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Turn holiday moments into more revenue: your game’s 2026 playbook
October 15, 2026•8 min
The stretch from November to January is the biggest spending period of the year for mobile games, and it arrives faster than most studios expect. Holiday campaigns bring in more paying players, more purchases per player, and bigger orders. Across Web Shop projects that grew over last year's holiday window, paying users rose by almost 25%, with purchases per user and average order value both up 11%.
Five moments do most of the work here:
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Moment 2: Black Friday and Cyber Week, November 27 to December 1
By late November, your players are ready to buy, and every other studio knows it, too. Around 30% of mobile titles ran a dedicated Black Friday event in 2025, up from previous years, according to AppMagic, and Black Friday has repeatedly set single-day records for mobile game revenue.
Standing out matters more here than at any other point in the season. With every studio running a discount, timing is what often separates a campaign that lands from one that gets lost.
The mechanic to lead with: drive paying players to the store with Web Shop Notifications
Deals are everywhere during Cyber Week, so timing still decides whether a campaign lands or gets lost in the noise. A “deal ends in two hours” push, for example, reaches players at the moment of decision rather than hoping they check back in later.
You could also run countdown-timer bundles with your deepest discounts of the year, and set up a Cyber Week login calendar so players have a reason to return each day rather than buying once and disappearing. Loyalty Store points earned during this window should then carry forward into December, giving players a reason to return after the sale ends.
→Try this: a Cyber Week countdown bundle with a push each morning as the day's deal goes live.
Moment 3: Christmas, December 25
Christmas Day is unlike anything else on the calendar: new devices get unwrapped, gift cards get redeemed, and a wave of players either arrives for the first time or comes back after months away. Games historically account for around three-quarters of all Christmas Day app store spend; the download spike driven by new-device activations runs well past the 25th into the new year. Mindset is split: gifting on one side and an onboarding moment on the other.
The mechanic to lead with: turn daily visits into purchases with an advent calendar of Daily Rewards
Daily rewards work best when players understand them instantly, which is why an advent calendar fits so well for December. One free item per day gives players a reason to open your Web Shop every day through December, so by the 25th, visiting your store is a habit rather than a one-off happenstance.
Projects running daily login rewards through the holiday saw daily active users (DAU) rise 38%, and seven-day return rates were up nearly 27%. Future days stay wrapped, too, so players have to check back to see what's next. Around that, run gifting bundles that let players send friends currency or items, and set up welcome notifications for the new arrivals landing on Christmas morning. Offerwall matters more than usual here, too: many new players won't have a payment method set up yet, and Offerwall gives them a way to engage from day one. → Web Shop partner spotlight: a strategy card game running daily login rewards pushed DAU up by more than 47% . → Try this: an advent calendar in your Web Shop, one free reward a day to the 25th, with the best item saved for Christmas Day.
Moment 4: end-of-year sales, December 26-31
The week between Christmas and New Year’s is quiet for most industries and busy for games, since players are off work, new devices are being broken in, and gift card balances are sitting there waiting to be spent. The mindset is to spend what they already have, whether that's gift card balances, loyalty points, or currency picked up over Christmas.
The mechanic to lead with: unlock repeat purchases with the Loyalty Store
This is where the Loyalty Store earns its place: holiday loyalty campaigns lift repeat purchase rates by around 6% and 30-day return rates by nearly 20%. A point multiplier during this window gives players a reason to use what they've accumulated rather than letting it sit.
Clearance game bundles work well alongside it, as does a final offer chain push. Offer chains that run through the holidays can lift visit-to-purchase conversion by nearly 28% and average order value by a similar amount.
→ Web Shop partner spotlight: an action RPG running loyalty campaigns saw repeat purchases jump 22%, with 30-day retention up 44%.
→ Try this: a 48-hour year-end bundle with 2x Loyalty Store points, ending at midnight on December 31.
Moment 5: New Year’s, January 1
New Year’s gets written off as the tail end of Christmas, which considerably undersells it. In Russia, across the CIS, and in Japan, it's the year’s main gift-giving holiday rather than a secondary one, and almost everywhere else players have time off work to play. December 2025 saw global mobile game spend grow month on month, with Sensor Tower crediting Christmas and New Year live ops events directly for the lift.
The mindset is fresh starts, so players are thinking about what they want to do differently, and that extends to how they play.
The mechanic to lead with: reengage lapsed players with Reward Chains
A streak reset with escalating January rewards fits the moment exactly, giving returning players something to build toward from day one. Holiday reward chains lifted daily active users by 38% and visit-to-purchase conversion by nearly 17%, and for projects with in-app data available, capture rate rose by more than 43%.
Support it with “new year, new loadout” reset bundles, re-engagement notifications aimed at players who went quiet over the holidays, and a resolution-themed quest that starts in the game and completes in your store.
→ Web Shop partner spotlight: an action RPG running reward chains saw conversion climb 43%, with capture rate up almost 40%.
→ Try this: a reward chain that resets on January 1, with the value climbing across the first week back.
Set up LiveOps once, run it all season
The same game bundles, streaks, notifications, Offerwall integration, and Loyalty Store carry through every moment above.The work you do now pays off repeatedly between November and January.
In LiveOps Canvas, you can plan and schedule the whole season in advance. Each moment goes live without anyone scrambling the week before. You can also adjust things mid-event, swapping a reward or extending a bundle while a promotion is running, without waiting on engineering. That's the difference between reacting to the holidays and actually running them.
The season starts on November 11. If your Web Shop is ready, launch your holiday campaigns in your Mobile Games Account. Don't have one yet? Set one up and go live before Black Friday!
Not sure where to begin? Talk to our team so we can start mapping out the season together.
- Singles' Day on November 11
- Black Friday and Cyber Week from November 27
- Christmas, December 25
- End-of-year sales, December 26-31
- New Year’s Day: January 1
Image link
Moment 2: Black Friday and Cyber Week, November 27 to December 1
By late November, your players are ready to buy, and every other studio knows it, too. Around 30% of mobile titles ran a dedicated Black Friday event in 2025, up from previous years, according to AppMagic, and Black Friday has repeatedly set single-day records for mobile game revenue.
Standing out matters more here than at any other point in the season. With every studio running a discount, timing is what often separates a campaign that lands from one that gets lost.
The mechanic to lead with: drive paying players to the store with Web Shop Notifications
Deals are everywhere during Cyber Week, so timing still decides whether a campaign lands or gets lost in the noise. A “deal ends in two hours” push, for example, reaches players at the moment of decision rather than hoping they check back in later.
You could also run countdown-timer bundles with your deepest discounts of the year, and set up a Cyber Week login calendar so players have a reason to return each day rather than buying once and disappearing. Loyalty Store points earned during this window should then carry forward into December, giving players a reason to return after the sale ends.
→Try this: a Cyber Week countdown bundle with a push each morning as the day's deal goes live.
Moment 3: Christmas, December 25
Christmas Day is unlike anything else on the calendar: new devices get unwrapped, gift cards get redeemed, and a wave of players either arrives for the first time or comes back after months away. Games historically account for around three-quarters of all Christmas Day app store spend; the download spike driven by new-device activations runs well past the 25th into the new year. Mindset is split: gifting on one side and an onboarding moment on the other.
The mechanic to lead with: turn daily visits into purchases with an advent calendar of Daily Rewards
Daily rewards work best when players understand them instantly, which is why an advent calendar fits so well for December. One free item per day gives players a reason to open your Web Shop every day through December, so by the 25th, visiting your store is a habit rather than a one-off happenstance.Projects running daily login rewards through the holiday saw daily active users (DAU) rise 38%, and seven-day return rates were up nearly 27%. Future days stay wrapped, too, so players have to check back to see what's next. Around that, run gifting bundles that let players send friends currency or items, and set up welcome notifications for the new arrivals landing on Christmas morning. Offerwall matters more than usual here, too: many new players won't have a payment method set up yet, and Offerwall gives them a way to engage from day one. → Web Shop partner spotlight: a strategy card game running daily login rewards pushed DAU up by more than 47% . → Try this: an advent calendar in your Web Shop, one free reward a day to the 25th, with the best item saved for Christmas Day.
Moment 4: end-of-year sales, December 26-31
The week between Christmas and New Year’s is quiet for most industries and busy for games, since players are off work, new devices are being broken in, and gift card balances are sitting there waiting to be spent. The mindset is to spend what they already have, whether that's gift card balances, loyalty points, or currency picked up over Christmas.
The mechanic to lead with: unlock repeat purchases with the Loyalty Store
This is where the Loyalty Store earns its place: holiday loyalty campaigns lift repeat purchase rates by around 6% and 30-day return rates by nearly 20%. A point multiplier during this window gives players a reason to use what they've accumulated rather than letting it sit.
Clearance game bundles work well alongside it, as does a final offer chain push. Offer chains that run through the holidays can lift visit-to-purchase conversion by nearly 28% and average order value by a similar amount.
→ Web Shop partner spotlight: an action RPG running loyalty campaigns saw repeat purchases jump 22%, with 30-day retention up 44%.
→ Try this: a 48-hour year-end bundle with 2x Loyalty Store points, ending at midnight on December 31.
Moment 5: New Year’s, January 1
New Year’s gets written off as the tail end of Christmas, which considerably undersells it. In Russia, across the CIS, and in Japan, it's the year’s main gift-giving holiday rather than a secondary one, and almost everywhere else players have time off work to play. December 2025 saw global mobile game spend grow month on month, with Sensor Tower crediting Christmas and New Year live ops events directly for the lift.
The mindset is fresh starts, so players are thinking about what they want to do differently, and that extends to how they play.
The mechanic to lead with: reengage lapsed players with Reward Chains
A streak reset with escalating January rewards fits the moment exactly, giving returning players something to build toward from day one. Holiday reward chains lifted daily active users by 38% and visit-to-purchase conversion by nearly 17%, and for projects with in-app data available, capture rate rose by more than 43%.
Support it with “new year, new loadout” reset bundles, re-engagement notifications aimed at players who went quiet over the holidays, and a resolution-themed quest that starts in the game and completes in your store.
→ Web Shop partner spotlight: an action RPG running reward chains saw conversion climb 43%, with capture rate up almost 40%.
→ Try this: a reward chain that resets on January 1, with the value climbing across the first week back.
Set up LiveOps once, run it all season
The same game bundles, streaks, notifications, Offerwall integration, and Loyalty Store carry through every moment above.The work you do now pays off repeatedly between November and January.
In LiveOps Canvas, you can plan and schedule the whole season in advance. Each moment goes live without anyone scrambling the week before. You can also adjust things mid-event, swapping a reward or extending a bundle while a promotion is running, without waiting on engineering. That's the difference between reacting to the holidays and actually running them.
The season starts on November 11. If your Web Shop is ready, launch your holiday campaigns in your Mobile Games Account. Don't have one yet? Set one up and go live before Black Friday!
Not sure where to begin? Talk to our team so we can start mapping out the season together.Featured articles
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