Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Trends & Observations

As another record breaking 2024 Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) event concludes, we've analysed global trends alongside our own campaign performances to provide a comprehensive overview of this year's outcomes.

• Year on year Global performance: Online sales during Black Friday reached a record $10.8 billion in the U.S., marking a 10.2% increase from 2023. Whilst UK shoppers spent £3.63 billion online over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday period, marking a 5.2% year-on-year increase.
• Contrasting CPC trends: Overall, brands reported a 9.9% rise in cost-per-click (CPC) on Amazon during Black Friday, with overall ad spending up nearly 30% compared to last year, highlighting intensified competition for consumer attention. In fact at Tambo we saw a buck against this trend (which we weren’t expecting) across 3 core categories of Beauty, Health & Personal Care & Grocery, where we observed CPC reductions this year by up to 30% in some instances. Although spend did still increase
• Extended Promotional Periods: Retailers spread out deals across November and December, diluting the impact of Black Friday as a single event and aligning with consumer expectations for prolonged discount periods. Listen to the recent BFCM podcast on more opinion on the changing impact of this event overall

This year we tested a range of strategic and tactical initiatives in the aim to find the competitive advantage for our clients. Below is a summary of what we found most success in this year.
Strategic Levers Driving Success:

1. Smarter Automation: Utilizing automated bidding solutions (we partner with Skai at Tambo) enabled dynamic budget and bid adjustments throughout the day, leading to overall reductions in CPCs while achieving performance targets.
2. AMC Insights & Audiences: Leveraging Tambo Compass Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) audience building function enabled us to create targeted segments (e.g., Add-to-Cart) leading to enhanced click-through rates and campaign efficiency overall. AMC audiences out perform standard DSP audiences by minimum 1.2x so are an important feature for brands to leverage.
3. Performance+ Campaigns: Trials with DSP’s Performance+ campaign type, which employs machine learning and first-party signals, yielded meaningful improvements. Integrating Performance+ with Sponsored Ads increased purchase rates by over 2%.
4. Balanced Campaign Phases: A robust lead-in and lead-out strategy was crucial for sustained sales growth, complementing the heightened purchase intent observed during BFCM. Using AMC, we see that users exposed to lead in vs those that aren’t convert at least 1-5x higher overall.

Key Takeaways:

• CPC Trends: Despite industry-wide increases in advertising costs, our strategic automation and ad structuring efforts resulted in consistent CPC reductions across most categories.
• Effective Phasing: Early lead-in phases captured unique audiences, while BFCM days exhibited higher purchase intent as shoppers acted decisively on known deals.
• Full-Funnel Strategy: Combining Sponsored Ads, DSP, and advanced tools like Performance+ facilitated robust, goal-oriented campaign execution. AMC also enables a clear path to purchase post event analysis to help determine the most effective method mix.

AMC is a differentiator: AMC continues to provide a clear competitive advantage on both insights and audience building capabilities.