Thanksgiving is, by far, one of the most important holidays in the United States. It’s a time of gathering with loved ones, feasting on delicious food, and expressing gratitude for all that we have.

In business, Thanksgiving is also the kickstart of the holiday season. Followed by Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and then winter holiday campaigns, Thanksgiving is the first celebration in more than a month’s worth of festive moments. So, if you want to start the holiday season on the right foot, you’ll want to make sure you do Thanksgiving right.

Thankfully, we have gathered no less than 29 tried and tested Thanksgiving marketing ideas you can try in 2024, so you can maximize your reach and impact this holiday season.

Keep reading to find out more.

Thanksgiving statistics you should know in 2024

Not really sure you should invest in this year’s Thanksgiving campaigns? Here are some stats that might change your mind:

Online spending growth

In 2023 Thanksgiving saw online sales surge to $5.6 billion, a remarkable rise compared to past years, nearly doubling since 2017 when spending was $2.87 billion on Thanksgiving Day. This trend underscores the expanding significance of e-commerce during the holiday season.

Mobile shopping dominance

Last year’s Thanksgiving broke another record, with 59% of Thanksgiving online purchases were made via mobile devices, accounting for approximately $3.3 billion in sales. This reflects a 14% increase from the previous year, highlighting the critical need for brands to enhance their mobile shopping platforms.

Consumer shopping behavior

In 2022, about 75% of U.S. consumers reported shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend, up from 70% the previous year. This steady increase highlights the period as a prime opportunity for marketers to connect with consumers.

Influence of discounts

Thanksgiving Day saw significant sales growth in key categories such as toys, which experienced a 182% sales increase compared to an average day in October, driven by substantial discounts (up to 28% off). This indicates that strategic promotions can significantly boost sales during this pivotal shopping period.

Top 29 Thanksgiving ideas

Not sure how to run an effective Thanksgiving marketing campaign, yet stay true to the spirit of the holiday? Here’s 29 ideas that can make your business stand out in a very demure, Thanksgiving-appropriate way.

Start early

Starting early is one of the most effective strategies when planning for Thanksgiving. This approach allows you to have ample time to brainstorm, execute, and refine your ideas, ensuring everything goes smoothly. You can begin by setting a timeline for your Thanksgiving plans well in advance. Creating a checklist can help prioritize tasks and keep track of progress. To implement an early start effectively, consider:

  • Setting deadlines for each task
  • Organizing a team meeting to discuss goals
  • Outlining marketing content ahead of time

…Or make your Thanksgiving campaign longer

If you don’t have time to just “start earlier” (believe us, we know just how hectic planning for the holidays can be), extending your Thanksgiving campaign can offer more opportunities to engage your audience. Instead of concentrating all efforts on a single day, consider expanding your campaign across the week leading up to Thanksgiving. 

Alternative: why not extend it to the whole month, especially with Black Friday and Cyber Monday right around the corner?

This timespan gives you more flexibility to experiment with different offers and content, run different types of discounts, and collect more information on what works and what doesn’t.

Here are some tips that could help you with an extensive campaign:

  • Introduce themed deals each day leading up to Thanksgiving (for example,  “Turkey Tuesday Deal” or “Wacky Wednesday Offer”)
  • Host a giveaway contest throughout the month, with winners announced on Thanksgiving
  • Offer special discounts to customers who sign up for your email list during the month. A simple coupon code like “gratefulfor2024” can help you circle back to the values of Thanksgiving.
  • Include countdown timers that update daily, displayed as ribbons on your website, for example.
  • Use a narrative arc that evolves over the week. For example, you can start with “preparing for Thanksgiving,” then “Thanksgiving Day celebrations,” and end with “holiday shopping deals” or a segue straight into Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday.

Build an email campaign

Email continues to be one of the most efficient and profitable marketing channels there is, with a return on investment of 3,600% (and some sources even cite an ROI as high as 4,200%).

Creating an email campaign is a powerful way to connect with your audience during Thanksgiving. Emails allow you to deliver personalized content, offers, and updates directly to your subscribers. It also allows you to establish a good cadence for your communications (e.g., if you decide to run a longer Thanksgiving campaign like in the examples provided above).

Make sure each email is engaging, visually appealing, and provides value to your recipients. To improve your email campaign:

  • Segment your email list based on user behavior. For instance, you will want to send a different email to a simple subscriber, and a different one to someone who has added products to the cart and abandoned it.
  • Use engaging subject lines to increase open rates. You can appeal to the fear of missing out, Thanksgiving themes, cute puns if that works with your customers, or power words like these.
  • Include clear CTAs that guide recipients to your website. Keep them simple, make sure they are very visible, and always double-check your links to make sure they work AND that you are tracking them with the correct UTMs.
icons for thanksgiving

Show your gratitude towards the community

Expressing gratitude to your community can strengthen relationships and enhance brand loyalty. This Thanksgiving, take time to appreciate your customers and supporters with personal gestures. These simple acts of kindness and appreciation can have a lasting impact. 

Here are a few ideas:

  • Send thank you notes with orders – if you can make these handmade, they’ll have even more of an effect.
  • Offer exclusive discounts to loyal customers
  • Share customer success stories on your platforms – this is a great way to build trust using social proof.

Decorate your website for Thanksgiving

Giving your website a Thanksgiving makeover is an excellent way to get your audience in the holiday spirit. Updating your site’s visuals with festive elements can make the user experience more engaging and fun. 

To do this well, be sure to:

  • Use Thanksgiving-themed banners and imagery
  • Incorporate a fall color palette into your design
  • Highlight seasonal offers and deals prominently on your homepage
  • Add a Thanksgiving playlist to your website or store that customers can listen to while shopping to enhance their experience
  • Use interactive elements such as Thanksgiving-themed quizzes or polls to engage visitors and collect valuable data
  • Implement an autumn-themed service chatbot with a friendly, festive persona to guide customers and provide support throughout the season
ribbon for thanksgiving

Decorate your email signatures for Thanksgiving

Update company email signatures with a Thanksgiving theme to add a festive touch to your business communications. It’s an easy way to spread holiday cheer with every email you send. Using a tool like Wisestamp, you can effortlessly update the email signature design across your company, ensuring consistency and professionalism.

Wisestamp makes it simple to implement changes for all team members swiftly and uniformly. Moreover, we offer a ton of email design templates to help you quickly create a cohesive and festive look for your emails, cementing your brand’s celebration of the holiday season with a unified appearance.

handwritten for thanksgiving

Use polls and CTAs to understand your customers

Polls and CTAs are valuable tools for gaining insights into your customers’ preferences and needs. By integrating interactive elements on your platforms, you can encourage engagement and gather important data.

Here are a few commonly-used techniques: 

  • Include short surveys after purchases
  • Run social media polls – even the ones on stories can be a great source of information!
  • Run a formal surveying campaign driven by rewards (e.g. offer a 5% discount to anyone who submits a 5-minute survey)

If you want to use these results for Thanksgiving, it’s best to run your campaigns long before. But you can also use this holiday to collect data and tailor your offers and campaigns for future holidays. After all, winter celebrations are right around the corner, right? You can easily incorporate these into your holiday marketing strategy.

Run a challenge or a giveaway

Host a challenge or giveaway to drum up excitement and draw in potential customers during Thanksgiving. Such events boost engagement and can often lead to increased visibility for your brand.

Some fun challenge and giveaway ideas could include:

  • Encourage participants to share their favorite Thanksgiving recipes on social media
  • Create a photo contest for the best Thanksgiving table decorations
  • Host a trivia quiz related to Thanksgiving traditions
  • Offer a reward for the most creative Thanksgiving-themed video
  • Launch a gratitude challenge where participants list things they are thankful for
  • Set up a scavenger hunt with clues linked to Thanksgiving history
  • Initiate a story-writing contest revolving around Thanksgiving themes
  • Run a share-the-love campaign where customers nominate deserving families for a gift package

Send out special gifts

Sending out special gifts to your customers is an exceptional way to show appreciation and differentiate your brand. These gifts can be small tokens that resonate with your brand identity, such as

  • Personalized thank you cards (as mentioned before, handwritten cards can go a very long way, especially in eCommerce, where they can add a very human, personal touch to your parcels)
  • Exclusive discount vouchers – offer discounts on Thanksgiving or future purchases
  • Limited edition products – create and promote special products that are only available for a limited time during the holiday season
  • Gift baskets – include items like seasonal treats, branded merchandise, and discount coupons in a nicely packaged basket

Use Thanksgiving hashtags

Utilizing hashtags effectively can amplify your reach on social media by tapping into Thanksgiving trends. Hashtags make your content discoverable to a wider audience interested in similar topics. Tips for holiday hashtag usage include:

  • Research popular Thanksgiving-themed hashtags
  • Create a unique hashtag specific to your campaign
  • Engage with users who interact with your hashtag
  • Make sure the hashtag connects to your brand as well
  • Have fun! The more fun and outstanding your hashtag is, the more likely it is people will remember it and your brand.

Run influencer collaborations

Collaborating with influencers can amplify your Thanksgiving marketing efforts by expanding your reach and credibility. Influencers can create authentic content that resonates with their audience and introduces them to your brand. To make the most of these partnerships:

  • Choose influencers that align with your brand values
  • Outline clear objectives for the collaboration
  • Encourage influencers to share genuine experiences with your products

Examples of Thanksgiving influencer collaborations include:

  • A Thanksgiving cooking demonstration featuring your products
  • Offering a special Thanksgiving-themed product line promoted by influencers
  • Creating a festive unboxing video with popular content creators
  • Partnering with influencers to co-host a Thanksgiving virtual event or live stream
  • Running a joint giveaway with influencers to reach a wider audience
  • Collaborating on a Thanksgiving recipe book or guide that features your brand
  • Using influencer takeovers on your social media channels to showcase their holiday experiences with your products

Create informative Thanksgiving-themed content

Delivering valuable Thanksgiving-themed content can engage your audience and establish your brand as a reliable source of information. Content can range from blog posts to videos that provide insights or tips relevant to the season. When planning content:

  • Identify trending Thanksgiving topics within your niche (it could be, for example, a trending TikTok song around Thanksgiving, or a recipe everyone’s making)
  • Create content that helps people celebrate in a more environmentally-friendly way (e.g., sustainable Thanksgiving dinner)
  • Share personal stories and experiences related to the holiday
  • Collaborate with experts or other brands for guest posts or interviews
  • Remember to use engaging visuals to complement your articles or posts

Use warm, yet eye-catchy graphics for ads

Crafting ads with warm and eye-catching graphics can capture attention and evoke the holiday spirit in your potential customers. Striking the right balance between aesthetic appeal and brand identity is key. To design effective ads, keep the following tips in mind:

  • Use seasonal color schemes like reds, oranges, and yellows
  • Ensure clarity in messaging and imagery
  • Test different ad variations to see what resonates best
  • Play with your brand and how it can tie into your ad graphics. You want these to be seasonal ads, but you also want your brand to stand out

Leverage storytelling and emotions

Storytelling is a powerful tool that can tap into the emotions of your audience. Narratives linked to Thanksgiving create a more profound connection, enhancing user engagement and brand loyalty. 

When crafting stories, make sure to

  • Focus on authentic and heartfelt experiences. Thanksgiving is the best opportunity for this because it’s a holiday about gratitude and family.
  • Use visuals to supplement the storyline, as images and videos enhance the emotional impact of your storytelling
  • Align the story with your brand values
  • Highlight the values of family, community, and gratitude
  • Encourage user-generated stories and testimonials

Create urgency

Establishing a sense of urgency in your marketing can encourage quicker decision-making among consumers. Scarcity and time-limited offers can prompt customers to act before they lose out. There are a few techniques you can use to create urgency:

  • Using countdown timers on offers
  • Highlighting low-stock alerts on popular products
  • Offering exclusive deals for first-come, first-served customers
  • Include countdown timers in your email signatures

Make sure your site is mobile

More than 63% of all internet traffic is mobile, so ensuring your website’s mobile optimization is essential for Thanksgiving campaigns. A seamless mobile experience can lead to higher engagement and conversion rates. 

Mobile optimization strategies include:

  • Ensuring fast loading times on mobile devices
  • Implementing responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes (for instance,  making your font size bigger as the screen becomes smaller)
  • Making sure buttons and links are easy to click on a touch screen
  • Simplifying navigation for mobile users by displaying essential items first
  • Simplifying navigation menus for ease of use (No need for complex menus! When mobile, people want to get to what interests them as soon as possible.)

Use SEO to plan Thanksgiving content

SEO plays a vital role in enhancing the visibility and reach of your Thanksgiving content. By integrating relevant keywords and having a strategic plan, you can position your content prominently in search engine results. 

Remember to

  • Conduct keyword research specific to Thanksgiving trends,
  • Incorporate keywords mindfully in titles and headers, and
  • Utilize meta descriptions to summarize content effectively.

…And take it up a notch with local SEO and local marketing

Local SEO can help you target nearby customers looking for Thanksgiving products or services. By prioritizing location-specific keywords, you can attract local traffic to your offerings. Tips for local SEO success:

  • List your business on Google My Business
  • Include local keywords in your content and metadata
  • Encourage customer reviews to boost local credibility
  • Engage with local social media groups and forums (because participating in local community groups on platforms like Facebook can increase your brand’s visibility among nearby consumers)
  • Create location-specific content and landing pages (for example you can develop content that highlights local Thanksgiving events or customs related to your products or services)

Run a gradual discount

Implementing a gradual discount strategy can entice customers to make purchases throughout the Thanksgiving season. By offering escalating discounts over time, you can maintain interest and motivate undecided shoppers.

It can also make Thanksgiving feel even more festive, especially if you are running a longer campaign, because it will feel like every week is a new “Black Friday.”

Offer an early bird special

Early bird specials reward those who shop in advance and can help manage inventory levels more effectively. Offering these deals encourages shoppers to finalize their purchases early while creating a buzz about your brand. 

Tactics you could employ here include:

  • Providing exclusive discounts to early shoppers (do make sure you are very clear about the terms of your early bird specials)
  • Limiting these offers to create perceived scarcity (remember to be very transparent
  • Promoting early deals through email marketing and social media

Build loyalty programs

Developing a loyalty program is a long-term strategy to retain customers by rewarding them for consistent engagement with your brand. These programs foster a sense of belonging and incentive for repeated business. And while you might not be able to build loyalty with just one Thanksgiving campaign, you can leverage the holiday by

  • Offering points or tiers for accumulated purchases
  • Providing special perks for members during Thanksgiving
  • Tailoring rewards to align with customer preferences

Host a special event

Hosting a Thanksgiving-themed event can strengthen community ties and generate buzz around your brand. Whether virtual or in-person, events offer an interactive platform to showcase products and engage with customers. 

Event ideas include:

  • Organizing a Thanksgiving cooking workshop
  • Hosting a virtual party with exclusive prizes
  • Creating themed activities that align with your brand’s mission

Encourage user-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) can expand your brand’s reach organically and foster a sense of community. Encouraging customers to share their experiences strengthens brand loyalty and authenticity. 

To gather UGC:

  • Launch a Thanksgiving photo contest for customers
  • Highlight customer stories on your platforms
  • Offer incentives for content submission to increase participation
  • Create a dedicated hashtag for Thanksgiving campaigns to encourage user interaction
  • Feature customer testimonials in your Thanksgiving promotions
  • Run a themed poll or survey to engage your audience and gather insights
  • Collaborate with influencers to amplify your Thanksgiving message
  • Ask customers to share tips and recipes that relate to your products, connecting them to Thanksgiving traditions

Tailor your products for the season

Adapting your product offerings to fit Thanksgiving themes can boost relevance and appeal. Seasonal products resonate with your audience and provide unique value during this period. 

Approaches you could embrace include:

  • Designing limited-edition packaging or flavors
  • Introducing Thanksgiving-themed product bundles
  • Emphasizing festive elements in your product descriptions
  • Collaborating with local artisans to create custom, limited-time Thanksgiving gifts
  • Developing branded Thanksgiving recipes that incorporate your products
  • Providing gift-wrapping services that feature Thanksgiving-themed designs

Upsell and cross-sell

Implementing upsell and cross-sell tactics can increase the average order value during the Thanksgiving season. By suggesting additional, complementary products, you can enhance customer satisfaction and boost sales. 

Strategies include:

  • Offering product recommendations based on purchase history
  • Suggest products that match your customers’ current purchases (e.g., a pair of shoes that would go well with that belt)
  • Creating special Thanksgiving bundles with related items (e.g., grocery staples for Thanksgiving,  beauty products for a “Thanksgiving ready” look)
  • Upselling premium versions of products (e.g., organic produce, luxury tableware)
  • Providing discounts on additional items added to the cart during checkout
  • Training staff to effectively suggest relevant products

Bundle it up

Creating product bundles for Thanksgiving allows customers to enjoy multiple items at a discounted rate. Bundles simplify the shopping process and can increase both product discovery and sales volume. Ideas for bundling include:

  • Curating themed packages like “Thanksgiving Dinner Essentials”
  • Offering a discount for purchasing multiple products together
  • Including free samples or small gifts within bundles
  • Offering customizable bundle options to cater to individual customer preferences
  • Highlighting bundle value through social media promotions and email marketing campaigns

Guarantee a shipping date

Offering guaranteed shipping dates assures customers of timely delivery, which is crucial for holiday purchases. This assurance can be a decisive factor in closing sales during the Thanksgiving rush. If you do choose to employ this tactic, make sure to:

  • Clearly communicate cut-off dates for Thanksgiving delivery
  • Partner with reliable shipping providers to meet promises
  • Provide real-time tracking updates for customer confidence

Offer free shipping

Free shipping is a compelling incentive that can greatly influence purchasing decisions. This is so much so that up to 79% of consumers agree that free shipping is a powerful criterion in how they make their buying choices. By reducing the overall cost to the customer, you can motivate increased sales volume. 

If you want to provide free shipping this holiday season (and stay profitable), make sure to:

  • Set a minimum purchase threshold for eligibility
  • Promote the benefit prominently in all marketing materials
  • Analyzing cost implications to ensure profitability

Provide gift-wrapping services

Gift-wrapping services are an easy way to add convenience for customers and can set your business apart during Thanksgiving shopping. Providing this service enhances the purchasing experience and can attract gift-focused buyers. 

Options include:

  • Offering multiple gift wrap choices to cater to different tastes
  • Including a personalized message option with wrapped gifts
  • Promoting this service as a complimentary or add-on feature to boost appeal

Don’t forget the essence

As you plan your marketing efforts for Thanksgiving, it is essential to embrace the holiday’s underlying values—gratitude, togetherness, and giving.

Yes, fun designs and campaigns are really engaging (and, frankly, great to work on, as marketers.) But all these themes and motifs should mirror the true spirit of the holiday, which should resonate through every aspect of your campaigns, from your messaging to your promotions.

Focus on showcasing gratitude to your customers for their loyalty, perhaps through personalized thank-you messages or exclusive offers for long-term clients. Incorporate the theme of togetherness to amplify your marketing impact by emphasizing community and family values during this festive time. Organize events or initiatives that bring your customers together, either through collaborative projects, social media challenges, or community support programs. 

Give back to the community.

Be part of Thanksgiving, not just a bystander holding a CTA pan card.