2025 eCommerce Marketing Calendar: Ideas, Tips & Inspirations

Enticing both existing and new shoppers to buy from your brand year-round is the dream. The key to making it a reality is by keeping your brand top-of-mind with the right message, at the right place, at the right time.

To help you get started, we’ve compiled a calendar of events and real-world examples to inspire your most successful and creative year yet!

Three Step System for 2025 Campaigns

It’s good to be relevant, but it’s important to strike a balance. Targeting every event on the calendar can overwhelm your customers and dilute your impact. Instead, use your customer data to focus on the events most relevant to your audience, segment them accordingly, and tailor your discounts to ensure they resonate well and deliver strong ROI.

First-party data plays a huge role in understanding customer behavior. By learning about what product categories and pages your customers interact with before any event, you can craft personalized messages that offer value to your customers throughout the year.

Three-stage approach for each event:

• Leading up to the date: Preparation is key to every campaigns success. Use your customer data to define who you're targeting and segment them into groups and prepare your communication plan. Don't forget to do a stock audit, check whether your data is synching between your inventory and website, and checkout processes are as frictionless as possible. If all is well, stir interest by hyping up what you've got in-store for the big event to test your channels - particularly your email deliverability. Don't forget to prioritize empathy during sensitive holidays like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Valentine’s Day by providing opt-outs.
• On the day: It's the big day! Connect with shoppers via their preferred channels, but be mindful that these are busy times. While it may feel like more is, well, more, it’s best to avoid flooding customers' inboxes and home screens with messages. Be subtle and respectful by reminding them of your campaign with selective and personalized messaging. Don't forget to be strategic about the types of discounts and promotions you're offering to each customer group.
• After the main event: The buzz is over, but now is the time to nurture your relationships. Follow up with customers to thank them for choosing your brand. At the same time, ask for product reviews to enhance social proof and use surveys to gather zero-party data to learn more about your customers and become even more precise in your communications.

Q1 eCommerce Marketing Calendar Dates and Holidays

The year kicks off with a focus on self-improvement, thanks to New Year’s resolutions and Dry January. Following the spending spree of the Golden Quarter, budgets are tighter during this period. Use these Q1 events to create engaging campaigns that help your customers achieve their goals and keep your brand top-of-mind for when they are ready to invest more in big events such as Valentine’s Day and Easter.

January: Veganuary, Valentine's Day, Easter, & Holi

🎆 January 1st: New Year’s Day
Start the New Year with fresh products and offers that help customers stick to their resolutions. Whether you’re in beauty, finance, health, style, or well-being, time-limited discounts on self-improvement products can motivate customers. Add value with educational content, like tips and articles, and entice shoppers with free samples of resolution-friendly items. Tailor discounts for key customer segments, like those who purchased around the same time last year.

👋 Download “The Ultimate Guide to Health, Wellness & Fitness”

🫗 Throughout January: Dry January
Dry January participation has skyrocketed by 4275% since 2013, and that trend is set to continue. Tap into this health-conscious movement by launching wellness-focused campaigns, or take a creative angle by showcasing how your products can create fun, alcohol-free experiences. Enhance this approach with a multi-step marketing journey that not only informs and educates customers about your new offerings but also shows them innovative ways to use your products in line with these trends.

🍃 Throughout January: Veganuary
Veganuary appeals to a broad audience, from eco-conscious and health-focused individuals to those curious about trying something new. With Gen Z icons like Billie Eilish championing veganism, its appeal continues to grow among younger generations. Leverage this by creatively showcasing your vegan and sustainable products, perhaps with a dedicated Veganuary section on your website. Use customer reviews to entice non-vegans and highlight product quality. Make sustainability a core part of your welcome journey, emphasizing your brand’s eco-friendly practices and showcasing brand advocacy. Don’t forget to focus on building trust through informative content rather than pushing for immediate sales.

Third Thursday of Each Quarter: 🗣️ Get to Know Your Customers Day
First, ask yourself: do you really know who your customers are? A platform like Mapp Marketing Cloud can help fill in those gaps in your customer knowledge. Consider creative campaigns that gather zero-party data while engaging customers through gamifications or rewarding surveys. This data can then be used to enrich customer profiles and help you learn more about them to personalize your communications.

January 29th: 🐍 Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year brings out lanterns, dragons, red, and symbols of luck. Let customers test their fortune via gamified experiences to win discounts and deals. Alternatively, share user-generated content featuring how customers are celebrating Chinese New Year events on social media.

February: Galentine's Day & Valentine's Day

🫶🏼 February 13th: Galentine’s Day:
Embrace the fun and light-hearted spirit of Galentine’s Day with thoughtful, engaging content that will make your brand memorable. Target singles with light campaigns, self-love products, and trending hashtags. Suggesting gifts and personalized items to tap into celebrating friendships can help you strengthen your own customer relationships.

❤️ February 14th: Valentine’s Day:
Re-engage customers using data from previous Valentine’s Days to send personalized product suggestions from their previous purchases or latest browsing behavior. To secure sales and prevent losing customers to competition, showcase positive reviews, offer extended returns, and ensure fast delivery. This is also the perfect time to grant VIP customers early access to any sell-out products. Don’t be afraid to exude luxury, especially if your customers are Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen X–these are the biggest spenders on Valentine’s Day. Don’t forget about opt-out reminders, to be sensitive to those who might find the day challenging.

Read the top 4 brands that got their Valentine’s Day campaigns right >

March: St Patrick's Day, First Day of Spring, & Holi

🍀 March 17th: St. Patrick’s Day
St. Patrick’s Day is the perfect time to inject some fun and charm into your marketing. Why not kick off with a “Pot of Gold” loyalty program where every purchase earns special rewards, redeemable for exclusive discounts? Pair that with a “Find the Leprechaun” treasure hunt on your website, where each hidden leprechaun unlocks a unique discount or prize. This creates a playful, memorable experience that customers will enjoy long after the day is over to add a touch of magic to your brand, while boosting sales.

🎨 March 14th: Holi
For a subtle yet vibrant Holi campaign, why not create a “Color Flash Sale Countdown”? Each day leading up to Holi, you could feature discounts on products in a specific color, turning the shopping experience into a playful journey of discovery. To make it even more interactive, a “Spin to Win Colorful Rewards” game could let customers spin a virtual wheel for a chance to win discounts or gifts tied to the day’s color. These creative and engaging ideas not only capture the spirit of Holi but also encourage customer interaction.

🔴 March 15th: Red Nose Day
This UK charity event raises funds through fun, laughter, and creativity. It’s a celebration of generosity, so show how your brand gives back. Build rapport with your customers by communicating your support for this event and offering to donate for every purchase above a certain value.

👩🏽 March 30th: Mother’s Day:
Celebrate the warmth of Mother’s Day by posting customer stories that honor mothers on social media. Use your channels to send reminders in the lead up to the event and spark interest in your website, email, and in-app campaigns to highlight mum-friendly products in the lead-up to Mother’s Day. You can also use your data to segment high spenders and low spenders, offering products in their price range. But remember to offer opt-outs for your Mother’s Day marketing and prioritize compassion; this is a difficult day for many.

🌸 March 20th: First Day of Spring
Celebrate the start of spring with a “Spring Reboot” campaign that focuses on new beginnings and personal growth. Engage customers with interactive content, such as quizzes to find their ideal spring routine or curated product recommendations to fulfil their needs. Encourage social sharing with a campaign hashtag where customers can post their seasonal “reboot” moments, and offer insights or tips on spring decluttering, gardening, health, or beauty.

Q2 eCommerce Marketing Calendar Dates and Holidays

Q2 is about leveraging seasonal transitions and emotional connections to drive engagement. From the playful start of April Fool’s to the renewal themes of Earth Day, campaigns should inspire interaction while aligning with customer values like sustainability. As we move into Father’s Day and Summer, focus on fostering community and shared experiences as sporting events begin. Whether through celebrating friendships, offering thoughtful gifts, or creating memorable summer moments, Q2 presents a chance to balance lighthearted fun with deeper, purpose-driven campaigns that keep your brand top-of-mind.

April: Easter & Earth Day

🤡 April 1st: April Fool’s Day
This is an opportunity to entice new customers with laughs! 75% of people will follow a funny brand, yet only 15% of brands use humor on social media. So, share an April Fool’s joke on socials to boost engagement.

🐣 April 20th: Easter
Eggs, bunnies, and chicks abound! Bring Easter to your website with gamified experiences and Easter egg hunts around your website that unlock discounts, limited-edition products, or promotions. Rich messaging with images, video, and sound is powerful here.

🌍 April 22nd: Earth Day
It’s not just about making a purchase; it’s about making a difference together. Spotlight your eco-friendly products this Earth Day by showcasing them in a dedicated collection, complete with inspiring stories about sustainable materials and their positive impact on the environment. Encourage your customers to join the movement by offering rewards for actions like choosing slower shipping or opting for recycled goods. Make sustainability irresistible by launching a trade-in program where customers can send back old products for recycling and earn discounts on new, sustainable items.

May: May Day, Star Wars, Spring Bank Holiday

🛸 May 4th: Star Wars Day
Leverage the popular “May the 4th be with you” to engage with fans through themed promotions – if you have the budget of course. It’s also a great day to connect with a passionate audience through videos and simple posts on your socials too!

🌼 May 26th: Spring Bank Holiday (UK)
A significant day for retail promotions, especially for those looking to capitalize on the long weekend. It’s an ideal time to run sales events or special offers to clear stock and encourage customers to shop during their extra day off​.

June: National Best Friend's Day, Father's Day, Wimbledon

👯‍♀️ June 8th: National Best Friend Day:
Promote discounts and buy-one-get-one-free offers for products that customers can share with friends (whether a human or a pet!) Consider hosting events, experiences, or meetups that build friendly hype on social media. Share heartfelt or funny stories about best friends using your products and encourage engagement with best-friends competitions. Alternatively, start an “invite a friend” referral campaign with discounts for customers who convince a friend to purchase from your brand.

👨🏽 June 15th: Father’s Day: 70% of shoppers are hunting for a more thoughtful present than socks for Father’s Day. Help them out! Use email marketing to highlight dad-friendly products or dad-bundles full of goodies. This is an opportunity to share lighthearted customer stories on social media (perhaps the only time you’ll get away with dad jokes!) But don’t shy away from heartfelt, emotional content. Use data from previous years to see how customers shopped for their dads and remember to offer opt-outs.

🌞 June 21st: First Day of Summer:
Summer is finally here. Engage customers with summer-themed communications. Consider weather-based marketing that highlights discounts for products that fit the forecast. To target customers out and about, consider experiential marketing, guerilla stunts, and installations. If you take this route, use QR codes to capture customer data at events.

🎾 June 30th-July 13th: Wimbledon:
It’s time for matchpoints, lawn green, and strawberries & cream. This tournament remains iconic despite its age, with 53 million streams on BBC iPlayer and Online. While tennis buffs will be watching, Wimbledon also draws in casual viewers. Identify whether your customers are passive viewers, fans of the story, or sports fanatics through gamification or pop-up surveys to tie in product launches, cross-selling, and discounts during key moments of big games via email, SMS, and in-app push.

Q3 eCommerce Marketing Calendar Dates and Holidays

Q3 presents a unique challenge—reaching customers during the summer months when they are often out of the office and on vacation. Amazon Prime Day is a key event to capture attention early, but you’ll need creative, engaging campaigns to maintain momentum. Use World Emoji Day and National Video Game Day to inject humor and interactivity into your marketing, helping to keep customers engaged on-the-go. With the back-to-school season and fall on the horizon, transition to seasonal themes to draw back to preparing for the busy period of the year.

July: Amazon Prime Day

⏳ July 16th – 17th: Amazon Prime Day:
If you have an Amazon store, Prime Day is a prime opportunity to drive sales through exclusive deals, discounts, and bundles. Take advantage of the shopping hype by promoting your Amazon deals across all channels, directing customers to your store for maximum exposure.

For brands without an Amazon store, you can still ride the Prime Day wave. Start early by offering discounts before Prime Day to capture customers who are looking for deals. Then, run a sale during Prime Day and promote it through emails, social media, and push notifications, making sure to retarget inactive customers by highlighting price drops on items left in abandoned carts.

After Prime Day, extend your sale for latecomers or offer fresh deals. Use segmentation and RFM modeling to personalize your discount strategy and avoid the “one-size-fits-all” approach, ensuring your offers resonate with the right customers.

💩 July 17th: World Emoji Day:
Need an excuse for a fun marketing campaign? It’s here with gamification! Engage customers by offering rewards for completing emoji quizzes to capture zero-party data. Or launch emoji competitions and ask customers to describe a product with emojis. But while emojis are fantastic, some might not mean what you think! The cap emoji 🧢 can signal that someone is lying, and the thumbs-up emoji 👍 can be read as sarcastic or even hostile.

August: Gone Fishing?

via GIPHY

Not quite. While your eCommerce campaigns might feel quieter as both you and your customers take vacations, it’s a great time to pivot towards mobile marketing. Even when people are “out of office,” they’re still glued to their phones. Leverage SMS, push notifications, and social media ads to reach customers on the go. By focusing on mobile-friendly strategies, you can stay connected with your audience even during the holiday slowdown, making sure your brand stays top of mind.

September: Back-to-school, National Video Game Day, First Day of Fall

📚 September: Back-to-School:
Run a “Then vs. Now Back-to-School Challenge” on TikTok or Instagram, where customers share side-by-side photo comparisons of their first day of school as a kid versus now. Encourage participants to showcase how they’ve grown, whether it’s through their style, personality, or school essentials—using your products to complete their modern look. Offer exclusive discounts or prizes for the best glow-up posts using a branded hashtag (e.g., #BackToSchoolGlowUp) for easy tracking. Make the challenge more engaging by featuring top entries on your brand’s social media and creating a custom filter or template to make posts even more shareable.

🎮 September 12th: National Video Game Day: 35% of gamers are in the medium income bracket, so they’re a great community to make your customers. Create gamified experiences that allow customers to win prizes based on competitions. Tap into nostalgia with retro gaming references that resonate with your target audience, and launch guess-the-game quizzes and shareable memes that drive engagement.

🍺 September 20th – October 5th: Oktoberfest:
Oktoberfest celebrates all things German (and beer!) Consider collaborating with breweries or pubs to market your products by giving out freebies or offering discounts to customers. During these two weeks, promote any German-themed products with sales.

🍁 September 22nd: First Day of Fall:
This is the time to highlight your fall product collection. Enrich your marketing with fall colors, hit your socials with pop culture fall references (Gilmore Girls and Twilight are often huge), and share user-generated content that fits the homely mood. Retarget customers by sending hyper-personalized emails with web crops and discounts showing fall-related products customers have interacted with. And create a sense of urgency with limited-time-only fall offers and products.

✈️ September 27th: World Tourism Day:
For eCommerce brands, you can encourage user-generated content by inviting customers to share travel memories featuring your products using a branded hashtag, boosting organic engagement. Highlight your travel-friendly collections and collaborate with influencers for social proof.

For travel brands, you can use immersive visuals and quizzes to help customers “find their dream destination,” followed by personalized travel recommendations. Engage them with dynamic retargeting that brings back unfinished bookings or shares location-specific offers they interacted with. After the trip, integrate a post-trip feedback loop, offering discounts on future trips for reviews, encouraging customer loyalty, and gathering valuable data for future targeting.

Q4 eCommerce Marketing Calendar Dates and Holidays

Q4 is the peak spending season, filled with major shopping events like Halloween, Black Friday, and Christmas. To stand out, use gamified experiences, charitable campaigns, and personalized offers. Engage early during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and maintain momentum through tailored Christmas and New Year promotions. Post-holiday, capitalize on Boxing Day with personalized product recommendations based on earlier browsing and purchases, ensuring ongoing engagement and sales even after the holiday rush.

October: International Coffee Day, Halloween, Diwali Starts

☕️ October 1st: International Coffee Day:
Nothing captures the essence of fall quite like a cozy hot drink! Offer fun and relatable quizzes and create coffee puns for your product names. Give customers discounts on your coffee-themed products, collaborate with a coffee shop or business, or give staff a coffee on you and ask them to share photos online.

🎃 October 31st: Halloween:
It’s spooky season! Launch a “Haunted Hunt” experience where customers can search your website for hidden Halloween-themed items or clues that unlock exclusive discounts, limited-time offers, or product bundles. Incorporate gamification by offering rewards for completing challenges or “escaping” from virtual haunted rooms tied to your product categories. Use augmented reality filters, allowing customers to try on virtual costumes or Halloween-themed items. Encourage user-generated content by asking customers to share their experiences using a branded hashtag, offering additional rewards for the best posts.

🪔 October 18th – 23rd: Diwali:
Host a “Light Up Lives” campaign in-store and online, where a portion of every purchase during the Diwali season contributes to providing solar lamps to underprivileged communities. In-store, give shoppers a simple yet meaningful thank-you card detailing the impact of their contribution. On your website, create a progress tracker showing how many lamps have been donated, encouraging shoppers to contribute more. Highlight customer impact stories through email and social media, strengthening the connection between the celebration of light and giving back.

November: Bonfire Night, Thanksgiving, Black Friday

🔥 November 5th: Bonfire Night:
It’s time for fireworks, burning effigies, and toffee apples! This family-friendly holiday allows you to brighten your communications with fireworks and bonfires. Many people brave the cold to enjoy displays, so this is an opportunity to deliver weather-based marketing and offer discounts on cozy products to get them through the cold.

🧡 November 11th: Single’s Day:
Launch a “Solo Adventures” Challenge where customers can unlock personalized offers by completing fun, self-care tasks or milestones, like “buying something just for you” or “trying a new hobby.” Use email and SMS to send daily encouragements, offering exclusive discounts on self-love products or experiences for completing each task. You can also launch a social Solos Stories Campaign on Single’s Day, to ask customers to share their best self-love tips using a branded hashtag. Highlight the most inspiring entries on your social media, tagging users and offering discounts as rewards. This drives engagement, fosters community, and encourages re-engagement through user-generated content.

🥧 November 27th: Thanksgiving:
While people often wait for Black Friday sales, it’s a time to prepare for one of the biggest holidays in the U.S! Start by promoting products that help people give thanks. Thanksgiving is an opportunity to drive engagement with shoppers looking for recipes, products, and gifts. You can also deliver content marketing, targeting trending topics and how-tos that draw new customers to your website, while nurturing existing customers.

🛍️ November 28th: Black Friday:
There are countless tactics for the biggest sale of the year, which is why we thought we’d have them readily available for you below.

Explore our Black Friday resources:

• Video Series: Mapp's Black Friday Masterplan
• Infographic: 9 Tips You Need for a Successful Golden Quarter

December: Christmas, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve

📆 December 1st: Cyber Monday:
The first Monday after Black Friday is Cyber Monday. Traditionally, it’s for online sales, but with eCommerce taking over, it opens up a different opportunity. Follow up on products that site visitors abandoned in their baskets or browsed over the Black Friday weekend. Then, retarget them with a personalized discount or irresistible offer, like buy one, get one free. Also offer in-store discounts to target customers who live near your selected stores to help clear stock and drive sales.

📦 December 14th: National Free Shipping Day:
Offer free shipping to boost profits in the lead-up to Christmas. Highlight fast delivery options alongside tracking and verification so people can ensure gifts are arriving on time.

❄️ December 21st: First Day of Winter:
Drop your winter collection and highlight warm, cozy products to get your customers through the winter. This is the shortest night of the year, so use a countdown timer if you want to host a mini-sale to clear excess stock, or offer products that bring brightness or celebrate the winter equinox. If any winter favorites that your customers love are back in stock, let them know by requesting notifications!

🎅🏼 December 25th: Christmas:
Help your customers gift their loved ones by suggesting popular products with great reviews! Offer bundles for stockings and cross-sell products that are often bought together to help customers gift their loved ones. Remember to inform customers of the last dates for delivery before Christmas Day and offer shipping notifications.

Share warm, family-oriented, relatable social media posts and create content with how-tos on gift-giving, recipes, and Christmas decorations. However, to be inclusive and respectful, provide opt-out options from holiday messaging due to religious or personal sensitivities (e.g., grief, non-celebratory values). Proactively offer these opt-outs during Black Friday to give customers control over their holiday experience. Avoid direct messaging on Christmas Day to remain sensitive.

Here are more Christmas holiday tactics to unbox below:

• Guide: Sleigh Your Holiday Marketing
• PDF: Surviving the Holidays

🎁 December 26th: Boxing Day:
Boxing Day is a time for sales and post-Christmas stock clearance! Here, customers start shopping for themselves again, so personalize recommendations based on pre-Christmas data. Send emails showing you’re discounting products they love by featuring offers on products in abandoned baskets, browse, and web crops. Reward your VIPs with higher discounts and early access to the sale.

🎆 December 31st: New Year’s Eve: Finish the year by clearing stock with attractive discounts on bestsellers and seasonal items. Create “New Year Sale” bundles to encourage bulk purchases and highlight offers that motivate customers to refresh their lifestyle. Use influencer marketing to drive interest and clear inventory efficiently.

🧘🏽 For Health, Wellness, and Fitness brands, there’s a special focus! Promote products that align with New Year’s resolutions, like fitness gear, wellness supplements, or mindfulness tools. Emphasize the benefits of setting goals and offer bundle discounts or personalized wellness plans to attract goal-oriented customers. In fact, our eGuide has all the answers you need below for year-long campaigns.

Tactics For Your 2025 Ecommerce Marketing Calendar

With numerous campaigns to run throughout the 2025 eCommerce marketing calendar, you might be looking for fresh inspiration. Our eGuide is designed to help you define clear goals and assess each tactic by its effort, investment, and value. It offers high-impact strategies for all levels, focusing on engagement and increasing ROI. Each tactic includes challenges, benefits, implementation steps, success metrics, and practical tips to guide you through each tactic.