To prepare for the busy season and stay in control when the big event arrives, you need actionable strategies that are well-planned before November.
In this Black Friday marketing strategy guide, we'll outline six data-backed ways you can set up ahead of time to make the most of the busy holiday season.
Triple Whale tracked $2.9 billion in revenue to bring you the full story of Black Friday Cyber Monday 2025 (November 28 – December 1, 2025). Get the complete BFCM Breakdown here.
This performance data draws from more than 33,000 active Triple Whale businesses across multiple industries. Here are three trends to understand when shaping your 2026 Black Friday strategy.
It’s time to start your campaigns earlier, folks; there’s a lot of market share to go around.
Where your revenue comes from depends on your business size. New and returning customers carry different weights as GMV grows.
The previous holiday season saw TikTok ROAS jump 28.42% as the platform became a rapidly expanding channel for brands. Consider the right channel mix for your unique brand.
Your customer data holds more signal than any market trend. Before you spend a dollar on new-customer acquisition, look at who already buys from you and why. That starting point shapes every offer, message, and product decision that follows.
Existing customers already know the product and have already crossed the hardest trust barrier. During a crowded promotional period, that familiarity can make them one of the most valuable audiences available.
The goal is not to send the same discount to the entire customer file. It is to identify which customers are most likely to buy, what they are likely to want, and which experience gives them a reason to return.
Start with recency, frequency, and monetary value, commonly called RFM analysis:
Use those signals to separate customers who need different treatment. For example, a recent first-time customer may need a complementary product recommendation. A lapsed high-value customer may respond to early access. A frequent buyer may value exclusivity more than a deeper discount.
Review the products loyal customers buy, the order in which they buy them, and the combinations that appear repeatedly.
That analysis can inform:
Purchase history and customer feedback should determine how acquisition and retention work together for your brand. Use customer value, buying behavior, and stated preferences to decide who should receive each offer and message.
Purchase history shows what customers did. Zero-party data — the information customers intentionally share — can help explain what they want next.
Ask focused questions before BFCM:
Use purchase history and stated preferences to recommend relevant products instead of showing the same catalog to every customer.
Personalization should make the decision easier for the customer, not advertise how much data the brand has collected.
The personalization can extend across:
You do not need to rebuild every ad from scratch for BFCM. Start with evergreen ads and concepts that already drove strong customer outcomes, then adapt the offer, urgency, product framing, and seasonal context. Preserve what made the original work — whether it was the hook, format, message, or proof — rather than changing everything at once.
BFCM brings deal-ready shoppers into the market, but discounted orders do not automatically create valuable customers. Choose products and offers that can convert demand without sacrificing margin, inventory health, or the post-purchase opportunity.
A hero product gives a new customer a clear reason to choose the brand. It may be the best-known product, the product with the strongest margin, the item that creates the best repeat-purchase path, or the product that most clearly communicates what makes the brand different.
Useful measures include:
The spend mix that we saw in the 2025 trends provides useful insights. Just keep in mind that these are aggregate, ad-platform-reported benchmarks. Use them to challenge your ad spend plan:
Set those expectations before the event so your team does not switch measurement models or success criteria simply because one view produces a better number.
BFCM performance can change quickly as competition, inventory, creative, and customer behavior shift. A useful operating view should connect media delivery to business outcomes.
Monitor the measures that match the decision being made, such as:
Use Triple Whale dashboards and Moby, Triple Whale’s AI operator for ecommerce, to reduce the manual work of checking separate systems and rebuilding the same report.
It’s simple — you get performance analytics at the click of a button:
The first order should begin the next customer experience, not end the BFCM campaign.
Build the post-purchase plan before the event:
You now know what worked in 2025 and what to do differently this year. Now it’s time to put your Black Friday checklist to work — identify your best customers, give every channel a clear job, and pick the products that deserve the spotlight.
Need help getting to where you want to be? Triple Whale brings your data, measurement, and next steps together so you can make smarter decisions faster. Book a demo today.
To prepare for the busy season and stay in control when the big event arrives, you need actionable strategies that are well-planned before November.
In this Black Friday marketing strategy guide, we'll outline six data-backed ways you can set up ahead of time to make the most of the busy holiday season.
Triple Whale tracked $2.9 billion in revenue to bring you the full story of Black Friday Cyber Monday 2025 (November 28 – December 1, 2025). Get the complete BFCM Breakdown here.
This performance data draws from more than 33,000 active Triple Whale businesses across multiple industries. Here are three trends to understand when shaping your 2026 Black Friday strategy.
It’s time to start your campaigns earlier, folks; there’s a lot of market share to go around.
Where your revenue comes from depends on your business size. New and returning customers carry different weights as GMV grows.
The previous holiday season saw TikTok ROAS jump 28.42% as the platform became a rapidly expanding channel for brands. Consider the right channel mix for your unique brand.
Your customer data holds more signal than any market trend. Before you spend a dollar on new-customer acquisition, look at who already buys from you and why. That starting point shapes every offer, message, and product decision that follows.
Existing customers already know the product and have already crossed the hardest trust barrier. During a crowded promotional period, that familiarity can make them one of the most valuable audiences available.
The goal is not to send the same discount to the entire customer file. It is to identify which customers are most likely to buy, what they are likely to want, and which experience gives them a reason to return.
Start with recency, frequency, and monetary value, commonly called RFM analysis:
Use those signals to separate customers who need different treatment. For example, a recent first-time customer may need a complementary product recommendation. A lapsed high-value customer may respond to early access. A frequent buyer may value exclusivity more than a deeper discount.
Review the products loyal customers buy, the order in which they buy them, and the combinations that appear repeatedly.
That analysis can inform:
Purchase history and customer feedback should determine how acquisition and retention work together for your brand. Use customer value, buying behavior, and stated preferences to decide who should receive each offer and message.
Purchase history shows what customers did. Zero-party data — the information customers intentionally share — can help explain what they want next.
Ask focused questions before BFCM:
Use purchase history and stated preferences to recommend relevant products instead of showing the same catalog to every customer.
Personalization should make the decision easier for the customer, not advertise how much data the brand has collected.
The personalization can extend across:
You do not need to rebuild every ad from scratch for BFCM. Start with evergreen ads and concepts that already drove strong customer outcomes, then adapt the offer, urgency, product framing, and seasonal context. Preserve what made the original work — whether it was the hook, format, message, or proof — rather than changing everything at once.
BFCM brings deal-ready shoppers into the market, but discounted orders do not automatically create valuable customers. Choose products and offers that can convert demand without sacrificing margin, inventory health, or the post-purchase opportunity.
A hero product gives a new customer a clear reason to choose the brand. It may be the best-known product, the product with the strongest margin, the item that creates the best repeat-purchase path, or the product that most clearly communicates what makes the brand different.
Useful measures include:
The spend mix that we saw in the 2025 trends provides useful insights. Just keep in mind that these are aggregate, ad-platform-reported benchmarks. Use them to challenge your ad spend plan:
Set those expectations before the event so your team does not switch measurement models or success criteria simply because one view produces a better number.
BFCM performance can change quickly as competition, inventory, creative, and customer behavior shift. A useful operating view should connect media delivery to business outcomes.
Monitor the measures that match the decision being made, such as:
Use Triple Whale dashboards and Moby, Triple Whale’s AI operator for ecommerce, to reduce the manual work of checking separate systems and rebuilding the same report.
It’s simple — you get performance analytics at the click of a button:
The first order should begin the next customer experience, not end the BFCM campaign.
Build the post-purchase plan before the event:
You now know what worked in 2025 and what to do differently this year. Now it’s time to put your Black Friday checklist to work — identify your best customers, give every channel a clear job, and pick the products that deserve the spotlight.
Need help getting to where you want to be? Triple Whale brings your data, measurement, and next steps together so you can make smarter decisions faster. Book a demo today.
Body Copy: The following benchmarks compare advertising metrics from April 1-17 to the previous period. Considering President Trump first unveiled his tariffs on April 2, the timing corresponds with potential changes in advertising behavior among ecommerce brands (though it isn’t necessarily correlated).
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