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Retail Media Insights · Sensor Tower · January 2026
Retail Media Sleighs the Holidays
Retail media gets especially busy during the holidays, just like the rest of us. We’ll revisit past seasonal trends to highlight the categories and RMNs that typically see the biggest lift, and take an early look at which brands made the biggest moves this November.
Year After Year, Impressions Peak as Brands Compete for Holiday Shoppers
From gift-giving to deal-hunting, the holiday season consistently sparks a surge in retail media activity. Over the past three years, total impressions have followed a reliable seasonal pattern, peaking during November and December. For both retailers and advertisers, this critical shopping period includes Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and major winter holidays, driving impressions to their highest levels of the year.
Notably, total impression volume has grown steadily YoY, reflecting the broader rise of retail media. In November 2025, impressions climbed +14% MoM to 27B, a record high for the Black Friday/Cyber Monday timeframe. Data for December 2025 was not available yet at the time of this analysis.
For RMNs, Holiday Months Drive an Outsized Share of Activity
For many retail media networks (RMNs), November and December represent a disproportionately large share of their annual advertising activity. At Costco, for example, nearly half (45%) of all 2024 impressions occurred during just those two key months. Holiday messaging at Costco was led by electronics brands, with Samsung TVs, Google Chromebooks, and Acer Laptops as the top three advertisers.
Even at Walmart, one of the largest RMNs in the US, the holiday season drove a measurable spike. In just two out of twelve months, Walmart delivered roughly one-quarter of their 2024 impressions.
Gifting Categories See the Highest Concentration of Holiday Impressions
To understand which product categories are driving the holiday frenzy on retail media, we identified those with the highest concentration of impressions in November and December. The top-ranking categories were closely tied to gift-giving, including Toys and Electronics.
In 2024, 67% of Household Batteries impressions ran during the two-month holiday window, the highest seasonal share of any category. Duracell led the charge with a Walmart campaign promoting their “Power Boost Ingredients,” featuring ads that drove to a custom “Toy Shop” landing page on Walmart.com.
As Toys & Games rose to the top of holiday wishlists, November and December accounted for 56% of the category’s annual impressions.
In November 2025, Top Advertisers Included LG, Samsung, and LEGO
Fast-forwarding to November 2025, we took an early look at the advertisers who generated the largest impression growth during this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday period. As expected, the top performers spanned tech, toys, and appliances, categories often featured in gift guides and special promotions.
LG Appliances led all brands, adding +209M impressions MoM with a holiday promotion at Best Buy. LEGO’s growth (+152M) was fueled by festive TikTok ads at Walmart and a Display campaign at Amazon.
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