Shopping peak season does not necessarily mean increasing retail media spend across the board. A stronger approach is to identify where seasonal demand is creating additional opportunity and move budget behind the products best positioned to capture it.
If Halloween matters to your category, September is already the time to review your Halloween retail media budget. We’ll use it to walk through the framework, which you can then apply to any peak season relevant to your Brand.
Why Peak Seasons Matter for Retail Media: Halloween
Halloween is a significant U.S. shopping peak period.
Total Halloween spending was expected to reach a record $13.1 billion in 2025, according to NRF. Candy alone represented an expected $3.9 billion of that spending.
Circana also reported that U.S. households spent $4.5 billion on candy during the four weeks leading up to Halloween in its analysis published in 2025.
For brands selling products connected to Halloween occasions, that change in consumer demand can affect the economics of retail media.
Check your last year results to see when does demand start increasing, which SKUs benefit from it, and where can additional halloween retail media budget create additional sales?
Not All Categories Benefit Equally: Which CPG Categories Can Be Affected by Halloween?
The size of the opportunity depends heavily on the category and product.
Candy and confectionery
Candy has the most direct connection to Halloween.
NRF expected consumers to spend $3.9 billion on Halloween candy in 2025, while its early 2026 research showed candy was already among the most-purchased Halloween items by early August. This category can hugely benefit form Halloween Retail Media budget increase.
For candy brands, Halloween can therefore justify a close review of:
- SKU-level budgets
- daily campaign caps
- keyword coverage
- bids
- retailer-level allocation
- campaign efficiency
The goal is not simply to spend more. It is to make sure the products benefiting from seasonal demand have enough budget to capture it.
Snacks and party foods
Halloween also creates occasions beyond trick-or-treating.
Consumers plan parties, gatherings and other fall activities well before October 31. NRF describes Halloween as increasingly evolving from a single-day event into a broader season of celebration.
That can make the period relevant for snack brands and products associated with entertaining.
The effect, however, should be evaluated from actual product performance rather than assumed for an entire category.
Beverages and seasonal products
Products connected to fall occasions or entertaining may also experience changing demand around the Halloween period.
Again, the key is SKU-level analysis.
A seasonal product may warrant additional investment while another SKU from exactly the same brand may show no meaningful change.
Dairy, dips and meal accompaniments
Products associated with parties, recipes and entertaining may also benefit from seasonal occasions.
For these categories, Halloween is less likely to affect every SKU equally.
Retail media teams should therefore look for specific products showing stronger conversion or sales rather than apply a blanket seasonal increase across the portfolio.
Pet treats
Halloween increasingly includes pets as part of the celebration. NRF’s 2026 early-shopping research found that the share of early shoppers who had already purchased children’s and pet costumes by early August had doubled compared with the previous year.
For pet brands, this makes Halloween particularly worth examining for treats and other products that naturally connect with the occasion.
Everyday products with little Halloween relevance
Not every CPG brand needs a Halloween strategy.
If consumer behavior around the product does not change, increasing retail media investment simply because Halloween is approaching may not make economic sense.
Seasonality should follow consumer demand.
How Should You Plan a Halloween Retail Media Budget?
A Halloween retail media budget should not start with an arbitrary percentage increase.
Instead, brands can use performance data to decide where incremental investment is justified.
1. Identify the SKUs most likely to benefit
Start with individual products.
Look at signals such as:
- previous seasonal sales
- current sales velocity
- attributed retail media sales
- conversion rate
- retailer distribution
- keyword performance
- budget utilization
This helps separate genuine seasonal opportunities from products that happen to sit within a Halloween-relevant category.
A candy portfolio, for example, can contain multiple SKUs with very different seasonal potential.
2. Start evaluating performance before October to confidently set Halloween retail media budget
The data makes the timing important.
Nearly half of consumers started Halloween shopping in September or earlier in 2025, and one-quarter of consumers had already purchased a Halloween item by early August 2026.
That means brands should not necessarily wait until October to begin evaluating Halloween performance.
September can be used to understand:
- which SKUs are gaining traction
- which keywords are converting
- where conversion is improving
- which retailers are generating stronger results
- whether campaign budgets are becoming constrained
This creates a better foundation for deciding where to increase investment later.
3. Don’t increase every campaign equally
A simple Halloween retail budget budget increase across an entire account can put money behind products that are not benefiting from seasonal demand.
Instead, evaluate performance at the most granular practical level.
For example:
Retailer → campaign → SKU → keyword
If one SKU is responding strongly while another is not, their budgets should not automatically increase by the same amount.
4. Watch campaign budget caps
Increasing demand can mean campaigns use their daily budgets faster.
That makes budget utilization especially important during seasonal periods.
If a campaign delivering attractive returns reaches its daily limit early, the brand may lose sponsored visibility during additional shopper searches.
Review:
- daily spend
- budget utilization
- campaign pacing
- ROAS
- conversion
- sales generated
Then determine whether additional budget is economically justified.
5. Look beyond total ROAS
A strong overall account ROAS can hide very different SKU-level performance.
One product may be generating highly efficient incremental sales while another absorbs budget without producing comparable results.
Seasonal planning is therefore a good moment to check:
Where is each additional retail media dollar most likely to produce additional sales?
That may mean reallocating existing spend rather than increasing the overall budget.
6. Move budget between retailers when necessary
Seasonal performance may also vary by retail media network.
If a product is responding particularly well on one retailer while another is producing weaker economics, maintaining the same allocation across both may not be optimal.
Review performance across retailers and move incremental budget toward the combinations of:
SKU + retailer + campaign
that demonstrate the strongest opportunity.
7. Scale as demand and performance justify it
Once winning SKUs and campaigns emerge, increase investment where the economics support the decision.
That might mean:
- increasing daily campaign budgets
- strengthening bids on important keywords
- expanding keyword coverage
- shifting money from weaker SKUs
- moving spend between retailers
The principle is simple:
Scale Halloween retail media budget only when Halloween demand is improving the opportunity.
8. Reallocate after Halloween
Seasonal spending should not automatically become permanent spending.
Once Halloween demand declines, reassess performance.
For many CPG brands, the next opportunity may quickly become Thanksgiving or the broader holiday period.
Instead of maintaining the elevated Halloween budget, move investment toward the next products and occasions where consumer demand is developing.
Why Flat Retail Media Budgets Can Miss Seasonal Demand
Consumer demand is rarely distributed evenly throughout the year.
A brand may experience:
normal demand → seasonal build-up → demand peak → decline → next seasonal opportunity
A flat monthly retail media budget does not reflect that pattern.
During weaker periods, the brand can end up funding demand that is not there.
During stronger periods, it can run out of budget while consumers are actively searching and buying.
This is why Halloween retail media budget planning should consider when demand occurs, not only the total amount available for the year.
A Simple Halloween Retail Media Budget Framework
For Halloween-relevant CPG categories, consider approaching the season in four stages.
August / Early September: Prepare
Review historical results, identify relevant SKUs and make sure campaigns are structured so performance can be evaluated at the product level.
September: Learn
Watch for changes in sales, search behavior, conversion and campaign utilization.
Identify products and retailers beginning to benefit from seasonal demand.
October: Scale the Winners
Move incremental budget toward the SKUs, campaigns and retailers producing the strongest economics.
Monitor budgets carefully so effective campaigns do not unnecessarily lose visibility because of daily caps.
After Halloween: Reallocate
Reduce investment where seasonal demand has passed and move budget toward the next relevant retail occasion.
Halloween Retail Media Budget: The Key Takeaway
Halloween does not automatically mean a CPG brand needs a larger retail media budget.
It means brands should ask whether their existing budget is allocated to match changing consumer demand.
The process can be straightforward:
Identify seasonal SKUs → monitor demand early → find the winners → move budget behind them → scale while performance supports it → reallocate after the peak.
With Halloween shopping already underway well before October, the time to start that analysis is before the peak.
Plan Your 2027 Retail Media Budget not only Halloween Retail Media budget
Halloween is only one example of why retail media budgets should not necessarily be divided evenly across 12 months.
Distribution changes, product launches, retailer expansion, promotional periods and seasonal demand can all change where and when retail media investment has the greatest opportunity to generate sales.
