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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 to Begin
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.
Downloads (Installs), Revenue (IAP & Subscription $ USD), Time Spent (Hours).
Sensor Tower time spent estimates have a two-week lag from the date report was last updated.
Downloads (Installs), Revenue (IAP & Subscription $ USD), Time Spent (Hours).
Sensor Tower time spent estimates have a two-week lag from the date report was last updated.
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.
Plan Your Unique Seasonal Strategy
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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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.
Peak Season Playbook:
Black Friday through Christmas
The holiday season follows a predictable pattern: costly competition during Black Friday and Cyber Monday gives way to softening auctions in mid-December and superior unit economics from Christmas into the new year.
While Black Friday is a great time to drive volume, the real performance opportunities arrive in December. Competition drops as newly activated device owners search for new apps and games.
After the Black Friday surge, costs ease throughout December, making Christmas through "Q5" (the period between Christmas and early January) the most efficient stretch for user acquisition. In the United States, CPIs fall 24% for gaming apps and 37% for consumer apps from Black Friday through the year-end. The pattern repeats globally, with both CPI and CPM declining more than 25% over the same period.
Ring-fence a dedicated Q5 budget now
Don’t treat post-Christmas as an afterthought. Last year, iOS CPI fell 19% while ad opportunities grew 10%. Set aside 25-30% of your holiday budget for December 26 through early January to capture new device owners when competition drops.
Set tighter bid caps for Black Friday, then scale into Christmas
Black Friday is the most expensive window of the quarter– CPMs can spike 37% with declining ROAS. Control spend with bid caps during late November, but start scaling spend as early as mid-December as auction pressures begin to soften.
Prioritize Android to capture cost-efficient scale during peak
If iOS competition drives up costs, shift to Android. Last year, Android CPM fell 31%, CPI dropped 13%, and ROAS improved 5% from late September through Thanksgiving. Scale Android during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, then expand iOS in December.
Reach out to the Moloco team for expert guidance and custom recommendations for your 2025 holiday season.
