Father’s Day 2026: The Dad Economy Isn’t Slowing Down

Father’s Day has generated record spending for three years running. Last year’s Father’s Day shopping season clocked in at $24 billion — up more than 7% from the prior year and exceeding the previous high of $22.9 billion in 2023. That’s a growth of 50% since 2019, while cumulative inflation over that same period was 24.4%. That means consumers are genuinely spending more on the father figures in their lives, and brands will need to ensure their advertising strategies are built to meet that demand. Here’s what market trends and MNTN advertiser data say about where that spend is going, and how brands can get in front of it.

The Father’s Day Opportunity Is Only Getting Bigger

For a holiday that doesn’t always get top billing, Father’s Day is putting up some impressive numbers. In 2025, average per-person spending reached $199.38, with consumer participation holding steady at 76%.

MNTN Performance TV data reinforces the opportunity. Comparing the Father’s Day season in 2024 to 2025, advertiser performance improved meaningfully across the board:

• +66% Average Conversions per Advertiser
• +29% Average Visit Rate
• +28% Visits per Advertiser
• +23% Average Revenue per Advertiser
• +14% Average ROAS
• -31% Average Cost per Acquisition (CPA)
• -34% Average Cost per Visit (CPV)

Every metric moved in the right direction, and the efficiency gains are just as striking as the volume. Lower CPV and CPA alongside higher conversions and revenue mean brands on the platform were able to reach a more engaged audience and get more out of every dollar they spent – a testament to what Connected TV (CTV) performance advertising can deliver.

A Record-High Valentine’s Day Bodes Well for Father’s Day
Valentine’s Day serves as the annual kickoff of emotionally-driven spending holidays — and as we noted in our Mother’s Day article, it can be a strong leading indicator of how Q2 holidays like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day will perform.

The Valentine’s Day season in 2026 proved fruitful for MNTN advertisers. Those who ran campaigns during this time period in both 2025 and 2026 saw average visit rates grow by 74% (with average cost per visit dropping 6%) and average conversion rates increase by 47% year-over-year (YoY). Average order value (AOV) was up 22% as well, indicating emotion-based spending is a genuine motivator for consumers to justify bigger purchases.

These bigger average order values tell us this isn’t casual browsing: shoppers for emotionally driven holidays are arriving ready to commit. For brands planning their Father’s Day strategy, the Valentine’s Day 2026 numbers are a strong indicator on the season ahead.

“Pampering Dad” Has Become a Top Gifting Angle

Father’s Day has long been the domain of power tools and polo shirts: gifts that say ‘I know you’re practical.’ But a growing number of gift-givers are starting to ask a different question: what does dad actually want for himself? The National Retail Federation (NRF) has highlighted personal care as a category that has “seen an increase in popularity,” with 33% of shoppers planning to purchase these items in 2025. For brands that may not have traditionally advertised during Father’s Day, it’s a genuine opening into a new and growing audience.

This tracks with a broader cultural shift: men’s wellness and grooming has gone mainstream. Major publications including TODAY, CNN Underscored, Consumer Reports, and Apartment Therapy all featured men’s grooming and self-care prominently in their 2025 Father’s Day gift guides. The suggested products ranged from smart beard trimmers and skincare sets to wellness tech like Theraguns and Oura Rings.

Our data from Father’s Day reflects this momentum. Looking at a subset of MNTN advertisers in self-care verticals (think skincare, haircare, cologne), strong average conversion and visit rates in the weeks leading up to Father’s Day outperformed even the Memorial Day window — a holiday that typically commands more retail attention.

You Don’t Have to Be a Skincare Brand to Play Here
And for brands outside the traditional wellness space, don’t write off this opportunity. The “self-care for dad” frame has become broad enough that nearly any brand can borrow from it if the positioning is done right.

For example, let’s say you are a dirt bike track or motorsports experience brand. While on paper that might seem like it has nothing to do with grooming or wellness, when framed as “the kind of reset dad actually wants” or “self-care, dad-style,” it taps directly into the same cultural appetite driving personal care growth. And that logic can be applied to Father’s Day campaigns for outdoor gear, craft beer subscriptions, sporting events, and beyond. Brands that find their own angle on dad’s version of self-care open up a gifting lane that didn’t exist for them a few years ago — one that the data suggests is only getting wider.

Experiences Are Now the #1 Father’s Day Spending Category

The most popular Father’s Day gift in 2025 couldn’t be wrapped. Special outings were the single biggest Father’s Day spending category in 2025 at $4.8 billion, with 53% of celebrants planning one and 30% giving an experience outright — nearly double the rate from two years prior. Notably, steakhouses saw particularly sharp spikes, reinforcing that Father’s Day dining skews toward sit-down, higher-ticket experiences. The appetite to treat dads to a nice meal is clearly there, even if Father’s Day restaurant patronage trails Mother’s Day by as much as 20% in some regions, according to the Food Institute. This suggests that Father’s Day is a still-growing advertising holiday for dining and hospitality brands, with a lot of opportunity left on the menu.

MNTN advertiser data tells a similar story. Among a subset of advertisers in experiential industries, revenue and visit rates both spiked in the weeks leading up to and surrounding Father’s Day 2025, and outperformed even the Memorial Day window. For travel, dining, entertainment, ticketing, and local experience platforms, Father’s Day represents a real and growing commercial moment.

A Short Shopping Window, but a Big Opportunity

Father’s Day has one of the most compressed gift-buying windows of any major holiday. Per NielsenIQ, nearly 90% of consumers make their purchases within the month leading up to the holiday, and roughly 25% wait until the final week. Another study cited similar data that nearly 30% of Father’s Day shopping occurs in the final seven days. This is a stark contrast to holidays like Christmas, where shopping starts months in advance, and even Mother’s Day, with 70% of those shoppers purchasing gifts two weeks to a month ahead.

For advertisers, that presents both a challenge and an opportunity. MNTN data shows that visit rates and revenue climbed in the two weeks prior to Father’s Day 2025, with the week before the holiday driving the second-highest revenue of the entire season, trailing only Memorial Day. What makes this even more compelling is that CPA was declining at the same time.

Rising revenue and visit rates paired with falling CPA in the two weeks before Father’s Day suggest that shoppers are making more deliberate, conversion-ready decisions in a shortened timeframe, and that the economics of reaching them actually improve as the holiday approaches.

The YoY story reinforces this. Comparing the month leading up to Father’s Day in 2024 vs. 2025, MNTN advertisers saw:

• +48% Average Conversions
• +21% Average Visit Rate
• +20% Visits per Advertiser
• +23% Average Revenue
• +15% Average ROAS
• -27% Average Cost per Visit

Small Businesses Are Gaining Ground With Father’s Day Shoppers

Father’s Day shoppers increasingly want to give gifts that don’t feel like they were pulled from a “50 Things Dads Will Love” listicle. The Medill Spiegel Research Center’s analysis found that specialty clothing stores and local/small businesses were the only retail outlets with year-over-year increases in Father’s Day shopping in 2025. While online (41%) and department stores (35%) still lead by volume, the direction is clear: shoppers are actively seeking out smaller, more distinctive retailers. This aligns with a key NRF finding that 46% of shoppers said the most important factor when purchasing a Father’s Day gift was finding something “unique or different” — the #1 consumer priority, ahead of creating a special memory (37%), convenience, or cost-effectiveness.

MNTN small to medium business (SMB) advertiser data reflects this momentum. Examining SMB advertisers during the 2025 Father’s Day window, average visit rates climbed in the two weeks leading up to the holiday. CPV trended downward across the Father’s Day window, and an uptick in conversion rate alongside a drop in CPA points to more efficient audience engagement right when purchase intent peaks. Average conversion rates also saw a notable bump two weeks before the holiday and through Father’s Day week itself, reflecting the same high-urgency, compressed-window behavior seen across Father’s Day shoppers more broadly.

For SMB advertisers, this data suggests that Father’s Day isn’t just a big-box moment. Shoppers are looking for something worth giving, and smaller brands that show up at the right time have a real shot at winning them over.

Father’s Day Grew Up. Has Your Strategy?

A few years ago, Father’s Day may have been an afterthought for a lot of advertisers. But the spending trends, category growth, and MNTN platform data have made the case: Father’s Day is worth the investment. CTV has become one of the most effective channels for reaching gift-ready audiences, and there’s no better time to put that to work in Q2. The brands that start building their Father’s Day strategy now are the ones who’ll have the most to show for it come June.