In terms of holiday shopping, Black Friday and Cyber Monday have become more than just busy sales days—they’re key events that can put immense pressure on both brands and consumers to engage. Year after year, retailers approach the shopping event with a mix of anticipation and strategy, planning for large discounts, advertising strategies, and budgeting tactics that aim to maximize revenue growth over the busiest shopping days of the year. We entered this year’s critical period in the retail calendar with a keen eye on inventory and performance, ready to launch campaigns and re-optimize throughout the event in partnership with our clients.
Turkey 5, to 11, to 12: Understanding the Cyber Shift from 2023 to 2024
The typical Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping time has undergone a few different naming transformations in recent years, with Amazon leading the charge in redefining the traditional sales period from “Turkey 5” to “Turkey 11”, and now “Turkey 12”. In previous years, the Black Friday & Cyber Monday period was referred to as T5. That was, until, last year when we shared on LinkedIn that Amazon expanded the length of their sales event with 6 additional days of deals, calling it “Turkey 11”. Now, in 2024, 1 additional day has been added to the cyber sale period, calling it “Turkey 12” or the “Cyber Dozen”. Whichever name is used to describe this holiday sales period, it’s important to understand the dates where discounts occurred, especially for period-over-period or year-over-year reporting.
This year, Turkey 12 took place between November 21 and December 2 (Cyber Monday). Below, we’ll walk through global, industry-wide results that occurred throughout Turkey 12, mainly the key dates of Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2024.
Black Friday 2024
Black Friday continues to be a pivotal moment every year, and 2024 was no different. Online sales reached a record-breaking $74.4 billion, a 5% increase from last year – and more than double what consumers spent in 2017. Shoppers also demonstrated remarkable spending power, purchasing $10.8 billion worth of products at an astonishing rate of $11.3 million per minute during peak hours (10am-2pm).
Despite these strong results, the shifting retail landscape was evident in both consumer behavior and advertising strategies. While in-store traffic declined by 8.2% compared to 2023, the event solidified ecommerce dominance, with online sales surging nearly 15% year-over-year. Overall, an astounding 87.3 million shoppers actively participated in digital marketplace transactions throughout the day.
Digital platforms also saw huge engagement with the cost-per-click (CPC) for Amazon ads growing 9.9% compared to Black Friday 2023, despite click-through rates declining by a surprising 7%. Additionally, investment in Amazon DSP advertising increased 28% compared to Black Friday 2023, noting the attention of the growing platform, and overall Amazon ad spending jumped almost 30% more than last year.
Cyber Monday 2024
Cyber Monday also shattered previous ecommerce records, with US shoppers driving a landmark $13.3 billion in 2024 sales—a 7.3% year-over-year increase. During the peak evening hours of 8-10pm EST, consumers were spending a whopping $15.8 million every minute, engaging 64.4 million active shoppers throughout the day (about 23 million less than on Black Friday 2024).
Discount trends revealed some fascinating insights, with makeup globally offering an impressive 40% off and U.S. apparel discounted up to 39% off (two of the verticals with the highest average discount on Cyber Monday 2024). Regarding the overall share of units sold from November 1 to December 2, electronics soared by a notable 86% while sporting goods increased by 63%.
Overall Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2024 Results
From Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday 2024, online spending surged 8.2% year-over-year, reaching $41.1 billion and reflecting continued online growth. Despite a slight 1.7% decline in total shopper participation compared to 2023, approximately 197 million consumers engaged in both online and in-store shopping over the 5-day period.
Brand Examples from Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2024
Explore how a few Brandwoven clients fared during the 2024 Turkey 12 period compared to last year.
Electronics Brand
A field electronics brand achieved a substantial 15.2% year-over-year increase in Ordered Revenue while Units Sold grew by 13.7% compared to the same period. Most notably, the brand’s visibility grew a remarkable 67.6% for the metric Glance Views when compared to 2023. These results prove that brands in the competitive electronics space can still leverage strategic targeting during competitive shopping times to grow awareness and sales.
Sunscreen Brand
Another brand that experienced growth during Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2024 was a suncare brand. By collaborating closely with their Brandwoven Client Success Manager and our Marketing team, the sunscreen brand achieved a significant 75% YoY increase in Ordered Revenue! Additionally, the brand’s Sessions grew by 43.4% YoY while Units Sold had an impressive 92.5% increase compared to the same period. This substantial performance demonstrates the effectiveness of our collaborative discount and promotional strategy, balancing consumer targeting with precise inventory management. By promoting products we wanted to sell through with impressive discounts that avoided cutting into margins, we were able to grow awareness and sales, taking full advantage of the busy Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2024 shopping period.
Flashlight Manufacturer
One final example of a company that demonstrated robust growth during Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2024 was a premier manufacturer of flashlights and headlamps. The brand achieved a substantial 14.3% YoY increase in Ordered Revenue and expanded marketplace visibility with an impressive 41.5% increase in Sessions over the same period. Lastly, Units Sold increased 8.6% YoY. These metrics highlight our successful approach to enhancing the brand’s online presence and driving meaningful sales growth in the competitive ecommerce marketplace.
Learnings From Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2024
Explore critical learnings from the 2024 Cyber Dozen period.
Advertising Takeaways
Steep Competition & CPC
The Turkey 12 shopping period presented brands with both advertising challenges and opportunities. Something that our Marketing team was quick to highlight was the growing advertising costs throughout the event (largely due to competition). There were increased CPC on generic terms, the number of paid placements on search pages increased, and the number of days that most brands ran deals for was increased (due to the long 12-day discount period).
Placement Modifiers: A Game Changer
Placement modifiers were also a game changer this year. For some background, campaigns which target ad placements on keyword searches also get placed on detail pages of products that usually show up organically on the keywords targeted. Initially, as ad spend increased, a large majority of spend within keyword campaigns went towards the ASIN placements rather than the keyword targets. Our Marketing team made an effort to fix this over the last few months by carefully adjusting the keyword campaigns and using “placement modifiers” to optimize for the targeted keyword searches over the product page placement allocation. Luckily, this shift paid off just in time for Turkey 12 with almost all Brandwoven clients seeing strong results. In nearly every case, either ad spend stayed the same with Ad Sales increasing or their Ad Sales stayed steady while spend dropped 20-40% within the adjusted campaigns. Thanks to our Marketing team’s close eye and constant iteration, our brand partners were able to improve ROI on their ad spend throughout the expensive T12 period, noting the importance of precise ad placement for marketing efficiency.
Shoppers Started Buying Early
It seems like every year, marketplaces like Amazon are urging brands to start running product discounts earlier in the holiday season to get shoppers to spend earlier too. We initially expected this with the 1-day shift of Turkey 11 to Turkey 12 (adding 1 more day of sales), but we surprisingly saw an extended busy shopping period even before the traditional Turkey 12 period commenced. Although the core days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday remained critical with the highest total sales in 2024 over the 12 total days, the week prior was a great opportunity to bring in Ad Sales at a much higher ROAS. We generally noticed that brands who started promoting earlier than their competitors were more strategically positioned for shopper engagement.
Main Takeaway From Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2024
One of the most compelling insights from November 2024 was seeing shoppers click and purchase earlier than before. During previous shopping events, we’ve seen the opposite behavior: sales dipping as consumers wait for the best deals to arise. This year, however, the data revealed a significant shift: an increase in shopper activity before the Turkey 12 period even started. This trend shows an increasingly eager consumer market, comfortable with purchasing earlier in the holiday season. Brands should continue to adapt their promotional strategies, planning far in advance, to fully capitalize on the extended shopping window.
As we continue into the end of Q4, it becomes more and more obvious that the most successful marketplace approach is dependent on a dynamic, proactive stance—planning far in advance, meeting consumers where they are and when they’re ready to buy, and preparing for even larger advertising budgets during the peak shopping period. Looking ahead to 2025, successful marketplace strategies will require an increasingly sophisticated approach—with precision, data utilization, and optimization at the forefront.