REPORT: A Record-Breaking December for Origin Led by Retail Marketing Success - And What This Tells Us.
- Origin
- Jan 13
- 3 min read
December is typically one of the most demanding months for marketers. Budgets are concentrated, competition is elevated, and advertisers are prioritizing partners who can demonstrate measurable business impact. In that context, December 2025 marked Origin’s strongest December on record, contributing to the company’s best year to date.
Looking beyond top line performance, the underlying data helps explain why this period stood out.
December Performance Was Led by Retail
When isolating December activity across years, retail represented nearly three-quarters of Origin’s December revenue, making it the primary driver of year-end performance. This concentration is notable, as retail advertisers are typically most selective during the holiday period, when inefficiencies are quickly exposed and results are closely monitored.
CPG and Travel followed as the next largest contributors. While these verticals operate under different buying and planning dynamics, both emphasize efficiency and measurable outcomes - particularly during peak periods. Additional December activity from Medical, Apparel, Auto, and Lifestyle categories points to continued diversification, even during a month when many brands narrow their focus.
Incrementality and iROAS as the Primary Performance Signals
To evaluate whether December performance reflected true business impact rather than attributed exposure, select holiday retail campaigns were independently measured by leading real-time market and measurement platform - InMarket - using their Lift Conversion Index (LCI®), which is designed to quantify incremental outcomes by comparing exposed and control groups, isolating changes attributable to media.
One representative retail campaign, ran from October 26 through December 24, 2025 and delivered the following results:
+13.9% incremental sales lift.
$9.5 million in incremental sales.
$8.27 incremental return on ad spend (iROAS).
+10.5% incremental store visit lift, representing more than 92,000 incremental visits.
These results reflect causal lift, not modeled attribution, and are based on third-party incrementality measurement comparing exposed and control populations.
For more client success stories spanning retail, CPG, travel and other verticals - click here.
How December Fits Into the Broader Year
December’s performance aligns with broader year-over-year trends across Origin’s non-political business:
Retail revenue increased meaningfully from 2023 to 2024 (exceeding 40% year over year) and continued to grow into 2025.
Travel accelerated sharply beginning in 2022 and more than doubled by 2024 as category demand recovered.
CPG performance remained steady, with the strongest results appearing in the most recent years.
Across verticals, the largest quarters and strongest December results occur later in the timeline, suggesting sustained momentum rather than isolated seasonal spikes.
A Clearer View of Growth
Removing political advertising from the analysis of previous cycles helps clarify the underlying signal. Origin’s strongest year and strongest December were driven by consumer-led, performance-sensitive advertisers, particularly in retail, who increasingly expect outcomes to be validated through independent measurement.
Incrementality-focused evaluation provides a clearer view of how media influences real-world behavior. In December, that approach supported both the scale and durability of results which Origin's dynamic creative solutions are capable of delivering.
Looking Ahead
December often serves as a stress test for media performance. In this case, Origin’s year-end results were supported not only by spend levels, but by independently measured outcomes tied to incremental sales, visits, and return on ad spend.
Taken together, the data suggests that December was not an exception, but a reflection of longer-term momentum built on measurable impact.
If you find this topic interesting and would like to know more, you can schedule a consultation with one of Origin's CTV specialists by clicking here.
Origin is a multi-award winning provider of creative solutions and services for media buyers, creative teams and brands who want to transform conventional CTV ad creatives into powerful, personal and provocative advertising experiences.
With unparalleled creative capabilities and proprietary ad serving technology, Origin’s unique suite of dynamic ad overlays and native CTV ad extensions allows advertisers to engage distracted audiences and achieve the results they need.
Founded by media veterans Stephen Strong and Fred Godfrey, Origin is driven by the belief that winning viewers today requires breaking free from how it was done yesterday.
Learn more at: originmedia.tv
