This isn't a boom year

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📅 This isn't a boom year. your Q4 plan shouldn't be built like one is coming.

eMarketer's latest holiday forecast puts 2026 US ecommerce growth at 6.6%, essentially in line with 2025's pace rather than accelerating into it. 

That's a specific and useful piece of planning information most Q4 strategy conversations skip past in favor of the more exciting question of how to capture growth, without first confirming how much growth is actually expected to exist this cycle. 

A plan built assuming outsized demand, more shoppers, bigger baskets, higher urgency than last year, is a plan calibrated against a boom the forecast data doesn't actually support.

The gap matters because budget and creative decisions made against an assumed boom look very different from the same decisions made against a steady, unremarkable growth year. 

A boom year rewards aggressive volume plays, since rising demand covers for some inefficiency. 

A steady year rewards efficiency and share-capture specifically, since the growth pie isn't expanding fast enough to paper over wasted spend the way accelerating demand would.

Set your Q4 targets against the actual forecast, not last year's internal optimism

A target set by simply extending last year's growth rate forward, or assuming this year naturally outperforms because it's supposed to, is a target built on an assumption the current forecast doesn't support.

Anchor your Q4 revenue and growth targets explicitly to the 6.6% category-wide figure, adjusted for your own historical performance relative to category averages, rather than a target set by internal ambition disconnected from what the broader market is expected to do.

Prioritize share capture over category-wide volume assumptions

If the category overall isn't accelerating, growing faster than the category means taking share from competitors specifically, not just riding a rising tide that lifts every account roughly equally.

Shift creative and targeting strategy toward comparison-aware messaging, content positioning directly against alternatives a shopper is actively considering, rather than pure demand-generation content built for a market where new demand is materializing faster than competitors can capture it.

Treat efficiency, not volume, as the lever most likely to move your actual result

In a steady-growth year, the accounts that outperform tend to be squeezing more result out of the same spend, not the ones simply spending more into a category that isn't expanding fast enough to reward it.

Knowing where your specific category's Q4 pattern sits against a steady-growth backdrop, rather than assuming a flat cross-industry number or an optimistic internal target applies to your account, is what Billo's free calculator, built on 80,069 sales-objective Meta video ads across 14 categories, is built to answer You can check your Q4 benchmarks and see your category's real number.

Hoping for a boom is free. Planning for one that isn't coming is expensive, and the forecast data is already telling you which kind of year this actually is.

Together with Tatari

Bring Your Toughest Growth Question to Forward 

Bring the acquisition question your team has been circling for months. 

On October 29, Forward by Tatari gives you direct access to leaders making growth decisions at scale.

Inside The Glasshouse in NYC, you can:

• Ask Reddit CEO Steve Huffman how discovery is changing across a platform reaching 127 million people daily.
• Hear how Cody Plofker helped scale Jones Road Beauty to nine figures and what he would prioritize now.
• Learn how Liquid I.V., MANSCAPED, Thorne, and Avocado Green Brands make TV accountable to revenue.

This is a working afternoon for marketers deciding where to put their next dollar. You’ll see how brands plan major TV moments, connect reach to sales, and broaden acquisition without leaving Meta.

Forward is free to attend, but seats inside The Glasshouse are limited.

Secure your spot and bring back a growth plan your team can use.

⚡Amazon cannibalization isn’t always wasted spend

This framework argues that overlapping Amazon placements can be valuable even when multiple ads compete for the same shopper. The bigger objective is controlling more visibility on important searches and reducing opportunities for competitors to capture the click.

Why it works: Combining Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Products, video, and organic placements can increase a brand’s presence across the results page. For priority searches, that creates multiple opportunities to retain attention and influence the purchase.

Where it needs balance: More brand-owned placements don't automatically mean more incremental sales. Some paid conversions may have happened organically anyway. Brands should compare the defensive value of additional visibility against incremental revenue, CPCs, organic rank, and total advertising cost.

🎥 Reel of the Day

What Works:

1. Curiosity-First Hook - “Regular cubes vs. Oddy cubes” instantly creates an unresolved comparison. Instead of introducing the toy or explaining benefits, Toyto gives viewers a simple question they naturally want answered.

2. Turn uncertainty into value - “We don’t know which cubes is the best part” cleverly refuses to declare a winner. That reframes the product around experimentation, suggesting there is no prescribed “correct” way for children to play.

3. Design For Parent Participation - “Which cubes are better?” extends the Reel beyond viewing by inviting parents to form an opinion. The binary question creates an effortless comment prompt directly connected to the product demonstration.

When a product enables creativity, don’t demonstrate one “right” outcome. Show several ways people can use it, then leave the question unresolved so viewers imagine possibilities themselves.

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Thanks for reading this edition! Keep pushing boundaries, testing ideas, and staying inspired. See you in the next edition with more ways to ignite your marketing success. 🥰