Unwrapping Seasonal Strategies

Strategic insights for app marketers during the 2025 holiday season

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The 2025 holidays are stacking up to be the most competitive yet. Yes, the ecosystem is more crowded than ever. Yes, user behavior is as unpredictable as ever. But when smart planning and sharp insights meet precise execution, savvy app marketers stand to gain more valuable, more engaged users during this critical time of year.

These interactive dashboards give marketers the intelligence they need. Explore 2024 user behavior and marketing trends by vertical and country, then compare them against 2025 data that will be updated weekly throughout the year. Smart marketers can use these insights to spot opportunities others miss and capitalize on the year's most critical growth period.

The Dynamic Holiday Season

The holiday period isn't a single event—it's a dynamic sequence of distinct opportunities, each with different competitive dynamics, user behaviors, and performance characteristics. The marketers who win are those who adapt their approach to match each phase's unique conditions.

Select a Vertical

Select the vertical that aligns with your business for a deep dive into user behavior and marketing trends. Refine your analysis further by selecting a specific subvertical.

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User Behavior Trends

While certain holiday patterns are predictable, like gaming's Q5 lift from new devices or ecommerce apps' Black Friday peak, every holiday season brings unexpected shifts in user behavior and competitive dynamics. Add in the fact that these trends vary significantly by country and vertical, and it becomes clear: monitoring how 2025 actually unfolds, rather than relying solely on historical patterns, is critical to unlocking performance. 

Understanding how your target audience behaves is critical for holiday season success

Compare year-over-year user behavior trends by country and OS

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Year

Past (2024/2025)

Current (2025/2026)

VIZ user behavior HERE
Source: Sensor Tower estimates using custom vertical classification.
*Revenue above defined as IAP & subscription estimates.

Marketing Trends

Just as consumer behavior shifts throughout the holiday season, marketing dynamics are equally fluid. The chart below, based on Moloco’s proprietary data, shows indexed metrics that reveal how the marketing landscape ebbs and flows across pre-holiday, peak, and post-holiday periods. Track ad opportunities, CPM, CPI, ROAS, and ARPPU to see exactly when opportunities may arise.

Monitoring the marketing landscape reveals opportunities throughout the holiday season

Compare year-over-year marketing trends by country and OS

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Year

Past (2024/2025)

Current (2025/2026)

VIZ Advertiser Trends HERE
Source: Moloco Internal Data, September 2024 - October 2025. Performance indexed to the first week of October for 2024 and 2025 (or first period where data present). All benchmarks are created at a cohort level with minimum thresholds; if the minimums are not met, data will not be shown.

Where Value Meets Opportunity 

The ultimate key to holiday performance lies in understanding how user behavior and marketing activity interact—and diverge. The chart below lets you dynamically compare metrics like time spent vs. CPM, revenue vs. ad opportunities, or downloads vs. ROAS to reveal opportunities throughout the holiday season. Monitoring these dynamics can help you identify precisely when to lean in, whether it's capitalizing on efficiency windows where user engagement is high but marketing competition is low, scaling investment when user activity surges, or adjusting your approach as marketing and user patterns evolve.

Use the interactive chart below to test your own hypotheses or explore periods that best benefit your business.

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Comparing user behavior against marketing activity uncovers hidden opportunities

Select any combination of user and marketing trends to identify efficiency windows by country and OS

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Select user metric
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VIZ User & Advertiser Trends HERE
Source: Sensor Tower Estimates, and Moloco Internal Data, Sep 24 - Oct 25.Performance indexed to the first week of October for 2024 and 2025 (or first period where data present). All benchmarks are created at a cohort level with minimum thresholds; if the minimums are not met, data will not be shown.

Every app is unique, and so is your path to holiday success. The right creative approach, bidding strategy, and budget allocation for your vertical, market, and business model requires true expertise. Moloco's team specializes in helping app marketers succeed during high-stakes seasonal periods, and we're ready to help you build a tailored approach for your goals.

Reach out to the Moloco team for expert guidance and customized recommendations for your 2025 holiday season.

Insight 1

Ad supply and demand diverge late Oct; Christmas - new year → increase spend to capture users cost-efficiently

Insight 2

Ad supply and demand diverge late Oct; Christmas - new year → increase spend to capture users cost-efficiently

Insight 3

Ad supply and demand diverge late Oct; Christmas - new year → increase spend to capture users cost-efficiently

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