The holiday shopping season is no longer a sprint that starts on Black Friday and ends with Cyber Monday. Over the last few years, consumer behavior has shifted, and shoppers are spreading their purchases across a much earlier and longer window.
Retail marketers are rewriting their playbooks to begin their Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing campaigns weeks before the holiday. We’ve compiled key insights from activity across our platform to help you optimize your campaigns and stay competitive during a longer, more dynamic holiday shopping season.
What the rise of early shopping means for your Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing strategy
Traditionally, Black Friday and Cyber Monday have been the high points of holiday spending. Now, the action starts well before then. Our platform data reveals that media spend in the retail category begins to increase as early as mid-November, with a consistent rise in the days leading up to Black Friday.
This trend has been building for some time. Between 2019 and 2023, global retail media spend rose by 17% in the two weeks leading up to Black Friday, with its share across all spend increasing from 24% to 28%. Meanwhile, the share of retail media spend during Black Friday and Cyber Monday dropped 13% in 2023 compared to 2019.
What’s driving this change?
Consumer habits have evolved, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which accelerated the shift toward online shopping. Consumers aren’t waiting for one day to get the best deals—with more retailers offering promotions all month, they’re shopping over a longer period.
However, while media spend and consumer activity are extending beyond traditional sales days, eMarketer reports that Cyber Monday remains a peak online shopping day, reflecting a continued preference for post-Thanksgiving deals.
This evolving landscape offers the opportunity to capture consumer attention early and sustain it through Black Friday and Cyber Monday when ad activity typically peaks. This broader engagement strategy can help you maximize visibility and drive sales for your brand throughout the season, aligning ad campaigns with evolving shopping behaviors.
The battle for attention: CPMs on the rise
When planning your holiday campaign budgets and strategy, note that increased ad activity invites more competition and therefore higher advertising costs.
Our platform data shows CPMs steadily rise in mid-November, peaking the day after Black Friday. In 2023, average CPMs during Cyber Five (the period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday) increased by 25% compared to the first week of November.
The rise in CPMs is a clear signal that competition for ad slots intensifies earlier and stays strong throughout the holiday weekend. You’ll want to determine how to best spread your budget to maintain a presence throughout this extended window.
Reach out to your DSP to discuss adjusting your bids, or manually adjust bids to align with anticipated CPM increases. Additionally, closely monitor weekly reporting—if you’re finding it challenging to scale and hit your impression goals, it may be due to higher competition driving up CPMs.
Proactively adjusting your bids can help maintain your campaign’s momentum and ensure you’re reaching your target audience during this time.
Meet consumers where they are: understanding evolving content consumption patterns
To maximize your budget and audience engagement, you’ll want to align your campaigns with the content that resonates most during the holiday period.
Our platform data from 2023 shows that in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, inventory across the food-and-drink content genre increased by 28% as consumers prepared for their holiday meals. TV and movie content also increased by 20% as families settled in to enjoy time together. Meanwhile, like most weekends and holidays, news and political content consumption decreased as consumers took a break from the news cycle following the election.
To optimize scale during high-demand periods, consider targeting content genres where supply spikes, like food and drink, rather than genres with less scale, like news and politics. By aligning your ads contextually with high-supply genres, you can increase engagement now and inform your deal strategies for future holiday seasons.
Make the most of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing
The start of holiday shopping season is no longer just about Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It’s a marathon that starts well before and extends through the holiday weekend.
To win over shoppers and maximize sales for your brand, think holistically about your campaigns. You’ll want to spread your budget and optimize spend across this extended window to reach early shoppers, maintain momentum, and compete effectively when CPMs spike.
Learn how our Cyber Five Inventory Packages can boost your visibility this shopping season.
