you’re offering and who the product is for. Your target audience for this ad may not automatically think of your business when they’re searching for gifts, so it’s important that you quickly establish what you have to offer them and convince them to stick around.

Holiday Promo

There’s nothing wrong with keeping it simple. Your customers have shopping to do, and you have the gifts they need. If you’re running a sale, consider this your chance to share it with a larger audience. Even if you won’t be offering any seasonal prices, your promo video is an excellent opportunity to highlight some of your most holiday-appropriate gift ideas.

You’ll want to make sure you’re including any relevant information about your sale or gift ideas, including what’s being offered, what sort of discount they can expect, how long the sale runs, and where they can take advantage of the offer (online, in-store, etc.).

Try our Holiday Promotion template for this video ad and use Saved Brands to quickly and easily add your holiday campaign branding.

Holiday Ad Video Tips

We’ve got a few tips and best practices for you before you get started on your holiday ads. Let’s dive in:

• Targeting is key. Are you a brick-and-mortar store? Target locally! If you’re an online business, focus on target customer interests and demographics. You can also target people who have already visited your website or liked your page.
• Use Ads Manager. It’s tempting to hit that boost button, but if you want to achieve the sort of targeting we’ve discussed in this post, we recommend checking out the blog post we linked to earlier (here it is again) to learn how to reach the people most willing and likely to make a purchase.
• Align your website with your social content. Especially if you’re calling on your customers to click through from a social post to an online store, keeping your branding and wording consistent will help reassure customers that they’ve reached the right place to attend to their holiday shopping needs.
• Open with a strong visual. Your video won’t be the only one that your customers see while scrolling through social. Chances are it won’t even be the only holiday promotional video. A special offer won’t always be enough to hook a customer, and a memorable visual can go a long way. Check out this blog post for holiday color palette ideas that extend beyond the traditional red and green.
• Give your customers enough time to act. Ideally, your viewers are watching your ad and immediately taking some sort of action to make a purchase, but that’s not always how it works. Encourage quick action, but make sure you’re building in enough time for viewers to finalize their holiday shopping plans. That’s also why we recommend targeting the same audience throughout your ads, giving yourself multiple chances to make an impact on your audience and stay on their minds while they make their gifting lists.
• Not all CTAs are created equal. The easier you can make it for your viewers to act, the better. Move potential customers one step closer toward making a purchase by including a catchy, action-based call to action (CTA). Try out something that’s festive and fun, or urgent and enticing to let your audience know it’s time to buy. Check out our post on writing stronger CTAs to learn more.
• Double down on successful ads. If an ad is performing especially well, strongly consider moving around your budget to get it seen by the most people possible.
• Keep a close eye on your ads. Your ads should land in front of more people than an organic post would, so you’ll need to be ready to answer any questions from new potential customers. Your attention sends the message that you care about your customers, letting them know you deserve their spend.

This is it! It’s time to make the season merry & bright with video. For feedback on your videos from fellow video creators and tips from our team, join our Facebook group, The Animoto Social Video Marketing Community. Happy holidays and very merry video making!