Most brands treat Q1 like a recovery period—a time to catch their breath after the holiday push. But the smartest marketers know something different: Q1 isn’t when momentum stops. It’s when the real opportunity begins.
Here’s the thing. All that creator content you built during the holidays? It doesn’t expire on January 1. Those unboxings, lifestyle shots, product demos, and gifting videos are still assets, and they’re all sitting in your content library waiting to be activated.
The timing couldn’t be better. Q1 2025 Facebook CPMs averaged $18.32, a full 26% lower than Q4’s $23.14 average. January consistently delivers the lowest ad costs of the year. That means you can amplify proven content at a fraction of what you paid during peak season.
The brands winning right now aren’t starting from scratch. They repurpose holiday UGC for Q1.
Why Holiday Content Still Converts in Q1
Holiday content captures something that doesn’t fade with the season: authenticity. The emotional moments, the real product experiences, the genuine enthusiasm—those resonate year-round. Think about it. A creator’s gifting video from December still shows your product in action. A holiday unboxing still builds trust. A lifestyle post still demonstrates real-world use. The wrapping paper might be seasonal, but the content’s value isn’t.
The data backs this up. As of 2025, 93% of marketers who used UGC said it outperformed traditional branded content. UGC-based ads generate 4x higher click-through rates and a 50% reduction in cost-per-click compared to traditional creative. If you invested in creator partnerships during Q4, you’ve already done the hard work. Now it’s about putting that content back to work.
Start With an Audit
Before you repurpose anything, you need to know what you have—and what’s worth scaling. Go through your holiday content library and ask: Which posts drove the highest engagement? Which creators saw the best conversion performance through promo codes or click-throughs? What content translated well across platforms? And critically, which assets have cleared rights for paid use?
Once you’ve identified your top performers, organize them by use case. Separate content for paid ads, product pages, email, and retargeting. This makes activation faster and ensures you’re matching the right content to the right channel. The best approach to repurposing isn’t treating it as a one-time cleanup. It’s building a system that turns seasonal campaigns into year-round assets.
Petco x Social Native: Building a Year-Round Content Engine
Petco needed to generate engagement and acquire new customers. Rather than treating each campaign as a one-off, they partnered with Social Native to produce creator content for in-store activations including Halloween, Christmas, and various seasonal promotions—then extended that content across ongoing social, paid, and organic efforts throughout the year.
The results: 42 campaigns, nearly 3,000 images and videos, a 7% engagement rate, 67 million potential customers reached, and over 3.6 million engagements.
Where to Repurpose Holiday UGC in Q1
Once you’ve audited your library and identified your top performers, it’s time to put that content to work. Repurpose holiday UGC where it drives the most value:
Paid Social
This is the fastest path to ROI. Whitelist top-performing creator content for Partnership Ads on Meta and TikTok. The creator’s handle maintains authenticity while giving you the targeting power of paid media.
The performance difference is striking. Creator ads deliver CPMs 30–40% lower than brand ads, with click-through rates more than double that of studio assets, according to data from over 1,200 campaigns between 2023 and 2025. On TikTok specifically, Spark Ads achieve 3%+ CTR, significantly outperforming standard in-feed ads.
Your holiday content already proved it resonates. Paid amplification lets you scale what’s working.
Product Pages
UGC galleries on product pages aren’t just nice to have—they convert. Holiday lifestyle content shows products in real-world use, building trust at the exact moment a shopper is deciding whether to buy.
The numbers are compelling. Visitors who interact with UGC convert at a rate 102.4% higher than average. Featuring UGC on product pages increases revenue per visitor by 154%.
Email and SMS
Creator content belongs in your Q1 nurture flows. Use testimonials and product demos in welcome sequences, abandoned cart emails, and post-purchase follow-ups. UGC in email marketing increases click-through rates by 78%. That’s a significant lift from simply swapping in creator content for stock imagery or brand-produced assets.
Retargeting
Holiday shoppers who browsed but didn’t buy are warm leads. They’ve already shown intent. Serve them the creator content they engaged with during Q4 to close the loop. Retargeting with UGC combines familiarity with social proof—two powerful conversion drivers working together.
Nespresso x Social Native: Optimizing Content for New Platforms
Repurposing isn’t just about recycling the same content everywhere. It’s about reformatting for where your audience actually is. Nespresso USA wanted to boost awareness of their Nespresso Barista Machine and Nespresso Vertuo System—but they didn’t need to produce entirely new creative. They partnered with Social Native to convert their existing high-quality content into Pinterest-optimized static video and image pins using Social Native’s Pro Creators™.
The campaign results were impressive, with a 19% higher interaction rate per conversion, 6.5% lift in ad recall, and a 6.8 lift in pin awareness for the Barista Machine. The collaboration is proof of the power in strategically repurposing content.
Turn Seasonal Creators Into Always-On Partners
Holiday campaigns do more than drive Q4 sales. They surface your best-performing creators. Don’t let those relationships end with the season.
Use your Q4 data to identify the creators worth retaining. Look for top converters with strong promo code performance and attributed sales. Find the high-engagement creators who drove meaningful interaction. Pay attention to talent whose content translated well to paid ads. These are your breakout creators—and they should be first in line for Q1 partnerships.
The investment makes sense. 67% of retailers plan to increase their UGC investment in the coming year. The brands building always-on creator relationships now are positioning for compounding returns: better content, stronger trust, and lower costs over time.
For a deeper framework on transitioning seasonal creators into always-on partnerships, download our Holiday Influencer Marketing Playbook. Our e-book covers it all, from how to select the right creators for your brand’s needs to scaling Q4 performance in Q1.
Q1 Is the Time to Test
With lower CPMs, less competition and proven content, Q1 is the ideal environment to experiment. You can optimize without the pressure of peak-season pricing by testing holiday content against new creative, trying different platforms and A/B test messaging.
The economics support it: The UGC market grew to $7.6 billion in 2025, up 69% from the prior year. Brands are investing because repurposing works—UGC reduces content creation costs by up to 30% while delivering stronger performance than traditional branded content.
Build the System, Not Just the Campaign
The brands that win year-round aren’t starting fresh every quarter. They’re building content libraries, retaining top creators, and repurposing proven assets across every channel. Holiday content is an investment and the performance data is in. The only question is whether you’ll let that investment sit idle—or put it back to work.
Social Native helps brands do exactly that. From centralizing content and managing rights to identifying which assets to scale, the platform connects the dots between holiday activation and Q1 performance.
