How to Convert Christmas Gift Shoppers into Loyal Customers

Immediate sales are often the priority around Christmas time, making it easy for your focus to stray from customer retention. However, a Christmas customer retention strategy can help you to maintain your festive successes even after the holiday season is over.

Christmas shoppers can be less likely to stick around than shoppers at other times of the year. 64% of brands report that Christmas shopper retention periods and spending are lower than for their average shopper.¹

Therefore, making an effort to retain your festive shoppers can help you maximise their otherwise low lifetime value. It also means you’ll get more ROI on the cost of acquiring these shoppers.

A strong retention strategy can even help you drive future sales from shoppers who visited but didn’t convert over the Christmas period.

By transforming your seasonal shoppers into long-term customers, you’ll be getting even more out of your Christmas marketing efforts.

To help, we’ve pulled together our top tips for your Q1 strategy, so that you can give your Christmas shoppers a reason to return.

How can customer retention grow your eCommerce business?

Whether through display ads, PPC or social, you’ve invested money and resources into attracting new customers to your site and increasing sales in Q4.

Ahead of Q1, shift your eCommerce marketing focus towards re-engaging and transforming your new festive visitors into repeat customers.

You’ll also want to nurture your existing customer base following the Christmas period. Although these shoppers have already bought into your brand, your retention efforts will help to prevent disengagement.

Putting effort into retaining both your brand-new and existing customers will help create a valuable stream of repeat orders for your store. Additionally, customers invested in your brand are more likely to build bigger baskets, helping to boost your AOV and drive revenue.

It can also be easier and more cost-effective to drive sales from your existing shoppers. The cost of acquiring a new customer can be almost 5-7 times more expensive than retaining an existing one.²

By focusing on strengthening your existing customer relationships after Christmas, you can unlock opportunities for further sales.

So, now we’ve covered the benefits of customer retention, let’s explore strategies you can use to keep your festive shoppers around.

Suggested reading: Understanding the Value of Customer Loyalty and Retention

Strategies to retain Christmas customers

Even during the busy Q4 period, dedicating time to your Christmas retention strategy is a worthwhile effort. It can help you build a loyal customer base that buys from your brand for months and years to come.

Below, we’ve outlined some of the top strategies you can use to keep your customers coming back for more.

1. Set up email retargeting flows

With your Q4 data capture strategies, you’ll have acquired a whole host of new newsletter subscribers. 

By subscribing, these shoppers have shown they want to hear more from your brand. The post-Christmas period into Q1 is the perfect time to reach out and re-engage these interested shoppers.

You can set up automated retargeting flows to deliver relevant emails to shoppers based on their lifecycle stage or activity. Using an email automation tool like Salesfire, you could encourage further purchases with email flows that:

• Offer inspiration: Inspire shoppers to make another purchase by sending a post-purchase email flow featuring recommended products.

• Incentivise buying again: Set up a re-engagement flow that delivers an exclusive discount code, motivating shoppers to return to your site and use it.

When setting up email flows, it’s also important that they follow email best practices, such as:

• Clear CTAs: Your call-to-action or CTA should clearly tell shoppers where they need to go next. Make sure it’s both strong and simple to motivate shoppers to complete the intended action without confusing them.

• Including personalised content: Improve engagement by tailoring email content to the shopper. For example, include their name in the subject line or display their recently viewed products.

Considerations: A shopper’s activity during Q4 may not represent their own interests, as they’ll often be shopping for gifts. Make sure to consider this when crafting your email campaigns and flows to avoid sending irrelevant content.

2. Focus on customer loyalty

Certain shoppers may have only subscribed to your newsletter to receive festive offers, so building a rapport is vital at this stage.

You need to give these shoppers a reason to stay subscribed and engaged with your brand. Using tactics that build on customer loyalty is key to providing this.

Try implementing the following to foster a feeling of loyalty in your shoppers:

• Send a birthday discount: Show recognition for your shoppers as individuals by emailing them an exclusive discount around their birthday.

• Celebrate milestones with your shoppers: When you hit key milestones in your business, make your shoppers feel appreciated by thanking them for helping you get there.

• Make them feel understood: Make shoppers feel like your brand really gets them with an AI-powered search that connects them directly to their ideal products.

The stronger your customer relationships, the more likely they are to return to your site and share it with their friends. It’s a win-win. 

3. Personalise the customer journey

Personalising your touchpoints is key to providing a customer experience that makes your Christmas shoppers want to return in future.

You can do this through traditional segmentation, which involves grouping shoppers based on demographic attributes like gender, age or location. However, a more effective way to personalise the customer journey is by using their real-time activity.

Intelligent customer journey optimisation solutions like Salesfire make it easy to craft data-driven, personalised interactions for every shopper. By tracking the actions your shoppers take, you can showcase content tailored to their latest interests or shopping activity.

Using shopper data, you can incorporate personalisation into your:

• On-site messaging: Ensure shoppers only receive the most relevant messaging on your site by adapting campaigns depending on their activity.

• Email campaigns: For example, when sending a cart abandonment flow, you could dynamically pull in and display the items from that shopper’s cart. This can maximise engagement with the email and help drive a repeat purchase. 

• Product recommendations: Showcase similar or complementary products to a shopper’s recent purchase on product pages to encourage additional sales.

Providing tailored content helps you to show your Christmas shoppers that you’ve got more to offer than seasonal discounts. It’s key to improving customer satisfaction and, therefore, essential for year-round eCommerce success.

Suggested reading: How SMEs Can Achieve Personalisation at Scale

4. Harness the power of social media

Your social media platforms can be a powerful tool when it comes to retaining your new customers.

It’s the place to build a community and reinforce the brand identity that your customers come to know and love.

72% of consumers who have a positive experience with your brand on social media will be willing to spend more with you.³ So, your socials can be a key driver in your Christmas shoppers returning to purchase later.

If you’ve gained followers over the Christmas period, maintain their engagement by:

• Teasing new product launches: Carry on the excitement after Christmas and keep shoppers hooked by posting teasers when new products are about to drop.

• Encouraging user-generated content (UGC): Commenting on and sharing content that shoppers post about your brand can promote long-term involvement in your online community.

Your social media content must provide value to shoppers if you want them to remain interested. However, when you do things right, it can boost shoppers’ impressions of your brand and add value to their experience.

Delivering an omnichannel experience can get more festive shoppers to buy into your brand long-term, helping to improve retention rates.

Suggested watching: Learn how to use social media within your wider customer retention strategy in our free webinar ‘Lifecycle Marketing 101’.

Invest in your customer retention strategy

Post-Christmas sales can often take a dip as Christmas shopping phases out, but an effective retention strategy could prevent this from happening.

Your shoppers are more likely to return if you provide value to them through every interaction with your brand. You need to show shoppers that you’re worth sticking around for all year, not just at Christmas time.

By applying our top tips, from data-driven email flows to personalised recommendations, you can transform your seasonal shoppers into loyal customers.

1 How to keep holiday shoppers coming back in 2025 | Retail Customer Experience

2 Customer Retention Versus Customer Acquisition | Forbes

3 The State of Social Media: After a Year of Transformation, Executives Are All-In on Social | SproutSocial