Retention Edge E20: The Secret to Profitable Holiday Campaigns

We’re back with another episode of The Retention Edge Podcast.

In this episode, Eric welcomes Derek Videll from Social Bamboo: a Meta Ads expert who has worked on 700+ ad accounts across nearly every industry.

We get into why Q4 is actually one of the best times to start spending, how to build offers that convert, why most brands overcomplicate “warming up” their audience, and Derek’s favorite strategy for keeping momentum once the holiday rush fades.

It’s tactical, it’s refreshing, and it’ll probably change the way you think about running ads.

Here are the key takeaways from what we discussed on the pod — and what you need to know to fully optimize your holiday season ad campaigns:

Holiday Season Best Practices

The holiday period is one of the strongest times to run ads; not because costs rise, but because purchase intent does.

People expect real deals. They’re actively shopping. And the built-in urgency of clear holiday dates does most of the heavy lifting for you. Simple, offer-led creative is often all you need.

A straightforward sitewide percentage discount works for nearly every brand, but cross-out pricing is stronger when customers don’t already know your price point.

Single-image ads consistently outperform carousels in most industries, so start with clean, simple creative that highlights your top sellers.

Creating Demand vs Capturing Demand

Rather than building elaborate warmup sequences, the fastest path to profitable ads is focusing on ready-to-buy shoppers — the people already browsing, searching, or comparing products in your space.

Platforms like Meta already know who these people are, and they convert at the highest ROAS.

Once that core group is converting profitably, then it makes sense to widen the net with benefit-driven ads, testimonials, deeper education, and videos. But the foundation of a successful account is always built by showing up in front of the people who are most likely to buy right now.

Your Post-Holiday Strategy

After the holiday rush, there’s a natural cool-off period where performance drops across the board.

Derek’s advice? Rather than forcing sales into a tired market, use this window to reset your momentum through a well-structured giveaway tied directly to your own product.

Collect email or SMS on the first step, then offer bonus entries for the actions your business needs most — follows, reviews, shares, survey responses, etc.

This is one of the few cross-platform strategies that meaningfully increases engagement everywhere while rebuilding attention after a heavy sales cycle.

Growing Social Media Channels

Followers matter far less than they used to for driving reach or revenue, but giveaways remain one of the most reliable ways to grow an account with real people.

Incentivized bonus actions dramatically outperform typical “cross-platform” asks, which usually convert poorly on their own.

Organic content still plays an important role for brand presence and long-term trust, but it’s difficult to rely on it as a primary revenue driver. Paid traffic gives consistency — organic is the complement, not the foundation.

Ad Spend Recommendations

Start small. Lower budgets force Meta to be more selective with delivery, which helps you reach higher-intention users early on. Launch four to six ads at $20–$30/day and watch the early metrics closely.

Use simple benchmarks to know whether an ad is worth keeping: an add-to-cart by 1,000 impressions, an initiate checkout by 1,500, and a purchase by 2,000.

From there, the game is about iteration — let your best-performing ads point the direction, and focus on creating new variants designed to beat your current winners.

Derek’s a trove of information about social media marketing, right at a time when brands need it the most.

Watch or listen to the episode below:

You can also find it on Spotify. Wherever you listen, don’t forget to like, rate, review, comment, subscribe. Each interaction helps us bring more experts on to share their wisdom (always free, btw).

Connect with Derek on LinkedIn here, or learn more about what he’s up to at Social Bamboo.

I’ll be back later in the week with the latest from around the ecom world, plus our regular deep dives into retention and sustainable growth strategies.

Talk soon,

Pietro and The Retention Edge Team

PS: thinking about launching your own app? Go to our website to get a preview of your app for free, or shoot me a DM on LinkedIn to talk about it.