November-January can be your best period of the year:

5-7 weeks that can dramatically change your business’s entire economy. For many projects, this period is crucial for the ROAS of all cohorts acquired throughout the year. A poorly executed holiday season can turn your entire performance marketing into a loss. Actually, it all starts with Halloween, but we’ve already missed that one.

It’s +25°C and sunny outside, hard to believe Christmas is coming. But it’s coming. So let’s get ready.

Why are November, December and January the most critical months?

People are expecting holidays. They are ready to spend money – not only on gifts for friends and family but also on themselves. Usually, parting with cash is hard. But during this period, you’re already programmed to spend – it feels normal. Not spending is weird. Buying something is enjoyable and straightforward.

Discounts are the main attribute of this period. If your product doesn’t have discounts, users will buy from your competitors. Discounts aren’t just a way to increase conversions and revenue – they’re a way to not lose to competitors during this period.

Marketing can be broken down into several components:

Design: users expect familiar holiday-season elements.
Offer: users want to see discounts and special deals.
Communication: you need to inform users about discounts through all available channels.

You should add key holiday elements at almost every funnel stage:

The key is recognizable elements – I’m talking now about visuals, not texts or communications.

You can add these:

These changes don’t need A/B testing - maybe only during the first 1-2 days if you have enough traffic. Your task is to create a sense of holiday, urgency, and a valuable offer.

When forming an offer, answer three questions:

Most understandable offers for users:

Keep it simple – don’t make users think.

WHO: segment your audience:

New users: you don’t even need real discounts – “fake” discounts work. Just add visuals.

Old non-paying active: your chance to convert them. Give a truly valuable offer – Black Friday might be the moment they finally pay and stay long-term.

Old non-paying inactive: they once showed interest but didn’t use the app. Minor price adjustments can work – they likely don’t remember previous prices.

Former paying users: valuable cohort, try to win them back with a strong offer.

Paying inactive: leave them alone.

Paying actively: two options: 1) leave them, 2) upsell if possible. Offer additional products, credits, or new features – they often bring ~80% of revenue, especially in mobile games.

Offer duration: always limit time and clearly communicate it, even if another offer follows immediately (Black Friday → Cyber Monday). Sometimes, quantity limits work too – or at least create the illusion of scarcity.

Design overlaps with communication, but I separate it for clarity.

Communication = how you deliver the offer to your audience (both current and new users).

External communication: outside the app

Here’s the counterintuitive part: new users don’t care about discounts inside your app. They usually aren’t ready to pay anyway. Discounts matter to users already familiar with your app.

So:

Why? In B2C, you sell solutions, not price. Users want beauty, wealth, love, health. You sell the outcome first; discounts are secondary.

Retargeting: if you collect emails or have Meta SDK, run small campaigns targeting existing users. You can win back churned users or upsell current ones with minimal spend.

Internal communication: inside the app

Tell users about promotions at almost every funnel stage:

Always segment offers by audience.

Apple introduced these a year ago. They let you target previous subscribers with special offers and promote them in the App Store.

Based on your offer configuration, Apple displays these offers to eligible customers in various places, including:

Use this to re-engage users who once paid.

This mechanic is very popular in mobile games, and I’m starting to see it in e-commerce from time to time. It’s worth applying in mobile apps.

Add different offers on the wheel of fortune, give the user a limited number of “spins,” and provide a chance to win a guaranteed prize.

You can do it as follows: three spins, two of which land on empty segments (so the user gets no prize), the third lands on a segment “+1 product as a gift,” and the next one on the segment with the most expensive prize.

This mechanic has been used for decades and, I think, still works flawlessly. However, they say Apple might not approve it in a store update. But I think you’ll manage.

Popular in mobile games, increasingly in e-commerce.

Works well psychologically, though Apple might challenge updates – figure it out.

You need to test.

Add an expensive subscription on the main soft paywall, when the paywall is closed → show a mega offer with a discount (bringing the price down to your old one).

If I think of more, I’ll post in X. Good luck with Black Friday!