Another Black Friday and Cyber Monday are officially in the books, and as expected, this year was full of surprises that kept us on our toes. But preparation always pays off, and we made sure to check our lists (twice!) to deliver strong performance for our clients across the board.
Using our Sleigh the Season Whitepaper as a playbook, we didn’t just navigate the season—we crushed it. Our strategy proved that success comes down to preparation, adaptability, and the right tools. Now, we’re excited to share some of the insights and tactics that powered these results.
1. Adding Holiday Flair to Catalog Ads
When one of our clients faced limited holiday-specific creative for their Facebook campaigns, we needed a smart, scalable solution to stay competitive. Our goal was to maintain high click-through rates (CTR) and keep customer acquisition costs (CAC) low.
Our recommendation? Festive holiday frames for dynamic product catalogs. These frames incorporated seasonal elements that elevated the holiday vibe and unlocked additional placements on desktop—a platform that proved to be a strong performer.
The results spoke for themselves: During Black Friday and Cyber Monday, ads with holiday frames outperformed the campaign average, delivering a 41% higher ROAS and a 26% lower CAC.
2. Most Wonderful Time for Promo
It was promos galore out there! And while many people felt that discounts during Cyber Week 2024 were slightly smaller compared to last year—which they’d be right—in 2023, the average discount for apparel was around 30%, while in 2024, it was closer to 28%. We saw firsthand how a 24-hour flash sale on one product broke through the 25% noise and generated increased urgency and conversion.
That product was 65% off and sold more inventory in one day than it did the previous 10 months. Anecdotally, we saw this strategy across the industry. We noticed a lot more brands doing promotions on specific products vs. site wide and/or doing deals of the day!
3. 1st party data
First-party data is king, or, as we like to say, queen. Growing your email list is of utmost importance, especially this time of year. We see email marketing play a major role in promotional periods, but the hard work starts long before…
We recommended front-loading our lead generation budgets within paid social early in Q4 to grow the list before it was go-time. We wanted to ensure that new subscribers had time to get familiar with the brand and make it through our welcome series long before they’d be targeted with all of their other promotional emails during Cyber Week. What’s that saying? “Take me out to dinner first?” By doing so, we increased our email revenue by 5% during Cyber Week.
Probably even more enticing, we recommended to our clients to add extra incentives to new subscribers before Cyber Week. We updated paid social lead gen copy to include language around “early access” and “Cyber Week deals.” In turn, we saw our cost per lead decrease by 22%.
The work also continues long after the promotional periods. We’re currently seeing our “post-purchase” flows within our CRMs put in the heavy work. We want people to keep coming back for more, and we’re doing that by sharing similar or complementary products.
4. Holiday Window Shopping
The holiday season is synonymous with gifting, and with it comes an influx of new shoppers exploring their options whether they’re searching for the perfect gift for someone else—or treating themselves— making choices can be overwhelming!
For many of our e-commerce clients, we’ve recommended focusing on upper-funnel engagement strategies, trafficking potential customers who might not be ready to convert just yet to educational landing pages and curated gift guides, creating more engaging, window-shopping experience. This approach has not only driven more traffic to our clients’ sites but also reduced bounce rates, increasing time spent on the site, and improving retargeting pools.
Even further down the funnel, gift guides have proven to be a game-changer. One particular client saw outstanding results, with gift guide ads (even without promotional offers) outperforming other campaigns throughout November—even surpassing Black Friday and Cyber Monday ads. For this client, gift guide ads delivered impressive results: a 33% lower CAC, a 68% higher ROAS, and a 65% higher conversion rate than the average in the purchase campaign.
5. Don’t forget about Q5
Black Friday and Cyber Monday may be behind us, but the holiday opportunities are far from over. Enter Q5, the “hidden quarter” that runs roughly from mid-December to mid-January—a golden window to wrap up 2024 on a high note, kickstart 2025 with momentum, or even do both!
During this period, purchase intent remains strong, while ad costs often dip as competitors pull back after the peak season. It’s the perfect time to capitalize on holiday cheer and make the most of your campaigns.
Ready to crush your Q5 strategy? Download Sleigh the Season for actionable tips and tactics to maximize your performance and drive results through the hidden quarter.
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We wish you a holly jolly holiday season! Missed out on our Holiday Whitepaper with all 10 ecomm tips? Don’t worry you can still download it here.