Why Q5 is your creative lab

If Q4 is a sprint, Q5 is the cool down that quietly defines your next season.

After the rush of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and peak holiday shopping season, performance marketers tend to exhale, park budgets, and wait for Q1 planning meetings. Meanwhile, something very different is happening in the market. New phones, tablets, and TVs are in living rooms. Millions of people are still shopping online, testing new apps, and setting fresh routines.

OptinMonster’s 2025 Online Shopping Statistics report estimates that global ecommerce sales will reach 6.86 trillion dollars this year, with about 2.8 billion people making at least one online purchase and mobile projected to power nearly half of those sales. 

In other words, demand does not vanish when the ornaments go back in the box. It just gets quieter, cheaper, and more experimental. That is Q5. And if you care about creative, Q5 might be the most important period of your year.

Below are five ways to treat Q5 as your creative lab to set up a stronger, smarter Q1.

1. Define Q5 as the “afterparty” where pressure drops but intent stays high

Q5 is the period right after the holiday season shopping spike when:

• CPMs and competition often soften
• New devices from gifting season flood the ecosystem
• Users are still browsing, signing up for services, and reshaping habits

Consumers are not in the frantic gift mindset anymore. They are:

• Returning and exchanging items
• Spending gift cards and holiday cash
• Looking for “me” purchases and upgrades
• Cleaning up phones and trying new apps

For apps, games, and subscription services, that creates a rare combination. Inventory is cheaper but intent is still strong. Audiences are slightly more patient and curious. That is exactly the environment you want for creative experiments that would be too risky during peak season.

Make Q5 explicit inside your org. Name it. Put start and end dates on a slide. Once your team recognizes Q5 as a distinct creative phase, it is much easier to protect a test budget and set goals beyond pure ROAS.

2. Use new devices and new users as your “first impression” sandbox

Holiday hardware is real. New phones, tablets, smart TVs, and streaming devices mean fresh IDs and a wave of people setting up app stores, subscriptions, and home screens from scratch.

Online shopping is now habitual, with mobile playing a central role in discovery and research even when the final purchase happens elsewhere.

Translate that into a creative lens:

• New devices mean higher quality screens and more openness to immersive formats
• New users mean more tolerance for onboarding narratives and explainer flows
• Post holiday mindset means appetite for “reset” stories such as productivity, wellness, financial health, or leveling up entertainment

In Q5, treat every creative as a first impression. Ask:

• If this ad were the first time someone met our brand, does it feel welcoming or transactional
• Are we showing how the experience actually feels on this new device
• Do we lean into that “fresh start” mindset rather than leftover discount messaging

Design specific Q5 concepts tailored to new hardware. For example, a CTV ad that literally walks through the living room experience on a new TV, or a playable that mirrors the interaction of your real onboarding flow on a high refresh screen.

3. Test high intent formats while the stakes are lower

Q5 is the right time to move beyond static banners and single shot video. Use the softer CPM environment to pressure test creative that demands more from the user and gives you more signal in return.

Prioritize:

• Playable ads that let users try a core mechanic before install
• Interactive end cards that extend engagement after a video finishes
• UGC-style video that feels like content rather than a traditional ad
• Multi step flows that gather preferences or segment users by intent
• Quizzes and choose your own path narratives for brand and performance campaigns

These formats shine in Q5 because they trade a little efficiency for richer behavior data. When you are not fighting holiday auction spikes, you can afford to ask more from the user and pull more insight out of each impression.

Structure tests with discipline:

• Pick one or two variables per format, such as narrative framing or level of difficulty in a playable
  
  
• Define what success looks like beyond CPI or ROAS, such as completion rate, choice distribution, or time spent
  
  
• Use sequential testing. Start broad in early Q5, then narrow to winning patterns as you approach Q1 ramp up

You are not trying to crown a single “evergreen” winner. You are trying to build a creative system that learns faster than your competitors.

4. Treat Q5 creative data as product feedback, not just campaign metrics

The biggest mistake teams make in Q5 is treating creative results as a report instead of a roadmap. Every decision users make inside interactive formats is a behavioral survey at scale.

Look at your Q5 results as product research:

• What users click first in a multi step flow hints at which value props should appear on your paywall or pricing page
  
  
• Where people drop in a quiz mirrors where onboarding flows may be confusing or too demanding
  
  
• Which choices users ignore in a menu style ad can guide de cluttering inside the app
  
  
• How often users skip “story” scenes in a playable can tell you exactly how much lore belongs in your tutorial

High cart abandonment rates reinforce one core truth: Friction kills conversions long before intent disappears.

Use Q5 to find and remove that friction. Create a shared ritual between growth and product:

• Export top creative paths from Q5 tests
  
  
• Sit down with product and UX to map those paths onto real flows
  
  
• Identify two or three low lift UX tweaks that align with how users actually behave in your ads

When creative data feeds roadmap decisions, Q5’s impact extends well beyond your next flight.

5. Build a Q5 to Q1 handoff and plug into industry perspective

Q5 should end with a playbook, not a postmortem. Before you flip the switch on Q1:

Document your Q5 system:

• Top three creative concepts by attention and intent
• Winning formats by platform such as mobile, CTV, DOOH
• Behavioral insights that should directly influence UX or monetization
• Test ideas that need a second run with higher spend in Q1

Then build your Q1 brief from that foundation rather than from guesswork or last year’s “greatest hits.”

Turn Q5 into your creative advantage

Q5 should not be an afterthought—because it’s the bridge between holiday chaos and your brand’s next growth chapter. It is the one moment in the year when CPMs drop, new devices light up, and audiences are open to trying something different.

If you treat Q5 as your creative lab, you get:

• Cheaper experiments across high intent, interactive formats
  
  
• Clearer insight into what your next generation of users actually cares about
  
  
• Product and UX improvements rooted in real behavior, not opinions
  
  
• A stronger, faster learning creative system going into Q1
  
  

At CRAFTSMAN+ we help brands and app marketers turn these moments into durable advantage. From playables and interactive end cards to cross screen storytelling and measurement, we build creative that is designed to learn.

Ready to turn Q5 into your creative edge instead of a quiet period on the calendar?
Reach out to the CRAFTSMAN+ team to build your Q5 test plan!