The leaves haven’t even started to change colors yet and students are just heading back to school, but the marketer who hasn’t started holiday messaging yet is already falling behind.

That’s because consumers, who once looked to Black Friday as the start of the holiday shopping season, are making their gift decisions, and purchases earlier and earlier each year.

Major retailers recognize this. Amazon, Walmart, and Target have already announced early holiday sales campaigns starting in late September, blending back-to-school with early gifting.

According to a recent New York Times article,  some consumers were already thinking Christmas in July, looking to take advantage of Amazon Prime Days and other sales to get a job on holiday purchases, particularly because many were concerned about tariffs and other inflation contributors continuing to drive up the costs of their gifts.

The New York Times findings back those of the Optimove Insights 2025 Consumer Holiday Retail Shopping Survey, which shows that more than six-in-10 (64%) consumers plan to start shopping before Halloween, with nearly half (49%) starting in October or November. Additionally, 88% of consumers want holiday offers early, with 59% preferring them more than a month in advance.

Price is at the top of mind for consumers, with 84% concerned about tariffs and 80% about inflation. It means that value, transparency, and early offers are essential to winning their trust. Early sales catch consumers’ attention, because nearly two-thirds (66% are motivated by discounts), and 30% by product availability, prompting early action.

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Orchestrated Campaigns Deliver Right Messages to Right Customers

However, starting early is only the first step. Marketing campaigns need to be smartly orchestrated to deliver the right messages to the right customers at the right times. The orchestration needs to deliver consistent messaging across all channels as most shoppers use multiple channels, including many that will use more than one channel for a single purchase, such as shopping online, picking up in the store, which more than half (53%) of consumers will do.

The Optimove survey also revealed that 84% of consumers will shop online, with 31% shopping exclusively online.

Avoid Marketing Fatigue

Though an early start is a critical factor in a successful holiday marketing campaign, marketers need to be wary of consumer marketing fatigue as the holiday season draws closer.

The Optimove survey revealed that 55% of consumers are tired of holiday marketing by October. That figure rises to 71% by the end of November.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) are making it possible today for marketing departments to more easily optimize their email marketing campaigns with hyper-personalized messages that reach the right audiences at the right time.

This enables brands to avoid the issue of email and email fatigue, which have not only ruined email campaigns for many brands, but have also annoyed customers so much that it has pushed many to competing brands, as discussed in the 2025 Optimove Insights Consumer Marketing Fatigue Report.

Brands need protect against email fatigue by optimizing marketing communication AI and GenAI enables marketers to:

• Limit frequency: Avoid overwhelming customers with excessive emails or promotions. Instead, focus on high-value, meaningful messages.
• Offer dynamic content: The AI-driven tools ensure the timing and content of communications are relevant, avoiding repetitive messaging that leads to unsubscribe actions.

Postionless Marketing Enables Marketers to Jump into Holiday Campaigns

AI and GenAI enable brands to create personalized campaigns that go beyond generic tactics, incorporating purchase history and preferences, while also having Positionless Marketing, which provides every marketer with the power to execute any marketing task instantly and independently. A Positionless Marketing Platform provides three transformative powers:

• Data Power lets anyone immediately discover customer insights for precise targeting and hyper-personalization, without waiting for engineers.
• Creative Power lets anyone instantly create channel-ready assets like copy and visuals, without waiting for creatives.
• Optimization Power lets anyone run campaigns that optimize themselves through automated journeys and testing, without waiting for analysts.

By liberating marketing teams from dependencies, they are more motivated, get more done, and are able to deliver the most personalized campaigns at scale and achieve better marketing ROI.

With a Positionless Marketing approach, any marketer can independently:

• Access and analyze customer data
• Create personalized, channel-ready campaigns
• Launch and optimize self-adjusting marketing journeys in real time

This level of independence enables marketers to respond instantly to shifting consumer behaviors, whether it’s pushing an early offer, personalizing a message based on lifestyle data, or scaling communications up or down to avoid fatigue.

The bottom line: brands that empower marketers to act instantly and autonomously will be best positioned to capture consumer attention and loyalty in Holiday 2025.