YouTube Holiday Trends: Content, Context, and Behavior

With over 2.7 billion monthly users, YouTube is now the No. 1 most-visited mobile app and the No. 2 most-visited mobile video app (right after TikTok). Not to mention the No. 1 destination for podcasts as well as streaming. Users watch more than 1 billion hours of content on YouTube every day. Therefore, if you’re trying to reach your audience (or a new audience!) with holiday ad campaigns, they’re probably on YouTube.

We often don’t think of YouTube as a performance channel, but the data tells a different story. Earlier this year, Haus proved that YouTube drives a significant halo effect to overall performance. After testing nearly 200 direct-to-consumer (DTC) campaigns, the team showed that YouTube drives 85 percent higher lift against new customer key performance indicators than repeat customer KPIs. New customers from YouTube were 76 percent of the overall DTC sales impact. Retail is even better: YouTube drives an additional sales lift of 99 percent across physical stores and third-party websites.

So, yes, YouTube can drive dollars during the holidays. But what are people watching? What does the YouTube shopping journey look like?

That’s what Silverpush wanted to find out with its latest report.

‘Tis the Season for Context

Ahead of the holidays, Silverpush analyzed its YouTube datasets to understand the different types of content, context, and behavior on the platform. The Silverpush Contextual Engine identifies contextual signals in each video (product, influencer, topic, theme, location, sentiment, etc.) and categorizes them into different contextual tactics. We applied retail, shopping, and holiday parameters to sort and categorize the types of content most relevant for retailers and brands.

We found that there have been more than 724 billion views across retail and shopping videos on YouTube this year. That’s a 54 percent increase year-over-year. Consumers aren’t just using YouTube for education or entertainment. YouTube is often a shopping guide, too. Here are the kinds of videos that have seen the most growth this year:

• Shopping vlogs (58 percent)
• Product reviews (54 percent)
• Fashion hauls (50 percent)
• Tech unboxings (45 percent)
• Live shopping streams (40 percent)
• How-to- and tutorials (37 percent)
• Listicles and roundups (35 percent)

This ecosystem of shopping and retail videos is further divided across different product categories. Here are the fastest-growing retail categories on YouTube:

• Beauty and Wellness (17 percent)
• Fashion and Accessories (13.5 percent)
• Home and Decor (13.5 percent)
• Electronics and Gadgets (11.9 percent)
• Luxury (11.7 percent)

So how can retailers make the most of this data? What kind of ad strategy would work the best?

That all depends on your target audience. By setting up our contextual targeting strategy across this dataset, we also looked at the most common personas and what kind of video content they watched.

The Top 6 Holiday Shopper Personas on YouTube 

By analyzing billions of holiday video views, Silverpush identified six key holiday shopping personas on YouTube based on what kinds of content shoppers watched:

1. Bargain Hunters

The most common viewer is often turning to YouTube to find deals. They’re likely watching shopping haul videos that are all about going on big shopping sprees, trying on different clothes, and seeing what products are the best fit. They also watch deal-hunting videos to understand where to get the best deal when shopping for the holidays.

2. Research Mavens

Anyone who has looked up how to fix something or what something looks like in real life knows that research plays a big role on YouTube. The holidays are no different. These viewers are constantly turning to YouTube to evaluate products and learn more about them. They watch tutorials, comparison guides, and product breakdowns.

3. Impulse Buyers

Some viewers depend on YouTube for inspiration. They may not have any ideas about what to buy for loved ones during the holidays so they start watching videos. In this case, impulse buyers are most likely to watch gift lists and gift guides, as well as roundups of certain types of products or brands.

4. Brand Loyalists

If shoppers are already loyal to a brand, they often use YouTube to learn about the most recent releases. This is often the case with technology and fashion brands. In this case, viewers will go directly to a brand’s channel or trust a creator who has an official partnership with the brand to review different products in detail. They often binge multiple videos that are all about the same product.

5. Luxury Seekers

The luxury crowd on YouTube is smaller than others, but there’s still an aspirational mindset for many viewers. High-intent luxury buyers will also visit the platform to get more details before making an expensive purchase. The most common types of video content among these viewers is unboxing videos of a luxury brand or gift reviews.

6. Swayable Shoppers

Some viewers treat YouTube primarily as a place to find reviews. These shoppers want to understand all of the options and details before making a purchase. Influencer recommendations play a huge role in their decisions, as well as social proof and reviews.

By understanding the behaviors and viewing habits behind each YouTube holiday persona, advertisers can better think about how to target YouTube ad campaigns.

Holiday Ads on a Budget

YouTube advertising campaigns can have a ripple effect across the rest of your channels, especially if your ad is aligned with content that’s most relevant to the consumer’s journey. That’s usually where contextual advertising comes in. When you can specifically target the right influencers, topics, content types, and other contextual signals, you can make sure that you connect with consumers at the moment they’re most engaged and the moment they’re most likely to turn to your brand for the holidays.

Want to download the full Holiday Advertising 2025 Playbook? Get the playbook here.

Hitesh Chawla is CEO and founder of Silverpush, the contextual intelligence company.