I’m writing this on December 12th. My inbox is rapidly starting to crumble under the weight of “Last Chance for Delivery” emails.

For most eCommerce brands, this is the time you start to dim the lights. You scale down ad spend, take great joy in crafting your OOO, and essentially pack up shop until January.

But if you have a physical retail presence, or retail partners, stopping your advertising efforts now is a big mistake.

While your pure play eCommerce competitors are forced to bow out of bidding festivities because they can’t deliver in time for the holidays, a massive opportunity opens up for you. It's becoming known as “Q5.” The hidden period between mid-December and mid-January where competition drops, but purchase intent remains high.

This isn’t just about squeezing out a few more sales. It’s about leveraging your biggest competitive advantage, your physical stores.

Here is how to pivot your strategy in the final weeks of the year using Meta’s Omnichannel ad campaigns.

Key takeaways

• The “Q5” opportunity: As shipping deadlines pass, CPMs often drop while purchase intent stays high. This is the most efficient time to capture last minute shoppers who need products now.
• Pivot to pickup: Shift your creative strategy from “Buy Now” to “Pick Up Today.” Use Advantage+ catalog ads to show shoppers exactly what is in stock nearby, easing their panic and offering them a stress-free solution for their late purchases.‍
• The Halo Effect: Don’t turn off ads just because your online ROAS dips. Data shows that digital ads drive significant offline sales that traditional attribution misses.

The post-shipping opportunity

We often assume that once the Christmas shipping window closes, shopping stops. The data tells a different story.

Late December remains one of the most popular times to shop, but the type of shopping changes. Leisurely browsing for the perfect gift is replaced by the “I forgot to get something for my Auntie who isn’t actually my Auntie but has known me all my life” panic.

Historically, we see a unique trend during this period:

• CPMs decrease: Many eCommerce advertisers stop advertising because they can’t ship products in time for Christrmas.
• Purchase intent spikes: People still have money to spend (and gift cards they can’t wait to BURN from December 26th).

According to data shared by Meta*, the period after the shipping cutoff offers a distinct dip in CPMs compared to the Q4 peak:

The strategy: solving the “I need it now” problem

To be successful in Q5, you need to be explicit with customers about when they can get your product in their hands. Your customer doesn’t want to know if you have a product, they want to know if they can touch it in the next 24 hours. Reliability takes priority.

Enter Meta Omnichannel Ad Campaigns.

These ad campaigns are specifically designed to bridge the gap between the phone in your hand and the shelf in the store. Instead of asking a user to wait 3-5 days for shipping, you are offering them instant gratification with a Buy Online and Pick Up In-Store (BOPIS) solution.

Omnichannel ad campaigns and Advantage+ catalog ads work together to show users the specific products that are available to collect in store.

Think of Meta Omnichannel Ads as the campaign strategy that balances your budget between online and offline goals, while Advantage+ catalog ads are the tactical mechanism that delivers personalized, location-specific products to the user.

To “unlock” this feature in Meta, you need to align two things: the Objective and the Data Source.

First, at the campaign level, ensure your Conversion Location is set to “Website and in-store.” This is the signal that tells Meta’s algorithm to value both outcomes equally.

Second, you need to update the right data. This isn’t a separate ad format, it is a configuration of Advantage+ catalog ads using a local inventory feed.

• The feed: You upload a secondary feed that connects your Product IDs to specific store codes. This tells Meta exactly what is in stock, and where.
• The Ad: You then run Advantage+ Catalog Ads connected to this local data source. The system will dynamically determine the location-specific ads to run for products that are in stock.

This setup prevents the nightmare scenario of paying to drive a customer to a store for a product that is sold out.

Here are two tactical pivots to make over this next week:

1. Switch to Advantage+ catalog ads 

73% of consumers reportedly expect real-time visibility into inventory (PYMNTS, Global Digital Shopping Index: U.S. Edition, 2024).

Advantage+ catalog ads allow you to automatically showcase products that are actually available at the store nearest to the user. These ads remove friction and fear of wasted travel.

While regular catalog ads show the same product to everyone, Advantage+ catalog ads that use localized feeds are dynamic.

How it works: You upload a local inventory feed that tells Meta which products are in stock at which specific store location.

The customer experience: ‍

• User A (Near the downtown store): Sees an ad for Yellow Shoes (because they’re in stock there) with a “Pick Up Today” button.‍
• User B (Near the uptown store): Does not see the Yellow Shoes ad (because they’re sold out there). They may see an alternative ad.

This prevents the nightmare scenario of driving a customer to a store for a product that is sold out.

2. Update your creative overlays

You don’t necessarily need to create new content. You can add simple overlays to your existing creatives. Add a “Pick Up Today” banner or a map pin icon to highlight that your ad is specifically for a local “pick-up” option.

The “Invisible ROI” (and why you shouldn’t pause ads)

Here is the trap many performance marketers fall into during this period.

You look at your Ads Manager. You see your online conversion rate dropping because people can no longer order for delivery. You fret about ROAS and so you pause campaigns and say “I’ll look at this again in January.”

This is a mistake because you are suffering from online-only tunnel vision.

The reality is that shoppers don't see “channels.” They don't reach December 20th and say to themselves, “I am now an offline shopper.” They continue to shop. In fact, 80% of retail sales still happen in-store (Insider Intelligence, eMarketer Worldwide Retail Ecommerce Forecast, Jan 2024).

When you run an ad on Instagram, it doesn’t just drive website clicks. It could drive brand awareness that results in someone walking into your store three days later. This is sometimes described as the “Halo Effect.” With Meta’s Offline Conversions API (CAPI for Offline) you can bridge the gap between this online and retail experience to measure this journey.

Here’s how it works:

1. The ad: Customer sees the ad on Monday. Meta logs the user's ID.
2. The sale: Customer buys the item in-store on Tuesday. The Point of Sale (POS) system (like Shopify POS, Square, or Lightspeed) captures their email or phone number.‍
3. The match: The brand uploads this POS data to Meta (automatically via API or manually via CSV).
4. The attribution: Meta matches the email from the store receipt to the user account that saw the ad.

If you’ve read this far and you start to think “This is too technical. I’ll never be able to implement it.” I have a gift for you, it’s called Bïrch Hub. Simplified, user-friendly conversion tracking for Meta Ads. It’s designed to solve this exact type of challenge. 

There are some powerful examples that highlight how impactful the halo effect can be with Omnichannel ads: 

1. Target reported a 51% higher return on ad spend.
2. Hema reported an 11% increase in total sales compared to its usual ad optimization strategy
3. Best Buy reported an 8.8X incremental return on ad spend.
4. Central reported a 5.9X increase in incremental offline purchases compared to its usual ads.

Sources: 1. Meta case study October-November 2024, 2. Meta case study July-August, 2024 3. Meta case study May-June 2025, 4. Meta case study July, 2024.

You can view Meta’s full selection of Omnichannel ad case studies here.

If you pause your ads because your eCommerce ROAS looks low, you might be cutting off the primary driver of your retail revenue.

Don’t send customers to empty shelves

To run these strategies effectively, and to measure the “invisible” ROI, you need clean data.

If you run an ad that says a product is in stock in a store, and the customer arrives to find an empty shelf, you haven’t just lost a sale, you’ve potentially lost a customer. 62% of consumers say they’ll stop engaging with brands that deliver inconsistent online-offline experiences (ZIPDO Education Report: Customer Experience In The Consumer Goods Industry Statistics, May 2025).

Forgive me in advance because I’m about to use a phrase that I know is a dull buzzword, but it really is critical to all of this working well… data hygiene.

You need to ensure your offline events (store sales) are being fed back into Meta so the algorithm knows who is buying. This is where tools like the Bïrch Hub become essential. By utilizing a server-side connection for your offline events, you can match in-store purchases back to your digital ad spend.

This closes the loop. Suddenly, that “underperforming” campaign might actually be your most profitable driver of in-store footfall.

Finish the year strong

I want you to relax and enjoy the holidays, but this is a time to rest, not pause.

Many of your customers are stressed, rushed, and looking for immediate solutions. By pivoting to an omnichannel ads strategy, you aren’t just able to sell more products, you’re able to provide customers with peace of mind. 

Don’t let your shipping cutoffs be the end of your performance year. Turn on your local inventory, highlight your pickup options, and capture the Q5 value that your competitors have giftwrapped for you.

FAQs