Findings and Results from Black Friday 2024
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Black Friday started in the United States of America and falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Traditionally it marked the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, with the day being known to be the busiest shopping day of the year in America. Over the years the day has evolved and with the following Monday becoming known as Cyber Monday, and the long weekend known as ‘BFCM’ has become an opportunity for retailers to drive sales through discounted prices.
However, in recent years there have been claims that the event isn’t as popular as it once was, with customers even doubting the truth in some of the deals they are offered, and some brands actively abstaining from the event. With this in mind, we thought we’d do an analysis of BFCM in the industry and for our own client’s performance, and let you know the results.
2024 Black Friday Stats
With the 2024 event wrapping up at the start of this week, the figures are in, and this year’s online Black Friday shopping saw US customers spend $10.4 billion, an increase of 10.2% when compared with 2023. Meanwhile, Barclaycard reported a 9.5% increase YOY in UK retail transactions over BFCM. Though with the weekend falling on the same weekend as the last payday before Christmas, it’s not surprising that consumers took advantage of the offers.
Google Trends show that worldwide searches for ‘Black Friday Deals’ started at the end of October (just before Halloween) and reached its peak by the 24th of November.
Interestingly, Checkout.com found that UK Black Friday shoppers spiked at 9am, with consumers looking for those early deals. Whereas, in the United States, shopping spiked at 8pm, probably more likely when consumers had more quiet time to browse following Thanksgiving.
Embryo’s key 2024 Black Friday takeaways
At Embryo we managed a wide range of Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns for our clients, here are a few findings from our paid media teams:
- When comparing this BFCM 24 with that of last year, our social team saw a 63% increase in CPM but a 21% decrease in CPP, leading to a 22% increase in ROAS and a 72% increase in revenue.
- The majority of our clients started running Black Friday campaigns at the end of October, and the beginning of November, so the event is no longer just a weekend.
- Despite running campaigns earlier, AOV and ROAS were still higher during the Black Friday weekend, than at other times in the month.
- Customers who joined in with BFCM deals saw great success, showing how valuable offers are to consumers and business success.
Black Friday e-commerce success stories
As mentioned Embryo has multiple e-commerce clients for which we have managed a series of Black Friday campaigns. Here is just a snippet of client successes we saw over the long weekend.
Stompa success with 10.5 ROAS
Children’s beds and furniture provider, Stompa have been working with Embryo for several months and their Black Friday campaign saw 30% off all beds. Through a detailed PPC strategy combining search and shopping, we scaled their ROAS to 10.7, more than double what they achieved in 2023. This increase in ROAS also resulted in a 4% increase in revenue YOY.
Interestingly, our PPC team found that due to a longer BFCM promotion, performance reached its peak pre-Black Friday with the strongest performance being 6 days before and ROAS on that day being 17.4.
YOY success for home retail
For one of our home retail clients, our PPC team ran a series of campaigns across the whole week of BFCM, starting on Monday the 25th. The campaigns on these days before the weekend generated over £17,000 in revenue for the client. This success then carried on into the weekend with an additional £27,793 worth of revenue generated in three days, a 36% increase YOY.
Top of the league performance for MysteryFootball
MysteryFootball is one of the UK’s leading providers of football shirts and mystery kits. Having achieved great success with their organic and digital PR strategy, they decided Embryo should also manage their paid media activity. We took over the accounts and by aligning our paid campaigns with the organic strategy over Black Friday weekend we increased revenue by 21.8% and reduced CPP by 20.6% YOY.
Newfound success and ROAS
One of our paid social clients sells office furniture and this year decided to run their first BFCM campaign. Due to the strategy of our team, we were able to generate just under 50 orders with an AOV of £370, from a spend of just over £725. The orders from this weekend provided the client with a ROAS of 25 and proved to them just how valuable seasonal events and offers can be for generating sales.
Did your Black Friday leave you in the red?
If your Black Friday performance wasn’t as you’d hoped for and you wish you had seen results like the above, then contact our team of strategists who can help produce your bespoke high-performing plan. We also have a helpful guide that could help you with driving performance during the Boxing Day and January sales, so reach out if you’d like to see this.
For more support on running successful paid media campaigns, take a look at the following resources:
