Seasonal budget guide for CPG brands
A shopping peak is first a reason to move retail media budget toward the products where seasonal demand is rising. Adding to the total comes after, and only where those products earn it.
If Halloween matters to your category, late September is the time to review your Halloween retail media budget. This guide uses Halloween 2026 to walk through a framework you can reuse for any peak season that matters to your brand.
- $13.5B Halloween spending forecast for 2026, compared with a record $13.1 billion in 2025 NRF, September 2026
- 96% of people celebrating plan to buy candy, worth $4.1 billion NRF, September 2026
- 49% of consumers plan to start Halloween shopping in September or earlier, up from 34% in 2016 NRF, September 2026
Why peak seasons matter for retail media
Halloween 2026 in numbers: what shoppers will spend
The latest Halloween spending statistics describe a large, early occasion. NRF forecasts $13.5 billion for 2026 and says Halloween has stretched from a single-day event into a season. It now starts in summer: one-quarter of consumers had already bought Halloween items by early August.
- $115.14 Spend per person in 2026 In line with $114.45 in 2025, with 74% of consumers planning to celebrate. NRF.
- $110M Seasonal Halloween candy sold in August 2025 Up from $101 million in August 2024 and $63 million in August 2023. Circana data via NCA.
- $4.5B Household candy spend in the 4 weeks before Halloween 2024 Circana, U.S. households.
- 27% Plan to shop for Halloween online in 2026 Discount stores lead at 39%. Online gained share of Halloween candy sales for the third year in a row in 2025.
What do shoppers spend the most on? Costumes lead at $4.4 billion, then decorations at $4.3 billion and candy at $4.1 billion, so candy is one of three large baskets competing for the same shopper.
For brands whose products fit a Halloween occasion, the seasonal rise in demand changes the economics of retail media: a click in the week before October 31 can be worth more than the same click in July.
The problem with even monthly budgets
Why flat retail media budgets miss seasonal demand
Shopper demand is rarely spread evenly across the year. A Halloween-relevant brand usually sees a sequence like this:
- normal demand
- seasonal build-up
- demand peak
- decline
- next seasonal opportunity
A flat monthly budget ignores that curve, which is the core problem of seasonal advertising on a fixed budget. In quiet weeks the brand pays for visibility while few shoppers are searching. In the peak week its campaigns can hit their daily caps while shoppers are still searching and buying.
That is why Halloween planning should decide when budget is spent, as well as how much there is for the year. The annual total belongs to your 2027 retail media budget; this guide is about moving money inside one season.
Not all categories benefit equally
Which CPG categories benefit from Halloween?
The size of the opportunity depends on the category, and even more on the individual product. That is the logic of any seasonal campaign. The ratings below are our reading of how directly each category connects to Halloween occasions, based on the NRF, Numerator and Circana data where it exists.
Candy and confectionery
Most direct link
Candy has the most direct connection to Halloween. NRF expects $4.1 billion in Halloween candy spending in 2026, and Circana data reported by NCA puts total candy sales during the 2025 Halloween season at nearly $7 billion. The two measure different things: NRF’s figure is what consumers plan to spend on Halloween candy in 2026, and Circana’s is all candy sold at retail during the 2025 season.
Price shaped the 2025 mix: non-chocolate packaged Halloween candy took a 52% volume share, and snack-size chocolate grew by nearly $141 million. For candy brands, Halloween justifies a close review of:
- SKU-level budgets
- daily campaign caps
- keyword coverage
- bids
- retailer allocation
- campaign efficiency
The goal is to make sure the products gaining from seasonal demand have enough budget to capture it.
Snacks and party foods
Occasion link
Halloween creates occasions beyond trick-or-treating, such as parties at home, and in 2026 the holiday falls on a Saturday. In Numerator’s 2025 survey, 44% of people celebrating planned to buy food for Halloween.
Judge the effect by each product’s actual performance before you assume it for a whole category.
Beverages and seasonal products
Occasion link
Products tied to fall occasions or entertaining can see demand change around Halloween. Numerator found 21% of people celebrating planned to buy alcoholic beverages.
A seasonal flavor may deserve more budget while another SKU from the same brand shows no change at all.
Dairy, dips and meal accompaniments
Weaker link
Products used for parties, recipes and entertaining can benefit, though Halloween is unlikely to lift every SKU equally.
Look for the specific products with stronger conversion or sales, and raise their budgets SKU by SKU.
Pet products
Growing link
Pets are part of the celebration. NRF forecasts $0.92 billion in pet costume spending in 2026, up from a forecast $0.86 billion in 2025, and by early August 2026 the share of early shoppers who had bought children’s and pet costumes had doubled from a year earlier.
For pet brands, Halloween is worth examining for treats and products that fit the occasion. We found no public data on Halloween pet-treat sales, so your own sales history is the evidence.
Everyday products with little Halloween relevance
Little or no link
Not every CPG brand needs a Halloween strategy.
If shopper behavior around a product stays the same in October, a Halloween budget increase for it rarely pays back.
Seasonal budget should follow consumer demand.
Plan the budget from performance data
How should you plan a Halloween retail media budget?
Start from performance data. The products inside an account respond to Halloween very differently, so the budget decision belongs at the product level.
The eight steps below use your own data to decide where extra investment is justified. Almost all of them work at the SKU level, where large performance differences often show up, even between variants of the same product.
The eight-step framework
Step 1: Identify the SKUs most likely to benefit
Start with individual products, and look at signals such as:
- previous seasonal sales
- current sales velocity
- attributed retail media sales
- conversion rate
- retailer distribution
- keyword performance
- budget utilization
These signals separate genuine seasonal opportunities from products that merely sit in a Halloween-relevant category. A candy portfolio can hold SKUs with very different seasonal potential: a 100-count variety bag and a single premium bar may not peak the same way.
Step 2: Start evaluating performance before October
Timing matters because shoppers start early. In 2026, 49% of consumers plan to begin Halloween shopping in September or earlier, and one-quarter had already bought Halloween items by early August.
Seasonal Halloween candy sold $110 million in August 2025 alone. If you wait until October to look at Halloween performance, many shoppers have already bought.
Use September to learn:
- which SKUs are gaining traction
- which keywords are converting
- where conversion is improving
- which retailers are producing stronger results
- whether campaign budgets are starting to run short
That gives you a sound basis for deciding where to add investment later.
Step 3: Increase budgets where demand is rising, one SKU at a time
A single Halloween budget increase across an entire account puts money behind products that gain nothing from seasonal demand.
Evaluate performance at the most granular practical level, for example:
Retailer → campaign → SKU → keyword
When one SKU responds strongly and another does not, their budgets should move by different amounts.
How to split an extra $10,000 in one candy account Illustrative numbers
| SKU | ROAS | Flat | Follow demand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fun-size variety bag, 100 count | 7.2x | $2,000 | $4,200 |
| Pumpkin-shaped peanut butter cups | 5.6x | $2,000 | $3,300 |
| Share-size bar | 3.4x | $2,000 | $1,500 |
| Sugar-free bar | 1.9x | $2,000 | $600 |
| King-size single bar | 1.1x | $2,000 | $400 |
A flat increase gives every SKU $2,000, so 40% of the new money goes to the two SKUs with the weakest returns.
Following demand puts 75% of the new money behind the two SKUs with the strongest returns.
The account and its numbers are invented to show the mechanics. ROAS here is each SKU’s recent average; where you can, split by the return on the last dollars spent.
Step 4: Watch campaign budget caps
Rising demand means campaigns spend their daily budgets faster, so budget utilization needs daily attention in the peak weeks.
On Amazon, a campaign that runs out of budget stops showing ads until its daily budget resets at midnight. Walmart Connect warns that budgets set too low can cap out early in the day and miss peak shopping hours. If a campaign with strong returns hits its limit at 2 p.m., it loses its sponsored visibility for the rest of the day, including the evening.
Illustrative day in the last week of October. See budget pacing for how each network spreads a daily budget.
Every day in the peak weeks, review:
- daily spend
- budget utilization
- campaign pacing
- ROAS
- conversion
- sales generated
Amazon’s schedule-based budget rules let you raise a campaign’s budget for a date range in advance, and Amazon names Halloween as an example event. Performance-based rules raise the budget only when a campaign hits a target, such as a ROAS threshold. For the holidays, Amazon’s own guide recommends raising daily budgets in steps of 20% to 30%, 3 to 5 days before an event.
Then decide whether the extra budget is economically justified.
Step 5: Look beyond total ROAS
A strong account ROAS can hide very different results by SKU.
One product can produce efficient incremental sales while another absorbs budget without comparable results. Seasonal planning is a good moment to ask one question of every line in the account:
Where is each extra retail media dollar most likely to produce extra sales?
The answer often means reallocating existing spend between products before adding anything to the total.
Step 6: Move budget between retailers when the data says so
Seasonal performance also varies by retail media network. Shoppers split their Halloween baskets across channels: in Numerator’s 2025 survey, 61% of people celebrating planned to shop at big-box stores such as Walmart or Target, 43% at grocery stores and 32% with online retailers.
Results differ by network too. When RMIQ ran Zack’s Mighty tortilla chips across networks, ROAS grew 500% on Whole Foods, 163% on Instacart and 85% on Walmart; the case study reports no seasonal results. Growth that uneven is a reason to review the split by network. When the extra dollars on one retailer return more than on another, shift budget toward the stronger one.
Review performance by retailer and move extra budget toward the combinations of:
SKU + retailer + campaign
that show the strongest opportunity.
Step 7: Scale as demand and performance justify it
Once winning SKUs and campaigns emerge, invest more where the economics support it. That can mean:
- raising daily campaign budgets
- strengthening bids on your best keywords
- expanding keyword coverage
- shifting money away from weaker SKUs
- moving spend between retailers
In the last days before a Saturday Halloween, check which retailers can still deliver in time. An online order that arrives after October 31 is too late for Halloween, while pickup and same-day delivery can convert until the day itself. Set your schedule rules to end the Halloween lift on October 31 so the extra budget does not run on into November.
The principle: scale your Halloween retail media budget only while Halloween demand is improving the opportunity.
Step 8: Reallocate after Halloween, toward Thanksgiving and Q4
Seasonal spend should end with the season. Once Halloween demand falls, reassess every campaign you scaled, and bring each one back to its usual budget unless its results say otherwise.
For many CPG brands the next opportunity arrives fast. In 2025, 24% of shoppers had already started or finished their holiday shopping by early October, and Christmas season candy sales reached $1.8 billion in the 8 weeks ending December 28, 2025.
Move the elevated Halloween budget toward the next products and occasions where demand is building: Thanksgiving, then Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the holiday season. The same schedule-based budget rules work for those dates, and our Amazon Ads guide covers budget rules and automation for peaks such as Black Friday.
A simple four-stage calendar
A Halloween retail media calendar, August to November
For Halloween-relevant CPG categories, plan the season in four stages. If you are starting late, do the August preparation work now, alongside the September learning stage.
August: Prepare
Review last year’s results, identify the relevant SKUs, and structure campaigns so you can measure each product on its own.
September: Learn
Watch sales, search behavior, conversion and budget utilization. Identify the products and retailers starting to benefit.
October: Scale the winners
Move extra budget toward the SKUs, campaigns and retailers with the strongest economics. Watch daily caps so strong campaigns keep their visibility.
After Halloween: Reallocate
Cut investment where seasonal demand has passed, and move budget to the next retail occasion.
The key takeaway
The key takeaway
Halloween is a prompt to check whether your budget follows shopper demand, and to place it where demand is rising. The eight steps come down to six moves:
- 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 under way well before October, start the analysis as soon as your September data comes in. Brands with a seasonal range can also see how RMIQ approaches Halloween retail media.
Before the peak
Your Halloween checklist
Tick items off as you go. Your ticks stay in this browser only.
Now (September)
October
After October 31
Questions
Frequently asked questions
How much will Americans spend on Halloween in 2026?
NRF forecasts $13.5 billion in Halloween spending for 2026, compared with a record $13.1 billion in 2025. That works out to $115.14 per person, with 74% of consumers planning to celebrate, and about half of consumers (49%) plan to start shopping in September or earlier.
What do Halloween shoppers spend the most money on?
Costumes, decorations and candy. NRF’s 2026 forecast puts costumes at $4.4 billion, decorations at $4.3 billion and candy at $4.1 billion, with 96% of people celebrating planning to buy candy. Numerator’s 2025 survey adds food (44%) and alcoholic beverages (21%) to the shopping lists of people celebrating.
Should CPG brands increase their retail media budget for Halloween?
Only where the data supports it. Start by finding the SKUs whose sales and conversion rise in September, then add budget to those products and retailers. Products whose demand stays flat in October rarely pay back a seasonal increase, so their budget can often fund the winners.
When should brands start Halloween retail media campaigns?
Start measuring in August and September. In 2026, 49% of consumers plan to begin Halloween shopping in September or earlier, and seasonal Halloween candy sold $110 million in August 2025. Scale the winning SKUs in October, and cut back after October 31.
Which CPG categories benefit most from Halloween?
Candy has the most direct link: 96% of people celebrating plan to buy it in 2026. Food and drinks for parties are on many shopping lists too, and pet brands can look at the growing pet costume trend. Everyday products with no Halloween occasion rarely justify a seasonal increase.
What should you do with retail media budget after Halloween?
Reassess every campaign you scaled for Halloween as soon as demand falls, and move that budget to Q4: Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the holiday season. Holiday shopping starts early: 24% of shoppers had begun by early October 2025, and Christmas season candy sales reached $1.8 billion in the 8 weeks ending December 28, 2025.
Sources
- NRF, “NRF Halloween Survey Shows Consumer Spending Expected to Reach $13.5 Billion”, September 22, 2026
- NRF, “NRF Consumer Survey Finds Halloween Spending to Reach Record $13.1 Billion”, September 18, 2025
- NRF, “Why Halloween seems to come to stores earlier every year”, September 1, 2026
- National Confectioners Association, “How Seasonal Candies Are Enticing Consumers” (Circana data), September 24, 2026
- Circana, “Unwrapping 2025 Halloween Candy Trends”, October 31, 2025
- Circana, “No bones about it: Halloween trends show up across multiple categories in 2025”, October 24, 2025
- Numerator, “81% of Consumers Celebrating Halloween Plan to Purchase Candy; 50% Say Tariffs Will Impact Their Shopping, Numerator Reports”, October 21, 2025
- Amazon Ads, “Sponsored Products budget basics and best practices” and “A complete guide to budget rules”, checked September 25, 2026
- Amazon Ads, “Tips to optimize holiday advertising campaigns”, September 26, 2025
- Walmart Connect, “Easy campaign set up”, checked September 25, 2026
- RMIQ, Zack’s Mighty case study, August 25, 2026
Beyond Halloween
Plan your 2027 retail media budget with the seasons in it
Halloween is one example of why a retail media budget rarely belongs in 12 equal months. Distribution changes, product launches, retailer expansion, promotions and seasonal demand all shift where and when retail media has the best chance to generate sales.
