Seasonal ad surge raises questions around digital performance metrics

Valentine’s Day had become one of the most active marketing windows in the consumer calendar. In the weeks leading up to 14 February, brands across categories, from dating apps and jewellery labels to beauty companies, gifting platforms and quick commerce players, saw a significant rise in digital advertising activity. Campaigns intensified as marketers aimed to capture high-intent demand from consumers searching for gifts, experiences and personal indulgence.

This seasonal momentum often translates into strong campaign metrics. Conversion rates climb, retargeting volumes expand and return on ad spend frequently spikes during the period. Yet the surge has also brought renewed attention to how effectiveness is measured in digital advertising. As marketing budgets become increasingly digital first, industry discussions are expanding beyond campaign scale to examine attribution models, supply quality and the role of verification in ensuring meaningful outcomes.

The conversation is not purely about risk. Seasonal moments such as Valentine’s Day continue to offer valuable opportunities for brands to engage audiences during culturally relevant periods. At the same time, compressed purchase windows and performance-heavy media strategies often prompt a broader examination of how campaign results are interpreted.

Seasonal Demand and Attribution Complexity

One of the recurring themes around seasonal advertising is the relationship between organic demand and paid media exposure. High intent shopping periods naturally generate strong purchase behaviour, which can make attribution models appear particularly effective.

Amit Relan, CEO and Co-Founder of mFilterIt, points to an example that illustrates this dynamic. In the run up to Valentine’s Day, a quick commerce platform intensified retargeting to capture last minute shoppers. Purchase volumes increased during the week of the campaign. However, a deeper analysis of campaign data suggested that many of these conversions may have been driven by existing purchase intent.

“In simple terms, 6 out of every 10 retargeting purchases were users who likely already had purchase intent and may have converted organically even without paid retargeting exposure,” Relan said.

Such insights highlight the importance of understanding incrementality during high demand periods. Seasonal occasions like Valentine’s Day often see repeat usage and immediate purchase behaviour, particularly in categories such as quick commerce, gifting and beauty. In these environments, retargeting campaigns can sometimes capture demand that was already present rather than creating entirely new conversions.

“While topline performance may look strong, the data indicates that a significant share of attributed conversions during this period may reflect organic demand being reattributed to paid media,” Relan added.

For advertisers, the distinction between capturing demand and generating incremental demand can influence how campaign effectiveness is assessed and how future budgets are allocated.

Brand Building Within Seasonal Moments

While performance marketing plays a central role during Valentine’s campaigns, several brands continue to view the period as an opportunity to strengthen long term brand engagement alongside short term conversions.

Abhishek Chakraborty, Head of Brand, PR and Digital at Oriflame India, noted that seasonal campaigns naturally benefit from strong purchase intent among consumers.

“Seasonal moments like Valentine’s Day naturally come with strong purchase intent because people are already thinking about gifting and self-care. From a brand perspective, the opportunity lies in being present at the right moment and guiding that intent toward your offering,” he said.

For Oriflame, the Valentine’s campaign combined performance elements with brand storytelling. The company worked with media platforms and digital creators to showcase real couple stories associated with the brand, alongside product placements across lifestyle and beauty publications.

“In that sense, the campaign helped us do two things simultaneously. It captured existing demand from consumers already in the consideration phase, while also strengthening brand recall among newer audiences who may not have previously engaged with the brand,” Chakraborty said.

This approach reflects a broader shift among marketers who increasingly view seasonal campaigns not only as sales drivers but also as brand building opportunities that shape long term consumer perception.

Inventory Quality and Media Governance

As advertising volumes rise during seasonal spikes, the digital ecosystem can also experience shifts in supply dynamics. Higher campaign demand can lead to a broader range of programmatic inventory entering the market, including environments that may require closer scrutiny.

Industry research cited by Meher Patel, Founder of Hector, suggests that Made for Advertising inventory has represented roughly 15 percent to 25 percent of open web programmatic supply in certain markets. During intense seasonal periods such as Valentine’s Day, wider targeting strategies can increase exposure to such inventory if supply controls are not actively managed.

In more mature buying environments, marketers increasingly rely on verification tools, curated marketplaces and supply path optimisation to maintain campaign quality. These mechanisms help filter flagged impressions before they clear and allow budgets to shift toward more trusted publisher environments when necessary.

From the publisher's perspective, Ravanan N, CEO of Oneindia, observed that seasonal spikes often lead to a noticeable influx of low-quality inventory within open exchanges. However, the impact varies depending on how campaigns are structured.

“Seasonal spikes like Valentine’s consistently attract a surge of MFA and low-quality supply into open exchanges. While proportions fluctuate, the spike is material enough to distort performance signals if unchecked,” he said.

Campaigns executed through curated or direct publisher deals typically see lower exposure, while open marketplace campaigns require more active monitoring. “In several cases, spend was redirected in real time toward premium, verified environments once quality signals deteriorated,” Ravanan added.

The increasing use of curated supply paths and premium publisher partnerships suggests that advertisers are placing greater emphasis on media transparency during high demand periods.

Performance Optimisation and Traffic Integrity

Another dimension shaping Valentine’s campaigns is the balance between performance optimisation and traffic integrity. Many brands allocate larger portions of seasonal budgets toward click driven or conversion driven campaigns to capture immediate demand.

Under Media Rating Council standards, general invalid traffic in well managed campaigns is commonly measured in the low single digits, often around one to three percent. However, exposure levels can vary depending on inventory sources, campaign structure and verification practices.

Patel noted that performance-oriented campaigns that optimise aggressively toward clicks or lower funnel outcomes can be more sensitive to manipulated engagement signals. Premium storytelling formats placed within curated or direct publisher environments often demonstrate lower measured invalid traffic rates, though no digital format is completely immune.

Tejas Maha, Associate Director Media at White Rivers Media, explained that the mechanics of performance marketing can make it a target for certain types of manipulation.

“Performance campaigns targeting clicks, conversions and installs are structurally more vulnerable to fraud. Tactics like click spamming, click injection, SDK spoofing and lead generation bots are designed to exploit direct response signals,” Maha said.

Brand building campaigns purchased on impression based models may also experience impression related manipulation such as ad stacking or pixel stuffing, though the financial incentive tends to be lower compared with conversion focused campaigns.

During high intensity periods such as Valentine’s week, the rapid pace of campaign optimisation can amplify these dynamics, making real time verification and monitoring increasingly important.

Rethinking Campaign Effectiveness

Beyond operational safeguards, the Valentine’s advertising cycle has also sparked wider discussion around how success is measured. Short term performance indicators such as customer acquisition cost and return on ad spend remain important benchmarks, yet many marketers are beginning to evaluate them alongside broader indicators.

Invalid or non-human interactions can sometimes influence performance signals if they are treated as legitimate engagement within optimisation systems. In attribution models that assign full credit to the final interaction before conversion, late stage clicks can carry disproportionate weight.

Tejas Maha noted that this can affect multiple performance metrics simultaneously. “Fraud created compounding distortions across CAC, ROAS and last click attribution. Bots generated phantom leads and fake installs which forced budgets toward traffic that never converted,” he said.

Ravanan emphasised that such distortions can influence strategic decisions if underlying data is not carefully examined. “Fraud doesn’t just waste a budget. It rewrites performance narratives. Inflated click volumes and artificial conversions compress reported CAC and exaggerate ROAS,” he said.

For many brands, the response has been to broaden the definition of campaign effectiveness beyond short term dashboards.

Chakraborty highlighted that Oriflame evaluates seasonal campaigns through a wider lens. “Performance metrics around seasonal campaigns should always be looked at with a balanced lens. While short term spikes in ROAS are common during high intent periods like Valentine’s week, what truly matters is the quality of engagement behind those numbers,” he said.

The company’s Valentine’s strategy combined editorial placements, influencer collaborations and digital storytelling to ensure campaigns ran within credible media environments.

“When campaigns are built on credible media partnerships and authentic storytelling, the engagement tends to be more meaningful and sustainable. This helps ensure that the results reflect genuine consumer interest rather than inflated metrics driven by low quality traffic,” Chakraborty added.

A More Sophisticated Measurement Era

Looking ahead, the evolution of automation and generative technologies is expected to make digital ecosystems both more sophisticated and more complex to monitor. As advertising systems rely increasingly on automated optimisation, verification frameworks and measurement models are likely to evolve in parallel.

“The evolution of AI and automated traffic will definitely make measurement more complex in the coming years,” Chakraborty said. “Brands will need stronger verification frameworks and more thoughtful ways of evaluating campaign success.”

At the same time, AI driven analytics and verification tools are also enabling more advanced detection of suspicious traffic patterns and anomalous engagement signals.

Across the industry, there is growing momentum toward supply path optimisation, third party verification and curated inventory marketplaces. While these frameworks are still evolving, they indicate a broader effort to align campaign scale with accountability.

Seasonal moments like Valentine’s Day therefore serve as both an opportunity and a test. They reveal the scale at which digital advertising can engage consumers around culturally relevant moments, while also highlighting the importance of transparent measurement and trusted media environments.

As marketing budgets continue to expand in digital channels, the focus is gradually shifting from simply achieving reach to understanding the quality and credibility of that reach. Valentine’s campaigns offer a vivid snapshot of that transition, where strong consumer demand intersects with an increasingly sophisticated conversation about how advertising performance should truly be measured.