Knowing more about Q5- The ‘Secret’ quarter where competition drops, ad costs decrease and your audience finally has the time to listen.
Why is Q5 the best-kept secret in digital marketing strategy?
We’re all familiar with the “Golden Quarter of Q4”. This period drives a high-stake race until Christmas day where every brand is pushing huge promotions. But most brands will cross this anticipated finish line on December 25th and miss the important period known as Q5.
Q5 runs from Boxing Day to mid January and it is often overlooked because many brands think that consumers switch off after huge holiday shopping. The reality is they aren’t stopping, they’re just shifting from buying for others to buying for themselves. Insights from a YouGov survey for Meta showed 41% of shoppers continue spending well into the new year for their own motivation.
Why should your strategy include activity for Q5
Think of Q5 as your secret weapon to drive your business into the next year.
We learned from Global Median statistics, while Q4 ad space is crowded and expensive, the post-holiday period sees a massive drop in competition. Meta’s insights from 2024-25 pointed out that online advertising costs were down around 30% and in-app purchase rate rose 0.4% in the UK.
This essentially means your budget goes further during this period.
Maintaining a high presence in Q5 while your competitors pause everything could be your competitive advantage – clicks are cheaper, the stress of Christmas is gone and with annual leave refreshing for the majority of people in the UK, they start to think of travel – but it’s the research phase. No-one is looking at the hotel yet, they’re looking at the ‘where’.
Example of Campaigns
5 Star Country House Hotel
For one of our clients in the luxury travel sector, we worked on launching a special winter offer on Boxing Day to the end of January with up to 50% off rooms. By utilising previous customer lists as a source for ‘lookalike’ audiences – we were able to push the offer to in-market audiences who then purchased the offer.
Results from Meta:
- ROAS of 2
- 47% increase in sessions, including 94% uplift in brand searches
Nationally Recognised South West Holiday Park
When one of the biggest holiday parks in the South West came to us with the brief of pushing their biggest sale of the year, all the historical data pointed towards starting in January. Because that’s what the competition were doing – however our research showed the opportunity to get ahead of the competition and start on Boxing Day.
Result:
- 4% (£25k) increase in total revenue for sales period
- 26% increase from 26th – 30th December
Heritage Glassware Brand
The Q5 trend isn’t just for travel – it’s also a time where sentiment shifts towards more ‘self care’ following the gift giving over Christmas. It’s also an opportunity for e-commerce brands to take advantage of the lack of physical ‘boxing day sales’ as more users now traditionally search online for these deals.
Using the huge audiences built up with our Black Friday/Christmas gifting campaigns, we were able to remarket effectively.
Result:
- 30% increase year-over-year in revenue during sales period;
- ROAS of 13 – an 85% improvement year-over-year.
What does Q5 2026 hold for you?
The results from our Q5 campaigns were positive – and of course, there are a multitude of other factors at play but something as simple as just loading your budgets differently can have such an impact on how you start your year compared to your competition.
If you want to talk about how you can be more strategic with your budget, lets have a chat.
