Hi friends,
BFCM planning has officially taken over my calendar. Yours too, I know. So, when AppLovin sent over a sneak peek of their Q4 playbook, I dove straight in.
It’s all about how to win in Q4, based on analysis of real companies who won the holidays last year on that platform. If you plan on being 1 of them, like I do, it’s worth your time.
Big thanks to AppLovin for letting me pick it apart. My notes below. 🧛♀️
MY BREAKDOWN
YOUR Q4 CREATIVE CALENDAR: The AppLovin Playbook
This resource is all about how to win Q4 on AppLovin. If you need a refresher, AppLovin is where we’re playing with full screen video ads that get in front of literally over a billion people playing mobile games every day. It’s also 1 of the most creative-hungry channels I’ve ever used, which is actually a very good thing (I’ll explain why).
They gathered their data from Q4 2025, analyzed top advertiser successes, and wrote it all up for us.
The result is a short, tactical deck on timing, campaign setup, creative, and what to do after Cyber to keep the party going.
If you’re deciding how or IF AppLovin belongs in your Q4 plan, this is for you. Especially if you’re maxing out on Meta/Google, & have a lot of fatigued creative lying around.
Already on AppLovin? Skip straight to “Campaign Setup” for guidance on matching your goal type to how you sell, plus how to scale spend without losing your target.
3 THINGS TO SCREENSHOT FOR YOUR TEAM
1️⃣: Scale up before November. Per AppLovin (vindication!), 42% of shoppers start browsing and buying before November, and Black Friday searches start climbing in early October. Their advice is to lock offers and start holiday creative by early October.
🧛♀️ Early October is next week. No pressure. Remember my advice to launch pre-BFCM & on sale if you’re a challenger? My read: this is a great place to test it.
2️⃣: Use long videos, and a lot of them. On AppLovin, median watch time is 35 seconds (!). 81% of spend goes to videos longer than 30 seconds, and ads under 15 seconds only got 5%.
The top-spending advertisers also upload new videos constantly. Apparel had a median of 64 new videos a week. Beauty was 32.
🧛♀️ This is where your fatigued Meta creative comes in, but ONLY videos long enough to tell a story. Pull your best 30+ second evergreen ads, refresh with some holiday cheer (even just a festive banner), and mention the offer in the first 5 seconds.
NOTE: if “64 new videos a week” gave you heart palpitations, know this: you do NOT need to match this # to learn from it. Instead, focus on creative diversity, and remixing and remaking your winners once they start eating 20-40% of your spend. You know the drill from Andromeda, promise.
3️⃣: Change your offer after Cyber Monday. A BFCM discount has zero urgency by mid-December. The deck walks you through a month-by-month gameplan to change WITH your shopper: shipping deadlines, gift cards & bundles, then a New Year reset.
🧛♀️ 1 more round of production to plan for now, so you don’t end up being the brand still running a sad Black Friday banner on December 15th. 🙁
THE CREATIVE IS THE CALENDAR
Brief in October, harvest & remix your longest ads through November, then pivot again in December. Dust off those old videos. Start here to guide you.