Christmas popups and holiday campaigns, from gift guide to New Year sale

The holiday season is several short campaigns, each with a different message. Plan them together and schedule them in one sitting.

Early December: help people choose

• A gift guide popup or the Perfect gift finder quiz for shoppers who do not know what to buy.
• An announcement bar that says gift wrapping and gift cards are available, if they are.

Mid December: the last order date

• A bar with a countdown to your delivery cut-off. This is the most useful message of the month.
• A gift game for new visitors: the Christmas wheel of gifts or Holiday gift boxes.

After the cut-off

• Change the bar the same day. Promote gift cards, click and collect, or anything else that can still arrive.

26 December to early January

• Boxing Day and New Year sale banners, then a quieter welcome offer for January.

If your Black Friday campaigns are still running, end them first. The Black Friday page has the plan for that weekend.

"Order by 18 December for delivery before Christmas" answers the question every gift buyer has. Put it in a floating bar on every page and add a countdown timer set to the fixed date mode, so it ends for everyone at the same moment.

• Take the date from your courier, then leave yourself a margin. A late gift is remembered longer than a discount.
• If you ship to several countries with different cut-offs, make one bar per country and use the Country rule to show the right one.
• Set the campaign's end date to match the countdown, and schedule the replacement bar to start at the same time.

Tafsee Popup does not know your courier's deadlines or your stock. The date in the bar is the one you type, so check it once more before you publish.

Three templates in the gallery are made for the holidays. All three are in English and every text, colour and prize can be changed.

• Christmas wheel of gifts. A spin-to-win wheel in red and gold. The sample prizes are 10% off, free gift wrap, 15% off, free shipping and 25% off.
• Holiday gift boxes. The visitor picks one of four boxes to unwrap, then enters an email to keep the prize.
• Perfect gift finder. A short quiz that ends on a recommendation and a code. It suits stores with a wide range.

For a lighter touch, a scratch card works the same way with a single reveal. There is also a New year reset popup for January offers and a Halloween trick-or-treat wheel if you start the season in October.

You set the prizes and how often each one comes up. Only list prizes you can honour, and create each code in your store before the campaign goes live. There is no template named for Boxing Day; duplicate a sale campaign and change the copy.

You do not need a deeper discount than in November. December buyers respond to help and reassurance.

• Gifts by budget. A slide-in on the home page linking to "under 25", "under 50" and "under 100" collections.
• Free gift wrap in place of a discount. It costs little and solves a real problem.
• Gift cards after the cut-off. The only product that always arrives on time.
• A bundle price for sets that are already bought together.
• A thank-you code for January, shown on the success screen in December. It gives buyers a reason to return when trade is slow.
• An email signup with a gift guide as the reward. See what is a lead magnet for how to choose one.

A Christmas sale banner should say one thing. If you have three messages, run them one after another on a schedule; do not stack three bars.

The week after Christmas has its own shoppers: people spending gift money, returning to buy what they did not receive, and starting January plans. Your Christmas messaging should be gone by the morning of 26 December.

• Boxing Day sale banner. Schedule it to start at midnight on the 26th, or on the evening of the 25th if your customers shop then. A fixed-date countdown shows when it ends.
• New Year sale banner. A second bar for the days around 1 January, with different copy so it does not read as the same sale renamed.
• January. Move to a welcome offer or a newsletter signup. The New year reset template is a ready design for a fresh-start offer.

Because each bar has its own date range, you can build all three in mid December and leave them alone.

Once the December campaigns exist, the next occasion takes minutes. Duplicate the gift game and the cut-off bar, change the dates and the design, and you have a Valentine's Day campaign. The gallery has a Valentine's Day love wheel template for it.

The same pattern of gift idea, last order date and follow-up offer works for Mother's Day and for regional seasons such as Ramadan and Eid.