Last year, the Americas retail holiday 2024 season ran from Oct 1, 2024 – Jan 1, 2025 with the partnership channel showing an impressive 9% growth in revenue YoY over this full time frame. This growth exceeded the full US online holiday sales growth reported by other outlets including Adobe’s that reported a US online holiday sales growth of 8.7% and Mastercard, reporting growth of 6.7% in eCommerce sales this holiday season.
Results by Key Dates
Given the shortened number of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, our early predictions believed that consumers would pull their holiday spending earlier into October. While this proved somewhat true, we primarily observed the largest YoY increases in the partnership channel in the post-Cyber Monday through Christmas Eve time period. Mastercard reported that a shocking 10% of all holiday spending occurred in the last five days before Christmas this year.
Performance across all key holidays in AMR was very strong (less Halloween). Standouts were Singles’ Day, the 7 days before Thanksgiving, and New Year’s Eve. 
Partner Categories
Last year’s budget-conscious consumer elevated the share of revenue in the partnership channel during the peak season allocated to loyalty and cashback partners from 32% to 36% and buy-now-pay-later partners from 3% to 5%. Price was definitely key this season, with Adobe reporting that “for every 1% decrease in price, demand increased by 1.029% compared to the 2023 season”. 
Commission Rates
Overall, the average commission rate brands paid partners during the 2024 peak season was 9.47%, a 3.6% decrease over the prior year. This resulted in an average return on ad spend of $10.56, or an increase of 3.7%. Generally, brands were willing to spend slightly more on the Cyber 12 dates this year as compared to the prior year. 
Key Learnings
- The partnership channel outperformed the overall eCommerce holiday results in 2024
- “Pre-Thanksgiving” and late holiday purchases helped drive a very successful 2024 holiday season for the partnerships channel
- Return on ad spend increased YoY to $10.56
- Consumers leveraged loyalty/cashback sites and buy-now-pay-later partners to find the best deals
Want to learn more about how to optimize your partnerships’ holiday performance? Check out our holiday shopping hub right here.
