The holiday season brings a surge of brand communications, but gifting remains an underused way to make those interactions feel more meaningful. Snappy’s Holiday Gifting Report found that just 42% of loyalty program members have ever received a holiday gift from a brand, while 65% say they would like to receive one.
That disconnect gives customer loyalty and marketing teams room to create a more memorable touchpoint during an especially crowded time of year. A well-planned gift can help a brand show appreciation, deepen the customer relationship and stand apart from the steady stream of seasonal promotions.
As brands prepare for the upcoming holiday season, a few shifts are influencing how customer gifting programs are planned, delivered and measured.
Two ITA Group experts shared what goes into holiday gifting and the trends to consider this year. Max Kenkel, Customer Solutions Manager, works with clients to align customer engagement strategies with business objectives. Haley Dubberke, Awards Strategist, assists organizations in designing gifting experiences that feel thoughtful, intentional and memorable.
Related: Why strategic gifting belongs in customer-centric solutions
Customer appreciation is becoming more deliberate
Holiday gifting can support retention and strengthen loyalty when it is connected to a clear customer strategy. That starts with understanding who the brand wants to recognize and what it hopes the experience will accomplish. A program might focus on high-value customers or people with strong future potential. It could also recognize an important point in a long-standing client relationship. In each case, the gift gives the brand an opportunity to create a personal interaction during a season dominated by promotional outreach.
The sheer volume of routine messages customers receive can reduce the impact another email can realistically have.
“It's such an easy layup for brands. With a gifting solution, brands can, with pinpoint accuracy, target high-value/high-potential customers with a physical touchpoint that drives an emotional connection and shakes customers loose from digital fatigue during prime buying season,” Max said.
Focusing the audience also gives brands more room to create an experience that feels worthwhile. Holiday gifting works best when recipients understand that the gesture was meant for them, rather than feeling like one more mass communication.
Recipient choice is shaping personalization
Personalization continues to play a significant role in holiday gifting. One increasingly useful way to deliver it is by giving recipients a say in what they receive. A curated reward selection allows customers to choose something that fits their own preferences. Depending on the audience, options could include merchandise, gift cards or experiences. The brand can guide the overall experience while giving each person enough flexibility to make the reward feel relevant.
“Offering a variety of reward options allows individuals to select what is most meaningful to them, creating a more engaging and memorable experience,” Haley said.
That flexibility becomes especially valuable for brands with a broad or geographically dispersed customer base. Preferences can vary considerably from one person or market to another. Giving customers meaningful choices helps the gifting experience feel more personal without requiring the brand to predict one perfect item for everyone.
Smart targeting can make the budget go further
Segmentation is another important part of an effective holiday gifting strategy. A focused program gives brands the ability to put more of the available budget behind the customer relationships where the gift has the most potential to matter.
Max recommends identifying high-value or high-potential audiences instead of spreading the investment across a much larger customer population. For some organizations, that may mean narrowing millions of possible recipients to a group of thousands.
Testing can also help brands determine where gifting is having the desired effect. A defined recipient group can be compared with a holdout group to see what changes because of the campaign. Those findings can give marketing and loyalty teams stronger financial impact evidence when they make a case for future gifting investments.
The goal is to understand which moments and audiences are worth amplifying with a gift, then use those insights to make future programs more effective.
Early planning affects what the customer experiences
Holiday gifting requires decisions around reward selection, communications and fulfillment, and those decisions become harder to make as peak season approaches. Building gifting into annual planning gives teams more time to create an experience that feels considered from the customer's point of view.
Max recommends addressing holiday gifting when budgets and annual strategies are being developed. A rushed program can show up in ways customers notice. Limited options, awkward communications or fulfillment issues can quickly take away from the goodwill the gift was intended to create.
Earlier planning is also valuable for brands gifting across different regions. Product availability and cultural preferences may vary by market, so global programs need enough flexibility to make the experience relevant locally while remaining connected to the brand.
Measurement should continue after the gift arrives
The impact of holiday gifting may develop over time, particularly when a gift is sent outside a customer's normal purchase cycle. That makes it useful to look beyond immediate sales when evaluating performance.
Max recommends tracking measures such as NPS and CSAT before and after gifting to understand whether customer sentiment has changed. A holdout group can provide another point of comparison by showing how gift recipients behaved relative to similar customers who didn't receive one.
“Gifting creates emotional connection. Tracking pre- and post-sentiment is the easiest way to prove whether a gift hit or not,” he said.
Over a longer period, brands can watch for incremental spend and changes in customer lifetime value. That longer view can help show whether the positive experience created during the holidays carries into future engagement.
The findings can also inform the broader customer engagement strategy. When certain audiences or gifting moments produce stronger results, brands have a clearer picture of where gifting could add value again.
Related: Why emotional connection is the missing piece in customer loyalty and retention strategies
The recipient experience will shape what comes next
Greater recipient choice, curated rewards and experiential options continue to influence holiday gifting. Across these trends, the quality of the customer experience remains central.
“Personalization is critical, but it does not always require selecting a unique gift for every recipient. Providing meaningful choice through curated reward options often delivers a more personalized experience because recipients can choose what is most relevant to their preferences and lifestyle,” Haley said.
For customer loyalty teams, that experience begins with identifying the right customers and continues through the moment they receive or select their gift. Each part of the process contributes to how the gesture is remembered.
When holiday gifting feels relevant, easy and genuinely appreciative, it can strengthen the relationship well beyond the season itself. That gives brands an opportunity to turn a familiar holiday tradition into a meaningful customer loyalty touchpoint. Explore “Customer gifting for moments that matter,” our lookbook, for ideas and inspiration to help you create thoughtful gifting experiences for the customers and clients you value most. Browse gifting options and consider how the right reward can make key relationship moments more memorable.