Shopping season is here: final checks for a successful holiday season 2025

The 2025 holiday shopping season is defined by the research-driven, value-conscious consumer. To convert cautious consideration into confident purchases, the themes of the year are technical excellence and leveraging AI-powered campaigns across the entire Google ecosystem.

This guide outlines best practices for maximizing performance throughout the entire holiday shopping season.

Platform and product data readiness

Successful holiday campaigns can be built on a foundation of high-quality product data and account health. Focus on these year-round best practices to help ensure that your inventory is eligible and appealing to the confident consumer.

1. Optimize product confidence through data quality

Customers validate purchases based on quality and durability. High-quality product data is your digital storefront's first impression.

• Ensure data accuracy: All product titles, descriptions, pricing, and availability attributes must be accurate and up-to-date in your primary feed. This is the foundation for matching highly relevant user searches. Use Supplemental Feeds in Merchant Center to augment product data with specific details that build consumer confidence.
• Enhance imagery with AI: Use high-quality, appealing product images. Leverage tools like Google Product Studio (accessible via the Google & YouTube app on Shopify, or directly in Merchant Center for some users) to create high-quality visuals and apply seasonal themes without manual edits.
• Resolve disapprovals: Proactively monitor and resolve all product disapprovals in the “Products” tab of your Merchant Center account, and make sure to resolve all priority fixes in the “Needs attention” tab of your account. Disapproved products are ineligible to show on Google surfaces, which could limit holiday opportunity. Learn how to fix Merchant Center disapprovals for product data quality violations

2. Validate the price and promotion structure

Shoppers prioritize "right price," making approved and timely promotions essential.

• Verify promotions status: Have a clear plan for your deals (for example, sale prices, free shipping, bundle discounts). Manage and submit all offers via the Promotions Editor in Merchant Center to ensure compliance with all Shopping ads policies and maintain a high promotion approval rate.
• Leverage sale price attributes: Use the sale_price and sale_price_effective_date attributes in your product feed to clearly signal value and enable visibility during major sales events.
• Group products strategically: Utilize product custom labels (custom_label_0 to custom_label_4) in your feed to easily segment specific products and apply targeted promotions that align with your sales strategy, especially within Performance Max campaigns.

Strategic execution for discovery and scale

The customer holiday shopping journey is non-linear and should be mobile-friendly. Deploy AI-powered campaigns to meet demand at scale, from broad discovery to specific, last-mile purchase intent.

1. Master omnichannel convenience

Consumers want purchase convenience and a seamless fluid experience between digital search and physical fulfillment.

• Implement local inventory ads (LIAs): Enroll in the Local Inventory Ads program within Merchant Center to bridge the online-to-offline gap. Maintain your Local Product Inventory Feed with real-time stock and pricing data to clearly show product availability in nearby physical stores, leveraging the 92% of store visits preceded by an online search.
• Prioritize mobile experience: Make sure your checkout process is fast, intuitive, and low-friction on mobile devices, accommodating the large percentage of Gen Z and millennials who shop via smartphone. Use Merchant Center diagnostics to monitor website performance and identify mobile issues.

2. Capture demand at scale with the “AI power pack”

You can leverage Google’s AI suite to serve emerging trends and capture broad demand and high-intent users.

• Deploy performance max (PMax): Use Performance Max to automate bidding, placements, and creative assets, ensuring your product visibility across the entire Google ecosystem (Search, Display, Gmail, YouTube, Discover). In Google Ads, utilize Value Rules and Goal-oriented Bidding to align automated strategy with your seasonal profit goals.
• Integrate Demand Gen campaigns: Structure your Demand Gen campaigns to target high-value audiences during the discovery phase on platforms like YouTube and Discover, pairing thumb-stopping video creative with direct, shoppable links for social commerce readiness.
• Align budgets and inventory: Plan for the extended season by allocating budget in "rolling waves." Use the Forecast and Simulation tools in Google Ads to predict performance and inform budget adjustments based on inventory status.

3. Leverage video as a validation and commerce engine

Video is an important way you can build trust and drive product confidence.

• Integrate YouTube shopping: Make sure your Merchant Center is linked to your YouTube channel via the YouTube Shopping Integration settings. This allows you to manage product feeds used for direct tagging in YouTube Shorts, livestreams, and videos, capitalizing on social commerce purchases.
• Connect creative to commerce: Make sure that video and social media creative are directly linked to an instantaneous, mobile-friendly checkout path to capitalize on the massive increase in social commerce purchases.

To ensure sustained success beyond the holiday rush, treat this guide as your year-round strategy for continuous improvement. The agility you build now by mastering product data quality, leveraging AI-driven insights, and optimizing for the mobile-first customer journey can help to future-proof your retail operations and prepare you for every season to come.

Read more: This guide is inspired by findings and recommendations from Google's 2025 holiday research reports, including the Holiday Essentials 2025 report.