To have a gift guide for your holiday strategy is a must-have. With its help, you can effectively showcase product suggestions for seasonal sales, directing your client’s attention to top items and simultaneously strengthening connections.
Let’s go over the top strategies and gift guide examples that perform well for businesses, especially ecommerce and DTC brands. We’ll also share the easiest ways to create a gift guide for your brand.
Holiday Gift Guide Emails and Direct Mail in 2026
Let’s start with defining what a gift guide is and what businesses usually feature in it. A holiday gift guide is a carefully curated product list created to assist shoppers in selecting gifts for a particular holiday.
This piece of seasonal promotion can be presented to clients in both physical and digital forms. Most ecommerce businesses create a dedicated web page or send a gift guide email to employ this marketing strategy.
In 2026, personalization is one of the most important strategies for lead acquisition and customer retention. To provide more relevant suggestions, we recommend creating your gift guide emails based on past purchases, personal preferences, or email exchanges.
Typically, featured items are chosen based on factors such as:
- Target audience or receiver of the gift (“For her”, “For him”, etc.)
- Category of product
- History of sales
The proper product categorization and email segmentation give customers who are shopping for seasonal gifts a seamless experience.
Aside from physical and email forms, these gift guides can be presented as a blog post with comprehensive content, a landing page, or, what’s more popular recently, a quiz. Whereas a quiz uses user input to produce product recommendations, a landing page is frequently divided into audience and product categories.
Why Send Gift Guide Email
You can use many channels to give gift suggestions to your audience but, as professional marketers, we recommend starting with a gift guide email. Compared to more costly options like direct mail, email marketing can cater to the needs of businesses of all sizes and sectors. It also shows maximum efficiency when it comes to reaching campaign objectives and desired conversions. Here are more reasons why you should send a holiday gift guide email.
- Increase Sales
Encourage purchases by showcasing gift choices.
- Segmented Personalization
For increased relevance and conversions, customize instructions for particular audiences.
- Simplify Shopping
Assist clients in finding appropriate presents by recipient, price, or category on time.
- Highlight Special Offers
Highlight unique products, special discounts, or promotions.
- Increase Holiday Traffic
Increase website traffic throughout the busiest shopping seasons.
- Reinforce Brand Awareness
Keep your brand at the forefront of your mind with carefully chosen, eye-catching gift ideas.
Key Components of an Effective Gift Guide Email
The purpose of an email gift guide is to serve as a helpful navigation tool for your customers, ensuring a comfortable user experience and inspiring gift ideas for themselves or their loved ones. For your eCommerce business, such an email campaign will stimulate sales by organizing products into specific, convenient shopping categories. A successful email gift guide should not contain just instructions, but be relevant, visually appealing, encouraging, and calling to action. To help you achieve the ideal when creating your own custom gift guide, we have compiled the key components of a gift guide that deliver high results.
- Eye-catching subject line.
Stimulating purchases through a gift guide will not happen if subscribers are not interested in the email and do not open it. The subject line is exactly what can ensure a good open rate for your email if written correctly. Make your subject lines clear, interesting, and concise, making sure to test them through A/B testing.
- Attractive and user-friendly design.
Utilize attractive gift guide layouts and add high-quality product images. Include animated GIF files for extra appeal, but avoid overloading the email to maintain optimal optimization and ensure that the guide is user-friendly.
- Оrganization of categories.
The gift guide must divide products into at least two categories. Divide products into sections for easy navigation. If your email marketing includes personalization and segmentation, try to avoid general categories such as “Gifts for him” and “Gifts for her,” focusing on more relevant categories, such as:
By customer interest: “For the home cook,” “For the outdoor enthusiast,” or “For the tech geek.”
By price: “Gifts under $25,” “Gifts under $50,” and “Luxury gifts.” (This category is more specific and does not require segmentation.)
By occasion/theme: “Merry Christmas,” “Secret Santa Ideas,” or “Cozy Night at Home.”
- Concise, relevant product descriptions.
Don’t limit your email gift guide to just pictures; add a short description of the products you offer in the guide, including only relevant and important information. This information can include the main advantages of the product, its unique features, and a direct link to its page, for example, with a button.
- Clear calls to action (CTA).
Most of the short texts in your guide and buttons should contain a CTA. This will encourage customers to click and navigate to what they need to do next.
- Providing important information for customers.
Improve the customer journey by adding information that may be needed when interacting with your brand, and some details about the purchasing process. Such practical details include: approximate delivery times, return policy, ways to contact customer support, and more.
- Optimization for mobile devices.
Don’t lose your subscribers who follow your newsletters from mobile devices. Almost half of your audience may be viewing their email inbox on mobile. If your emails, including email gift guides, are not optimized for it, they may simply be unreadable for a significant part of your audience, discouraging them from interacting.
- Personalize your offers.
Using your analytics and customer data platforms for email marketing, we recommend that you optimize this data to personalize emails and segment your audience. Personalization will be especially effective in email gift guides, as your subscribers will receive more relevant gift ideas and recommendations.
- Related series of gift guides.
Don’t overload a single email with dozens of categories and gift recommendations, as subscribers are unlikely to read it in its entirety. In addition, emails that are too long may be cut off by email clients. Send a series of shorter emails, each dedicated to a specific category or topic.
Timings for Sending Gift Guide Emails
It is quite obvious that sending gift guide emails on any given day will not bring significant results. Of course, gift recommendations should be sent on specific dates before the holidays. In the table below, we have compiled the best times for sending a series of gift guide emails.
| Christmas, New Year | Valentine’s Day | Mother’s Day (U.S.) | Father’s Day (U.S.) | Wedding Season (U.S.) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beginning of the email campaign | early-late November | mid-January | early-mid April | late May-early June | 4 weeks before peak months |
| Teaser email | mid-November | - | early April | late May | April |
| Main gift guide email | early December | late January | mid-April | early June | early May |
| Reminder of the shipping cutoff | 7-10 days before deadline | week before deadline | week before deadline | week before deadline | - |
| Last-minute gift email | 3-5 days before the holiday | 2 days before the holiday | 1-3 days before the holiday | 1-3 days before the holiday | - |
How to Create a Holiday Gift Guide
Now, how can you create a gift guide? We’ll share 4 most effective gift guide strategies, starting with the easiest and cheapest option and moving to the most expensive and complex.
Strategy 1. Create a Gift Guide Email
Just like we said, creating an email gift guide is a basic tactic suitable for a range of resources and business segments. You can use this option to send a single email covering all categories or a series of emails, each focused on one category.
Example: Feature gifts under $25, $50, and $100 in one comprehensive email.
Note: If time or resources are limited, a team of email marketing experts like Flowium can assist in creating unique, recognizable, and helpful guides for the holiday season.
Strategy 2. Create a Landing Page
Another effective strategy for holiday gift guides is creating a landing page. By directing your audience to this web page, you can easily gain web traffic and more conversions for your brand. It’s also good for SEO and ideal for maintaining a year-round resource, as done by many brands. However, you need to be aware that the development of a high-quality gift guide landing page requires consulting with a web developer or designer.
Pro Tip: Create a page like yourbrand.com/giftguide, which can be updated yearly and reused.
Strategy 3. Create a Lead Magnet PDF-Style Gift Guide
Making a downloadable gift guide as a lead magnet is an easier alternative to a landing page. Users receive it by leaving their email or accessing it via a simple link on the website. It works by the same principle as most lead magnets, including those offered by Flowium.
Example: You can get our special Black Friday checklist for free by simply entering your email address in the form. In a moment, you’ll receive a downloadable file with the best BFCM email marketing strategies.
Thanks to this strategy, you attract clients with free perks and share useful information, which will make their shopping with your brand easier.
Strategy 4. Create a Magazine
Out of all gift guide strategies, creating a magazine with product suggestions is the most expensive and challenging option, but it’s ideal for direct mail campaigns.
Gift Guide Magazine Example: Brands like Amazon send magazines to children starting in October, where they mark desired items, creating purchasing pressure by December’s end.
10 Best Gift Guide Ideas
Now that you have reviewed the most effective tactics, it’s time to look at more gift guide ideas that you can use for your holiday campaigns in 2026.
Lookbook
Create a lookbook or lifestyle picture, grouping products as a complete set. With this gift guide idea, you can provide clients with clear imagery of how their purchased gifts are in real-life settings. Also, promoting items in sets increases the chances of purchases in sets. Don’t forget to put the prices and add a QR code for further details.
Gift Guides by Price Category
Create categories for different price ranges, for example, items under $25, under $50, and under $100, plus a sale section. In gift guide emails and direct mail, you can divide these categories by adding separate blocks to the design. For web gift guides like landing pages, you can go even further and add filters to help customers quickly find gifts within specific price ranges.
Pro Tip: To encourage buyers and increase customer loyalty, include a rewards system and bonus offers (e.g., a gift card for purchases over a certain sum, bonuses for subscriptions, etc.).
Gift Cards as an Option
Even with your comprehensive guide, there will still be customers on the fence about what to buy. Give them an option to purchase a gift card to present to their friends and family, so they shop for themselves. This idea for your gift guide will give more ideal opportunities for last-minute shoppers since most gift cards are sent electronically via email.
Highlighted Top Gifts
Feature the most popular products. Gift guide emails that highlight a “Top Gifts” category make it easier and more fun for readers to find well-liked, highly recommended selections. To ensure that customers find something unique without having to search through several categories, this section can highlight popular or generally appealing products.
Stocking Stuffer Gift Guide
As a holiday-specific gift guide idea, you can create a list of small gift items that fit into stockings. You can create a whole separate guide or simply add another category to your existing one to give recommendations for smaller products to inspire seasonal purchases.
Gift-Finder Quizzes
By including gift finder quizzes in gift guide emails and landing pages, users can easily find the perfect items depending on their tastes, the type of recipient, and the occasion, creating a personalized buying experience. Useful in industries like beauty and cosmetics to guide shoppers to the right product.
Gift Guide Series Emails
There are many significant occasions on the email marketing calendar that you can dedicate your gift guide to. Send themed product emails daily, every two days, or weekly as the holiday approaches. The gift guide email series provides readers with a carefully chosen range of gift suggestions, keeping them interested with new suggestions catered to various hobbies and events.
Tailored Gift Ideas
Tailor gift ideas to specific interests based on activities preferred by your audience. By customizing gift suggestions based on particular interests, such as hobbies, and lifestyle preferences, gift guides become more relevant and interesting. This way you can effectively assist clients in discovering considerate presents that speak to their recipients on a personal level.
Cardalogs
Compact, mini-catalogs known as cardalogs present several products in an eye-catching, fold-out format, making them an appealing and practical choice for gift suggestions. Cardalogs improve the overall buying experience by providing a carefully chosen assortment in a more manageable, user-friendly style. Overall, this example of a gift guide promotes browsing and enables clients to find a variety of gift ideas in a single glance.
Shared Mailers
Brands can split production costs and successfully reach a wider audience by presenting their items to the audience of another brand by using shared mailers as gift recommendations. Because each company gains from cross-promotion to a targeted consumer group, this strategic cooperation not only lowers costs but also increases brand awareness, enhancing the gift guide’s impact.
Top Gift Guide Examples
We would like to take a closer look at more gift guide examples and explain the methods and techniques they use to ensure success and make the most of the holiday season
Email Gift Guide by Society Six
This gift guide email example from Society Six demonstrates how they incorporate gift guides into their correspondence. It’s well-organized with sections for each family member: mom, dad, him, and her. Shoppers can easily click on “mom,” for example, to explore gift options specifically for her. Having multiple calls to action at the top, however, may dilute the effectiveness of a clear call to action; this could be one area for improvement.
Additionally, the email offers selections categorized by price range, including stocking stuffers and items under $25, $50, and $100. This arrangement is another excellent example, though the specific featured items are not specified.
Direct Mail Gift Guide from Amazon
Since physical mailboxes receive fewer promotions than email inboxes and social media feeds, direct mail faces less competition than digital channels. Businesses like Amazon successfully employ this strategy, sending out catalogs as the gift guide example from the video below. Although each catalog may cost $3 to $6, investing in such direct mail tactics can be beneficial, especially since it brings high conversion rates. Children are the catalog’s direct target audience, making it easier for parents because children may choose their own Christmas presents. Notably, no prices are displayed, allowing children to make their own decisions. Items are arranged by category to promote purchases, and QR codes on every page—a feature more common since COVID—allow quick access to product data. Extra components like games, stickers, and guides on eco-friendly packaging provide value and entertainment.
Not On The High Street’s Gift Guide Example
The final example of a gift guide email comes from Not on the High Street, which customizes its guides based on audience segments. This approach likely achieves a much higher conversion rate, as it delivers content tailored to each specific group.
These emails are entirely relevant to each segment, with guides specifically for teens and another for younger children, for instance. An email featuring gifts for teens would not resonate with recipients who don’t have teenagers in their family or social circle, and it may simply be archived or deleted if it doesn’t align with their needs.
Final Thoughts
We hope you’ll be able to find inspiration from these top gift guide examples and a better understanding of the most effective strategies used by professional marketers. With well-organized holiday gift guides, you can effectively help your clients find the ideal present and increase your holiday sales.
Not ready to do all the work by yourself? Contact Flowium, an expert provider of email marketing services, to get qualified assistance with your holiday campaigns.
