Black Friday - the shopping day that only gets bigger
Back in the 1960s, Black Friday was the Philadelphia police’s disapproving term for crowds of shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving. In the 1980s, having revived the date as a useful pre-Christmas shopping rush, retailers claimed Black Friday was the moment their trading position went from red to black - in other words, the point in the year when they went into profit.
But if its origins are murky and include their fair share of hype, one thing is certainly true in 2025: that Black Friday - which falls on 28th November this year - is the retail event around which the rest of Q4 revolves, particularly for e-commerce.
The power of the crowd
Black Friday brings the year's largest audience, which in turn means that it provides programmatic advertising with the scale that Q4 needs. Last year, Black Friday drove $74.4 billion in global online sales, a 7% year-on-year increase from 2023. In the US, consumers spent a record $17.5 billion during Black Friday - also a 7% increase - and many predict another increase this year.
Today, Black Friday is a major retail event not just in the US, but also across Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, making it nearly as significant for shoppers in the UAE, Brazil, and beyond as it is in its country of origin.
Black Friday exerts its own gravitational pull, which can be negative as well as positive. In the UK, where Amazon and Asda imported the concept in the 2010s, this year’s Black Friday was said to be responsible for slow retail sales in October, as customers held out for bigger savings on and around 28th November.
Bigger than Christmas
Black Friday kicks off the Christmas shopping period, and justifiably so, because it also draws a significant proportion of both festive sales and festive deals. In fact, 70% of popular items are cheaper on Black Friday than in the week before Christmas.
Of course, Black Friday isn’t the only chance to indulge in a consumer frenzy as the festive season begins. Cyber Week - starting with Black Friday and also including Cyber Monday across the critical BFCM weekend - last year netted a record $314.9 billion in global online sales - and December has its fair share of promotions. But Black Friday itself remains the peak, and its significance for online retailers can’t be overstated.
Overall, US consumers are projected to spend more than $1 trillion on holiday shopping for the first time ever, and major retailers such as Amazon, Walmart, and Target are poised to benefit particularly from the surge - their own share prices fluctuating in response to analysts’ projections of how geared up they appear to be for the season.
The programmatic opportunity
In the programmatic space, the phenomenon of Black Friday creates its own particular set of highly powerful market conditions that no merchant can afford to ignore. Budgets, inventory and demand align perfectly during this promotional period, maximising the impact of programmatic campaigns. Essentially, Black Friday compresses weeks of sales into days, accelerating programmatic's path to the fulfilment of Q4 targets.
Ad responsiveness peaks during Black Friday too, making programmatic optimisations exceptionally effective. Shopper intent surges at this time, driving programmatic's highest efficiency and ROI. By concentrating consumer spending, conversion increases dramatically. Black Friday rapidly builds retargeting audiences, letting programmatic convert high-intent users before year-end.
So what does it all mean for smaller brands?
The big retailers tend to hog the BFCM headlines, but there is much to encourage smaller merchants to get involved, and plenty of advice available on how to do it. According to Shopify data, 2024 BFCM sales were up 24% over 2023 - a total of $11.5 billion in global sales from Shopify merchants alone. More than 67,000 merchants had their highest-selling day ever on Shopify over that weekend.
Shopify itself is free with suggestions of how to maximise the BFCM effect, including:
- the importance of starting early
- choosing the discounts that get the better results - smaller reductions may surprisingly work better than steeper price cuts
- the value of keeping consumers engaged after the sale
Online advertising for all
Advertising also plays a key role. Thanks to built-in automations in e-commerce platforms, smaller companies can now set up digital ad campaigns far more easily than before. New businesses launch every day, and smart-bid solutions like Preciso help level the playing field, enabling any merchant - even those with very limited budgets - to start using programmatic advertising immediately.
Many small and medium-sized businesses are shut out of programmatic options because traditional DSPs require high minimum spends. Without access to managed or self-serve tools, and without the resources to build their own system, SMEs often miss out on key seasonal advertising opportunities.
Platforms like ours aim to remove these barriers. We provide access to premium ad placements without forcing brands into unrealistic or inefficient spending. Advertisers only pay for the traffic their ads actually receive, and because we evaluate three essential factors - timing, audience, and context - the system continuously learns and delivers ads to the right users at the right moment. This ensures spending goes toward impressions that generate measurable results.
There is an irony in the fact that, in spite of the year-round predictions - and realities - of economic gloom, Black Friday appears to be one moment retailers can’t afford to underestimate. So strap in, bid smart, and prepare for the season.
Also Published in: Marketing Donut
