During the Black Friday and Cyber Monday seasons of 2024, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of advertising performance for properties running cyber sales. Our goal was to identify trends, optimize strategies, and maximize return on ad spend (ROAS).
Check out our main discoveries regarding ad performance across Facebook, Display, and email, as well as their impact on sales duration, frequency of ads, audience targeting, types of ads, and platform advertising expenditures below.
Key findings & insights
- Facebook sale length & CPM trends
- Longer sales generally resulted in lower cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM). We’ve found that the optimal sale length for achieving the lowest cost per 1,000 impressions is clustered at around 15 days.
- We found that revenue also peaked around the 15-day sale length mark. Extending sales up to five days after Cyber Monday (until around December 7) proved effective.
- Ad types & creative performance
- Through our research, we found that static ads generated the highest revenue. Reflecting on offer types, offers that included a specific percent off attracted the most purchases.
- Ads that utilized urgent messaging saw improved engagement and conversions.
- Display ad performance
- The most successful campaigns featured offers of 30-35% and ran around 17 days on average.
- Our data showed that Black Friday and Cyber Monday Display campaigns that ran a short time (3-4 days) did not generate results as high as those who ran for at least 10 days. The lowest cost per 1,000 impressions clustered around sales lasting around 10 days.
- Email marketing performance
- Early access emails had the highest average click rate and generated the most purchases and revenue. Last-chance emails had the highest average open rate. Offers with 25%-35% off had the highest click rates.
- Subject lines that mixed lowercase and all caps wording performed the best. Emails sent to past guest segments generated the most revenue this season.
Conclusions & recommendations
Based on our analysis, we recommend the following strategies for future Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
- Optimal sale length: Aim for a 15-day sale window, starting the Friday or Saturday before Thanksgiving and extending up to five days past Cyber Monday.
- Ad frequency management: Ad frequency is the average amount of times a unique user is seeing our ads. We’re aiming to maintain an ad frequency range of 2.5-9, with a focus on retargeting for Cyber Monday.
- Ad type & offer optimization: Prioritize static ads with percentage-off discounts and urgency-based messaging. Flexible ads may be a good option as they are better suited for longer-running seasonal promotions rather than shorter flash sales.
- Audience targeting adjustments: While Adara audiences provide value, consider balancing them with lower-cost prospecting campaigns.
- Thanksgiving day strategy: Keep ads running on Thanksgiving despite lower revenue to maintain performance continuity.
- Email strategy: Emphasize early access emails for maximum purchases and revenue while ensuring last-chance emails drive strong engagement. Include a past guest segment in Black Friday and Cyber Monday email sends to drive revenue.
By implementing these insights, we can continue to refine our strategies and maximize results for our clients during future cyber sales seasons.
Want to take your cyber sale ads to the next level? Contact us today.
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