6 Best Summer Marketing Ideas for 2025 by Experts

Summer’s here, and it’s prime time for eCommerce brands to tap into seasonal marketing! With shoppers ready to spend, it's the perfect moment to leverage impactful summer marketing ideas to stand out. From tried-and-true promotions to fresh expert tactics, this guide covers 6 ways to boost your summer sales in 2025, capturing customers’ attention and boosting sales for the win!

Now, dive in and get ready for a summer sale galore!

🔎 What is seasonal marketing? Seasonal marketing is when businesses plan sales and promotions around specific times of the year, like summer, holidays, or big events.

What Is Summer Marketing?

Summer marketing is a type of seasonal marketing focused on promoting products and services during the summer. It’s all about tapping into people’s favorite summer activities and interests. Since US consumers spent about $214.1 billion last summer, eCommerce merchants should take summer promotions seriously this year to achieve the highest sales possible.

One outstanding example is “Beat the Heat” by Leh Berry. It was a refreshing success. The eye-catching designs and bright colors perfectly captured a summer breeze, while the slogan “Beat the Heat” appealed to customers looking for cool, reviving drinks.

In this summer campaign, Leh Berry smartly paired their fruit juices with extras like reusable straws and ice cube trays, encouraging customers to buy more. Besides, they promoted these summer bundle deals through social media ads, focusing on their current customers for better reach.

Image source: ContactPigeon

🔎 A fact you may not know: Ecommerce businesses that deal with the traveling industry can grab the most out of summer 2025. According to Bank of America’s latest report, 72% of the US have high intent to travel.

How Should Ecommerce Businesses Run Summer Marketing Campaigns?

Conducting your summer marketing ideas may differ slightly from what you normally do. This goes from the difference between seasonal marketing and evergreen marketing. Here’s our guide to running a successful summer campaign:

Focus on Increased Consumer Spending

Summer harmonies with vacations, outdoor activities, and social gatherings contribute to an average spending of $2,830 per person. From travel expenses and outdoor gear to summer fashion and home decor, people are more inclined to open their wallets in the summer.

By strategically aligning their summer marketing efforts with this uptick in spending, businesses can seize the opportunity to boost sales and maximize revenue.

Make Use of Positive Associations and Emotions

95% of purchase decisions are determined by subconscious factors, the most significant being emotion. Meanwhile, summer evokes joy, relaxation, and adventure - positive experiences businesses can leverage to create compelling marketing campaigns.

By tapping into these positive emotions, brands can foster deeper connections with their customers and create a sense of excitement around their products or services. 

Image source: Medium

Summer marketing with bold images, fun slogans, and seasonal deals helps businesses align with what people enjoy about summer. This approach makes the brand in tune with the season's spirit.

Engage Customers in a Seasonally Relevant Way

One key objective of successful summer marketing campaigns is to engage customers in a way that feels timely and relevant to the season. Whether it's through themed promotions, seasonal product offerings, or experiential marketing activations, businesses have the opportunity to tailor their messaging and activities to align with the interests and priorities of their target audience during the summer sale months.

Given that brands with good customer engagement were 41% more likely to report their conversion rates as “much higher” compared to the market average. By speaking directly to the experiences and aspirations of consumers at this time of year, brands can increase relevance, resonance, and engagement and ultimately boost summer sales.

Image source: mci

6 Best Summer Marketing Ideas to Prepare for 2025

1. Build Early Buzz for Summer Sale

Don’t just wait till summer has already begun. Create a buzz for your summer promotion ideas long before that. Here's how you can do it:

Deliver Summer Sale Content in Advance

Start building anticipation for your summer sale ideas by sharing summer-themed content in advance via social media and your website blog. Whether it's sharing summer fashion tips, highlighting popular summer sale activities, or showcasing sneak peeks of sale items, get your audience excited about what's to come.

A summer look for your online sales. Image source: Socital

📌 Pro tips for sellers:

• Pay attention to occasions. Throughout summer, there are several national holidays and occasions, such as the 4th of July, the Summer Olympics, Canada Day, etc. These days are predictable; you can prepare your summer advertising and sale campaigns around them in advance.

Send Summer Emails Throughout the Season

Keep the momentum going with summer-themed emails throughout the season. From summer promotions to exclusive offers, use email marketing to engage with your audience and drive traffic to your store.

Everlane, a giant US clothing retailer, launched its very first summer campaign in 2020 via email marketing. They started their campaign with simply an email noting “Our summer sale is officially on” and a “Shop Now” button. Once their customers clicked the button, they went straight to attractive summer sale deals.

There wasn’t any complexity in this email, but it could still help with upsell and boost the purchase rate. Everlane focused on how their email represented their customers during the season. We can tell from their email below that summer vibes were all over the place.

Everlane’s summer email. Image source: Really Good Emails

📌 What eCommerce brands can learn from their summer email marketing campaign:

• Don’t overdo your summer marketing campaign. Seasonal marketing emails can start with simplicity and still bring back results.
• If your business is in fashion, beauty, furniture, or traveling, embracing the summer spirit through your delivered material is a must.

⭐ What experts also suggest for eCommerce businesses:

• Summer sales can be a time when you offer your loyal customers exclusive deals. Get your best deals, then send emails to your most loyal customers.

2. Refresh Your eCommerce Presence for Summer

Along with other summer marketing ideas, it's a good idea to refresh your overall online style for the summer sale season. Customers enjoy seeing a theme carried throughout a business's digital presence.

Refresh Your Social Media Presence

Give your social media a summer refresh! Update profile pictures, cover photos, and posts with bright, seasonal images like beach scenes, palm trees, and cool drinks. This helps create a warm, inviting vibe during your summer marketing campaign.

Social media update for summer marketing. Image source: Freepik

• Capture the trends. Don’t just write content like “Hot summer sale” or “Summer items you must have”. Check out trends and fully capture them. For instance, VR (Virtual Reality) try-on is blooming in eCommerce, and businesses should adopt it. When running your summer marketing promotions, consider doing the VR try-on with the summer spirit in it.

VR Try-on for eCommerce brands. Image source: Swipe Insights

• “Brands in the comments and memes” is the new norm. Don’t forget to add it to your summer marketing ideas or just all year round. This seems to be a lightweight effort, but it brings some real results. And if you don’t buy it, check out Dove’s case.

Design a Summer-Themed Online Store

Give your store a bright, inviting summer makeover. We suggest that you start with a color palette that captures the season’s energy, then add fun graphics for a cohesive look. For store owners, don’t forget to update all your visuals displayed across the pages. This includes banners, product page templates, sections, icons, and more.

Beyond that, consider placing your best summer items front and center. Then, group them into collections to make browsing easy and enjoyable for your customers.

A summer-themed store presenting its best seasonal deals. Image source: Foxify Demo - Float Template

🤓 Do you know that warmer color palettes will rule 2025? According to our research, a touch of warm colors like ruby, burgundy, or maroon is likely to make a hit in 2025.

🌟 Expert tip: When designing high-converting summer-themed pages for your online store, Foxify Smart Page Builder is your secret weapon. Foxify offers various features and customization options that help you create stunning, professional-looking pages to capture summer sales. Our feature range includes:

• An intuitive drag-and-drop interface lets you easily create and customize your page. There is no limit to our page builder. Anything can happen with your pure creative freedom.

Build any page with Foxify Gen 2. Image source: Foxify

• 250+ stunning and high-converting templates covering all industries. You just have to choose from our extensive theme library and let us handle the rest!

An extensive template library by Foxify. Image source: Foxify Demo

• 50+ built-in upsell and cross-sell extensions are available with Foxify for upselling and cross-selling. And the best part? You can use them for FREE!

3. Create Gamified Summer Promotions

This magical time is about fun and games, so why not bring a little playful spirit to your summer marketing ideas? In 2024, thanks to gamification, businesses have seen:

• Increases of up to 30% in customer engagement
• A boost of 15-50% in conversion rates

Hence, we don’t see what’s holding you back from creating branded summer games to win your audience. Let’s check a few practices!

Develop Interactive Games on Your Website

Add excitement to your website by developing interactive games that tie to your brand or products. Whether it's a summer-themed memory match, a virtual scavenger hunt, or a beach-themed trivia quiz, interactive games are a fun way to capture your audience's attention and keep them coming back for more.

During summer marketing campaigns, consider adding games like Spin to Win (aka Lucky Wheel) and rewarding customers with coupons. This simple yet effective tactic can increase your conversion rate from 3.8% to 4%.

Add Spin to Win (aka Lucky Wheel) wheel to your website. Image source: Minimog Demo

📌 Pro tips by experts: Setting up wheels on your web store is easy with the Lucky Wheel feature by FoxKit - the All-in-one Upsell and Cross-sell app. Check out the detailed video tutorial right here:

Organize Summer Contests

From photo contests featuring top summer vacation pics to recipe contests for unique summer dishes, these summer promotion ideas create excitement. Contests help bring your community together while rewarding loyal customers.

Bio-Oil came up with a great summer marketing idea. They created an online puzzle to help educate customers about the importance of skin care during the summer. Customers who win the puzzle will receive a 20% discount code in their next order. This certainly encouraged them to buy more!

Image source: easypromos

4. Launch or Customize Summer-Themed Products

In addition to summer online style and games, businesses can re-design best-selling products or create new products tailored to the summer sale season.

Redesign Old Products with a New Summer-Themed Look

Consider giving your products a summer refresh with bright, seasonal packaging. Try adding tropical patterns, beach-inspired colors, or even fruity scents to create a summery feel.

For example, a skincare brand could update its packaging with palm leaves and sunset colors - like REN did, while a candle brand might add scents like coconut or pineapple. These simple changes can make your products feel fresh and exciting, enhancing the shopping experience and attracting more customers during the summer season.

A real-life example: REN Clear Skincare redesigned their summer packaging for an AHA tonic. Image source: DERMSTORE

Create New Products or Sub-Products Tailored to Customers' Preferences in Summer

Think about what’s on your customers’ summer wish lists and design products that cater to them. Whether it’s breathable outfits for warm weather, after-sun skincare, or outdoor gear for beach and barbecue days, your offerings can make their summer more accessible and more enjoyable.

Let’s put it this way: Fashion brands can add a line of airy, casual summer wear, while beauty brands might offer soothing aloe-infused lotions. These targeted summer marketing ideas meet customer demand and set your brand apart during the season.

A real-life example: Taylor Stitch - one of the most popular stores powered by Shopify, released their summer collection in 2023 called Agave. In the Agave collection, Taylor Stitch featured items including T-shirts, shorts, sunglasses, and more. All came with a summer breeze in it.

The Agave Summer Collection by Taylor Stitch. Image source: Taylor Stitch

👉 If you are looking for summer merchandise ideas, take these 45 summer product ideas to sell.

5. Launch Summer Promotion Program

Promotions are a key way to engage customers during the summer sale season. Let’s heat up your sales with irresistible summer promotion ideas that keep your customers coming back for more!

Summer Exclusive/ Limited Discount

Give your customers a reason to celebrate summer by offering exclusive or limited-time discounts on select products. Whether it's a percentage off (Like Current did), a buy-one-get-one deal, or free shipping on summer essentials, these irresistible savings will ignite the season’s spirit and encourage more purchases.

Summer Celebration Sale by Current. Image source: Current

📌 Expert tip:

Set a countdown timer for your exclusive deals to create a sense of urgency and the FOMO effect. This can help you make more sales over a shorter period of time. But more than that, countdown timers can improve customers’ awareness of promotions by up to 102%.

To set up a countdown timer for Shopify stores, consider using FoxKit - Upsell and Cross-sell app. Here is a video guide on how to set a countdown timer for you:

Summer Product Bundles

Bundling your top products into themed summer packages is a practical summer marketing idea. Let’s take an example. If your store sells cooking ware, try bundling a BBQ kit with grilling tools and sauces.

In other cases, you can do a beach pack with sunscreen, a towel, and beach toys to create an easy shopping experience. These packages meet customer needs for the season while showcasing your brand as a summer go-to. Besides, product bundles add up your order values. Check out what a product bundle looks like below. 

A summer bundle (in the Shopping Cart details) demonstrated by FoxKit. Image source: FoxKit Demo

🌟 Make the most of your summer promotion with FoxKit app to create dynamic product recommendations, upsell complementary items, and cross-sell related products, maximizing average order value and boosting your bottom line.

6. Host Engaging Summer Events

Getting involved in the community is a great way to welcome summer. Here’s how you can create a memorable summer experience for customers and boost summer sales at the same time.

Organize Your Own Events

Take the reins and organize your summer sales, such as pop-up shops, outdoor markets, or community gatherings. Choose a location that aligns with your brand aesthetic and target audience, whether it's a beachfront location, a park pavilion, or a trendy urban space.

Create a buzz around your event by promoting it on social media, partnering with local influencers or businesses. Consider offering incentives like Instagram giveaways, live entertainment, or special promotions. By hosting your own events, you can create unique, immersive brand experiences that leave a lasting impression on attendees and drive engagement and loyalty.

At the beginning of summer 2022, Starbucks collaborated with Pepsi to launch its very first energy drink named “Baya”. These 2 brands decided to organize a series of LGBT-themed free-tasting events at many campuses around the US to market the product. Their summer sale ideas attracted many people because they brought energy to students and supported inclusion and diversity. As a result, US sales of this energy drink reached $128.7 million at the end of year 2022.

Image source: ATN Talent Site

📌 Pro tips for eCommerce brands: Our experts recommend you build a stunning summer landing page that pops your highlights (either products or promotions). If you have an in-house team to handle this, that’s great. However, if you lack the resources, consider using a page builder like Foxify. It’s a smart page builder, tailored for Shopify merchants who want to drive conversions and sales. Give it a shot, and see where it takes you!

Participate in Local Fairs

Collaborating with local vendors to co-host community summer events can help create a strong local brand presence. When participating in such events, you can distribute samples, provide special promotions, or conduct live demos. These activities likely increase your brand's visibility, attract new leads, and strengthen your bond with the local community.

Image source: flickr

It’s Time to Start Your Summer Sale

As the temperature rises and the days get longer, now is the perfect time to kickstart your summer campaign.

Whether you're launching a sizzling summer sale, refreshing your online presence, or hosting your own summer event, these practical summer marketing ideas will help you make a splash in the season.

Now dust off your flip-flops, fire up the barbecue, and get ready to bask in the sunshine of summer success!