Consumers want to find more deals on social media than retailers have been offering, according to a new holiday shopping report from market research provider Yesmail Interactive. However, the firm’s research also indicated that shoppers tune out companies that bombard them with too many promotions in the holiday time frame.

The research suggest that retailers have to get the tone and timing of their social media campaigns right to drive fourth-quarter sales.

According to the research, half of consumers are influenced by social media when making online purchases and 42% for in-store purchases. The firm also found that 34% of consumers have purchased a product as a direct result of a social media promotion despite the fact that only 8% of Facebook and 4% of Twitter marketing campaigns focus on money savings.

Yet, while Yesmail’s study demonstrated that many consumers engage with social media promotions, it also indicated that holiday-themed promotions often perform worse than non-holiday promotions.

The firm tracked social media campaigns launched during the spring and summer of this year. Of those, 14% of Facebook campaigns and 8% of Twitter campaigns had a holiday theme. The findings demonstrated that campaigns focusing heavily on getting the consumer to purchase showed less-than-average engagement, while the messages aimed at simply getting followers into the respective holiday spirit performed much better.

"The winners focused on what the season means to consumers, rather than using the holiday to directly promote a product or sales event," Michael Fisher, president of Yesmail Interactive, said. "Brands have to be especially careful about not being overly promotional during the holidays, even though customers are increasingly turning to social channels to find deals."