Closing the year strong: Leveraging Loops for the christmas and new year retail rush

The final stretch of the holiday season is where momentum is won or lost. Between last-minute gifting, year-end promotions, and New Year’s resets, retailers and brands face the same challenge: reaching shoppers at the exact moment decisions are made, without adding operational complexity.

AIQ Loops was built for this moment.

Loops gives retailers a centralized way to control and monetize their digital real estate across SMS, email, mobile apps, and ecommerce, while giving brands premium, measurable access to high-intent shoppers inside retailer-owned channels. As the year closes, Loops becomes a performance engine that supports both sides of the ecosystem, without forcing tradeoffs between owned promotions and paid brand placements

Why the final holiday rush demands a different approach

Late-season holiday shopping behaves differently than early-December demand. Shoppers are more decisive. Attention windows are shorter. Promotions need to be timely, visible, and easy to act on.

Traditional promotional workflows struggle here. Retail teams are juggling in-house offers, vendor requests, and channel updates across multiple systems. Brands are competing for visibility with limited insight into what actually influences purchase behavior.

Loops changes this dynamic by unifying promotions, whether retailer-owned or brand-funded, into a single, controlled placement system that runs across every digital touchpoint

The retail perspective: Owning, monetizing, and accelerating holiday promotions

For retailers, the final weeks of the year are about speed and control. Loops functions as a centralized promotional command center that allows retailers to move fast without creating operational lift.

Run your own holiday promotions with precision

Retailers can use Loops to power their own year-end initiatives, including:

• Last-minute christmas specials and bundle highlights
• In-house brand features and exclusive drops
• New year clearance events and inventory-driven promos
• Loyalty-only offers designed to drive repeat visits before year-end

Because placements live across SMS, email, in-app, and ecommerce, promotions stay consistent everywhere customers engage, without manual updates channel by channel.

Monetize digital real estate during peak demand

Holiday traffic increases the value of retailer-owned channels. Loops allows retailers to:

• Sell premium placement to brand partners
• Control where and when vendor content appears
• Prioritize campaigns without disrupting internal promos
• Generate incremental revenue from digital placements

This creates a clear revenue stream during the busiest retail window of the year, while keeping full ownership of the customer relationship. 

Streamline execution when time matters most

Instead of juggling vendor assets, approvals, and channel updates, retailers manage every placement from one dashboard. The result:

• Faster promo launches
• Fewer manual errors
• Less staff time spent updating offers
• Stronger, more scalable vendor relationships

During the final holiday push, operational simplicity becomes a competitive advantage.

The brand perspective: Premium visibility inside retailer-owned channels

For brands, the final holiday window is about influence, not just reach. Loops gives brands access to something traditional advertising cannot: intentional placement inside retailer workflows where purchasing decisions actually happen.

Appear where customers are already shopping

Loops places brand campaigns directly inside:

• Retailer SMS and email campaigns
• In-app placements via AIQ-powered mobile apps 
• AIQ ecommerce homepages and category pages
• Terpli AI Sales Agent 

These are not external ads. They are native placements embedded in retailer-owned experiences, reaching shoppers who are already in a buying mindset.

Align with retailer priorities instead of competing with them

Because Loops operates inside a unified ecosystem, brands are no longer competing against retailer promotions, they are aligned with them.

Brands can:

• Feature priority SKUs during holiday surges
• Support retailer-led promotions with brand storytelling
• Activate regionally or across multiple retail partners
• Maintain consistent visibility without fragmented execution

This creates cleaner collaboration and stronger retail relationships during the most important sales window of the year.

Measure impact with impression-based reporting

Holiday marketing moves fast, and brands need clarity. Loops provides impression-based reporting that shows:

• Where placements appeared
• How often customers saw them
• Performance across channels and retailers

This gives brands defensible insights into visibility and influence, critical for evaluating year-end spend and planning Q1 strategies.

One ecosystem. Two strategies. One performance engine.

The real power of Loops during the holiday rush is its flexibility. The same infrastructure supports:

• Retailer-owned promotions
• Paid brand placements
• Co-marketing initiatives
• Seasonal storytelling across all digital channels

Retailers retain control and monetization. Brands gain premium access and measurable impact. Customers receive relevant, timely messaging without friction.

Loops closes the collaboration gap at the moment it matters most, aligning retailer outcomes with brand goals during the most competitive retail window of the year

Finishing the year with momentum

As Christmas transitions into New Year’s, Loops helps retailers and brands stay present through the entire cycle, from last-minute gifting to year-end clearance to fresh-start promotions.

This isn’t just about filling space. It’s about using retail-owned channels intentionally, efficiently, and profitably. When visibility is limited and expectations are high, Loops ensures every placement works harder, for retailers, for brands, and for the customers they share.