By many accounts, this past holiday season was a banner year for brands. Adobe Analytics found that 2025’s holiday spending hit record highs, despite slower growth than the 2023–2024 season. Overall, online spending from the start of November through the end of December hit $258 billion (6.8% YoY) in 2025.
Behind those millions of searches, clicks, saves, and sign-ups are real signals that show exactly what audiences care about and how they engage. For example, retail sites saw a 693% surge in traffic tied to AI-powered shopping assistants and chatbots this year. That kind of growth suggests shoppers are becoming more comfortable letting AI do the comparison shopping for them. Buy now, pay later also became an even more popular option, implying that shoppers were looking for ways to make bigger purchases feel manageable.
January is your opportunity to harness those insights or let them languish. This guide looks back at what worked during the holidays and how to use those insights to plan more effectively for 2026 and beyond.
What People Searched for in December (and Why It Matters Now)
December queries are shaped by the year people just lived through. Sometimes, they signal indulgence; other times, restraint.
Google’s Holiday 100 trends, for instance, made a few patterns clear. In 2025, search interest clustered around practical gift categories: things like movie projectors, weighted vests, kids’ scooters, and backpacks. At scale, that mix suggests steady demand for items that solve everyday needs and feel worth the spend.
In addition to category interest shifts, broader consumer behavior illuminated how people actually made decisions across the season:
- AI-driven sales in the U.S. topped $3 billion on Black Friday alone
- Conversion rates from AI referrals outpaced traditional social channels by a wide margin
- Value-seeking and sharply price-conscious shoppers favored smaller-ticket gifts
- A majority of consumers said rising prices would influence their holiday spending, especially among younger generations facing tighter budgets
Taken together, these signals point to shoppers who were deliberate, price-aware, and increasingly influenced by tools that helped them feel confident about their choices.
In terms of actionable insights here that can carry over to 2026, focus on what reduced friction for people when decisions got complicated. Look at Google Trends and see how searches like “budget gifts” stack up against “luxury gifts” in your market. Then pull last Q4’s Search Console data to see what actually brought people in, not just what you assumed would. Saves on social and interactions with short-form or AI-generated clips tend to spike when people are narrowing choices.
The throughline: Context beats cleverness. When money feels tight, “under $25 gifts” will outperform premium roundups almost every time. For 2026 content planning purposes, marketers should prioritize formats that answer real questions and make next steps obvious.
Where Specificity Wins
Holiday SEO moved fast. January is when you can finally see what held up in search and what didn’t. Rankings have settled, traffic has normalized, and it’s clearer which pages earned their visibility versus which ones were buried.
Looking back, many Q4 search wins came from specificity. Gift-giving phrases, problem-driven queries, and local intent tended to outperform broad holiday terms. Pages that spoke directly to last-minute or highly specific needs earned traction, while generic “Christmas” pages faced steeper competition and more mixed intent.
Long-tail targeting is likely to become even more useful as more discovery happens through conversational queries, whether people type them, speak them, or ask an assistant. In many categories, those behaviors create whitespace brands can capture with clearer, more specific pages.
There’s a particular opportunity with voice search that most businesses are still missing, as we can see below:
Before deciding what to update or reuse next year, check how competitive your keywords were and whether your site was realistically positioned to rank. SEO checkers are useful for validating where effort paid off and where it probably never had a chance.
A post-holiday SEO review usually surfaces takeaways like:
- Holiday URLs that performed well are worth keeping live and updating each season
- Structured data helped certain pages stand out in crowded results
- Updated pages outperformed brand-new ones
- Page speed and simple layouts mattered during high-intent searches
- Basic accessibility improvements supported engagement
Use what December showed you to make cleaner, more realistic SEO decisions going forward.
Building a Content Calendar That Works in January
If December reveals which content holds up under pressure, January is the time to translate those signals into structure. Use the month to reset your publishing rhythm around the pieces that consistently supported real decisions.
A few best practices:
- Publish anchor content early so it can build momentum over time (guides, evergreen explainers, core resources).
- Create decision-support content that aligns with key moments when people are choosing quickly.
- Craft audience-specific pieces tailored to distinct segments instead of broad, one-size-fits-all topics.
- Make space for short-cycle content that moves from idea to publish quickly during spikes.
- Focus on low-friction formats that reduce cognitive load and help people progress without extra steps.
Leaving roughly 20% of the schedule open creates space to respond to demand as it appears, while keeping the rest of the plan stable.
Turning Holiday Insights Into Your Next Plan
The holiday season has passed, and what remains is the record: what people clicked, saved, returned to, and ignored when their attention was stretched thin.
Start with what you already know. Pull the last two years of Q4 data and identify five things that consistently worked. Build around those wins. Add one new experiment to keep learning and to give yourself room to improve.
Momentum comes from simple steps taken in order. Choose one tactic from this guide and implement it today. Tomorrow, choose another. Progress stacks quickly when the next step is always clear.
Audiences respond to clarity. Content that helps them decide, solve something practical, or move forward with less friction earns trust over time. Keep doing that consistently, and your strategy keeps paying dividends, season after season.
Ready to see which stories actually move people through the funnel? Contently’s platform surfaces performance signals across search, social, and conversions — all in one place. See how it works.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
What’s the biggest lesson marketers should take from the 2025 holiday season?
That audiences reward clarity. Content that helps people compare options, feel confident, and move forward tends to outperform splashy, generic pieces — especially when budgets feel tight.
What metrics matter most when analyzing post-holiday performance?
Look beyond traffic. Prioritize assisted conversions, time on key decision pages, return visits, saves, and email sign-ups. These signals reveal which pieces reduced friction and moved people closer to a decision.
What should I prioritize in January when planning my calendar?
Build around what worked. Anchor evergreen guides early, schedule decision-support content around key moments, leave ~20% of your calendar open for flexibility, and use short-cycle formats when urgency spikes.
The post What’s Working in Content for 2026? What the Holiday Season Taught Us appeared first on Contently.