Black Friday Ad Recap: Lessons to Take From Last Year

Black Friday is the perennial centerpiece of cold-month consumerism, with images of swarming bargain-hunters and even dangerous crowd crushes cemented in the American psyche. Over the years, much of that consumption has migrated online, reflected by the cementation of Cyber Monday as another key shopping event. As we stare down the holidays, let’s take a look back at the last few years of seasonal advertising — and make some informed predictions about what 2025 may have in store.

Defining the scope

For the purposes of this analysis, we’ll be training a lens on the Shopping category as defined in Pathmatics: a broad umbrella that encompasses everything from Women’s Apparel to Pet Supplies. We’ll also be narrowing our focus to the crucial period between October 1st and December 31st, in order to capture the height of concentrated holiday ad spend. Now without further ado, let’s dive into the data around ad spend, category performance, user acquisition and channel strategy that defines this commerce bonanza.

From Black Friday to Cyber Monday: A shifting hierarchy 

In 2024, total ad spend in the Shopping category totaled $7.6 billion. While impressive, this figure actually represents a slight drop (-3%) from spend exhibited the previous year. Nevertheless, the overall trajectory still trends towards growth — buoyed by the significant year-over-year (YoY) jump in ad spend seen between 2022 and 2023 (+37%). The true headline here, however, isn’t the total budget funneled into campaigns; it’s the relative positioning of Black Friday compared to its digital counterpart. 

Since at least 2021, the gap in spend between Black Friday and Cyber Monday has been shrinking. The former bested the latter by 5% in 2022, with that margin shrinking to ~1% in 2023. Then, last year, something pivotal happened: Cyber Monday finally outspent Black Friday, boasting a small yet meaningful edge of $0.3 million. This shift reflects a broader behavioral trend:  consumers are shopping later, extending the window of deal season — and advertisers are responding by reallocating campaign spend towards Cyber Monday and beyond. Even if spend dips slightly this year due to macroeconomic conditions (and it might), it’s likely Cyber Monday will continue to establish itself as a dominant force in terms of both ad spend and impressions. 

But this crucial switch-up isn’t the only transformation we can see unfolding over the past few seasons: changes in channel strategy also betray shifting priorities among brands. Back in 2022, desktop placements still held a meaningful presence, with Video holding 10% of spend and Display 6%. Since 2023, however, those channels have been superseded by YouTube (9% of spend in 2023) and Pinterest (5%). It seems advertisers are gravitating increasingly towards platform-specific, discovery-driven publishers. The benefits of this are multifold. For one, these platforms attract high-intent users, allowing brands to reach consumers as they’re actively scrolling, browsing, and looking for inspiration. Coupled with the redistribution of spend across the two key shopping days, the data suggests that while holiday advertising remains high in volume, it’s being spread across longer timeframes and more immersive environments.

Where did last year’s ad dollars go?

Now let’s zoom in to the recent landscape, looking at exactly where marketers put their money in 2024. It would be hard to find a clearer example of the Pareto Principle than what is laid out in the data here. The top five channels (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Pinterest) captured a full 80% of spend. When extended to the top ten channels, that percentage climbs to 90. While marketers talk a big game when it comes to diversification, it seems the ad market continues to solidify around a few key players. Advertisers are doubling down on proven ecosystems, while offering the remaining 10% of their budgets to niche publishers — either in order to reach highly-specialized audiences, or simply as a result of programmatic overflow. 

The product categories with the most ad dollars behind them also shed light on where advertisers see value. Here, the top six categories accounted for over 60% of total Shopping spend: 

When it comes to top advertisers, the field is more fragmented. The top six — Amazon (5% of spend), Walmart (3%), Target (2%), Temu (2%), Chewy (1%), and Sephora (1%) — only contributed a combined ~14% of total budget across the category, suggesting that competition is rife, with no single unrivaled leader. For the most part, though, these contenders were successful in translating ad pushes into tangible app growth. Best Buy (the seventh-highest spender) achieved the biggest lift, with their app receiving 84% more downloads throughout the 2024 holiday season than it had the prior two months. Sephora came in second with a 37% lift, and Target saw 29% growth. While Temu was the fourth highest spender in 2024, its downloads actually declined by an unlucky 42% — largely because it had made the curious decision to shave off nearly a third of its ad budget. The correlation between ads and acquisition is clear, and it seems that these publishers’ creative campaigns are paying off with real ROI. 

To measure the relative efficiency of each ad channel, we can turn to CPM — the cost per mille (or one thousand) impressions. On the higher end of the scale were premium outlets for video storytelling. OTT cost brands an average of $30 per mille, with Desktop Video at $20. YouTube came in at $12 and TikTok $11. Social platforms such as Pinterest ($7 CPM), Reddit and Snapchat ($6) and X ($3) tended towards the lower end of the scale. Most advertisers landed on a mix of high- and low-tier channels, balancing rich, immersive video campaigns with more affordable ads at scale.   

Creative strategy and campaign takeaways 

Videos (59%) and images (34%) made up the bulk of creatives, with most ads appearing  in users’ feeds — interspersed with organic content and displayed in the midst of normal scrolling. In-stream ads accounted for one fifth of creatives, offering an ideal format for video storytelling, while Reels (11%) and Stories (8%) rounded out the mix.  Winning campaigns blended discovery with utility:  Walmart and Amazon creatives took up the top three spots, emphasizing deals, convenience, and overnight delivery. 

Takeaways for this year? Expect extended deals windows and a repeat win for Cyber Monday. Video and discovery platforms (YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest) will likely keep gaining share — showing advertisers’ efforts to reach audiences in higher-intent environments, with ads that are natively-integrated as opposed to disruptive. And as CPMs vary widely across channels, strategic brands will maintain a diverse media mix that pairs premium video content with lower-cost social and display placements to maximize reach and efficiency. 

Looking for insights that reach farther into the future? Keep an eye out for our 2026 Predictions Report, where we’ll be diving into the trends we expect to see heading into the new year.