Black Friday & Cyber Monday by the Numbers
It’s no secret that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are some of the highest revenue-driving holiday shopping days in the entire year, but just how much do U.S. consumers spend online on these two days? Here are some figures from Adobe (and other sources) that help put the online holiday spending in the U.S. into perspective.
26 – 26 out of the 45 days between Nov. 1 and Dec. 15 generated over $2 billion in revenue.
32% and 50% – The year-over-year percentage increase of Cyber Weekend advertiser spend on Google Shopping and Amazon Sponsored Product, respectively. Source
$7.4 billion – U.S. shoppers spent $7.4 billion online on Black Friday. This represents a 19.6% increase in total Black Friday revenue from 2018.
2 inches – On Black Friday, states that recorded more than 2 inches of snow saw a 7% bump in online sales.
$9.4 billion – U.S. shoppers spent $9.4 billion online on Cyber Monday, up $1.5 billion from last year. About $500 million of the total sales were done during the morning hours, with sales figures passing $5 billion by 7 p.m. Central time, and the remaining $4 billion in sales generated during the evening hours.
+46% – Smartphones accounted for $3 billion of the total online sales on Cyber Monday, which represents a 46% increase over Cyber Monday last year. As retailers continue to refine and improve their online shopping experiences—particularly on a mobile device—consumers have less of a need to purchase in-store or through a desktop computer, leading to the drastic year-over-year increase in online sales on smartphones.
Big Days Are Still Ahead After Cyber Monday
Christina Meyer, digital and data strategist at Vladimir Jones, previously wrote about why it’s so important to get Christmas and holiday advertising in the market early to take advantage of early bird shoppers. In addition to capturing these early bird shoppers, advertisers should adjust budgets and strategies to allow their campaigns to reach consumers after Cyber Monday, when advertising competition is lower and consumers are still purchasing at high rates.
According to research by Teikametrics, conversion rates on Amazon continue to rise after Cyber Monday all the way through the Dec. 22 shipping cutoff, while cost-per-conversion steadily declines in the same period. Rising conversion rates can be attributed to consumers doing less research when buying gifts in the weeks or days leading up to Christmas, meaning they are more likely to click and convert on a sponsored product ad in Amazon. Declining cost-per-conversion is the result of advertisers spending all or most of their budgets during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend and leaving far less competition for other advertisers who are still live in the market.
In order to take advantage of high conversion rates and low cost-per-conversion in the weeks after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, advertisers will need to ensure that their budgets are not entirely spent during those promotions and that budget has been allocated all the way up to Dec. 22.
Tips for Next Year’s Holiday Campaign Setup
With U.S. consumers spending $115.5 billion between Nov. 1 and Dec. 15 in 2019, it’s imperative that digital advertisers are leveraging all of the best practices to ensure that campaigns are able to capitalize on this holiday spending frenzy. Follow these tips to maximize the ROI of your holiday campaigns for next year and beyond:
Utilize Dynamic Product Ads:
- Dynamic product ads allow you to highlight products in your ad that users had previously viewed, drastically increasing the relevance of your ad and leading to improved conversion performance.
Capitalize on Promotions:
- People will be more likely to buy your products if you make the promotion very clear to them. Include any promotional copy in your primary text and headlines to ensure that users are seeing what the promotion is and can then make a consideration.
Leverage Qualified Audiences:
- Utilize purchaser lookalike audiences to allow Facebook to find new users who are similar to users who have previously purchased.
- Utilize remarketing to target shopping cart abandoners and users who viewed specific web pages.
- If your remarketing lists are too small, consider targeting a broad, prospecting audience in order to drive more website traffic and grow your remarketing lists.
Don’t Forget About Desktop Devices:
- Although smartphones led to 58% of all website traffic between Nov. 1 and Dec. 15, it was desktop devices that were responsible for over 60% of attributable purchases during that same period. If your campaigns are specifically targeting mobile devices, you could potentially be missing out on a great deal of revenue driven by desktop devices.
Vladimir Jones is Colorado’s original independent, integrated advertising agency, with offices in Denver and Colorado Springs. We believe in brilliant brands and love making the world love them as much as we do.