How much do Black Friday and Cyber Monday bring in?
US shoppers spent $44.2 billion online from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday 2025, up 7.7% on the year before, according to Adobe Analytics. Black Friday brought in $11.8 billion and Cyber Monday $14.25 billion. Thanksgiving Day itself added $6.4 billion.
Brands selling from their own stores are in it too. Shopify merchants sold $14.6 billion worldwide over the Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend, with an average cart of $114.70. Both sets of numbers come from companies that sell to retailers, and Shopify's are unaudited, so read them as the size of the weekend. Your own results depend on your margin and your list.
Which Black Friday marketing ideas still work this late?
Most of what is left is offer, messaging and budget work. The dates that have passed are on Amazon: inbound shipping and the original deal deadline. The table shows what we would do with the time left.
| Idea | Channel | Finish by | Why it still works |
|---|---|---|---|
| A smaller offer on fewer products | All | November 8 | Protects margin and shortens the build |
| Prime Exclusive Discount or coupon | Amazon | November 13 for discounts, if your account shows it | Needs no new inventory |
| Early access for past customers | Email and text | November 15 to build | Repeat buyers grew fastest in Klaviyo's 2025 data |
| Order-ready product pages | Amazon and Shopify | November 15 | Every ad dollar lands on these pages |
| Merchant Center promotions and new ads | Google and Meta | November 20 | Leaves time for review before the holiday |
| Higher daily budgets | Amazon, Google, Meta | From November 22 | Keeps your best campaigns running through peak hours |
By November 8: choose the offer and count the stock
Start with the money. Take a $60 product that costs $30 to make and ship. At 20% off you keep $18 a unit. At 30% off you keep $12, so you need to sell 50% more units to earn the same. Run this on your top sellers before anyone designs a banner.
The market gives you room to hold back. Klaviyo's 2025 recap puts average e-commerce discounts at 26.2%, down from 29.6%, and its newsroom summary says brands with the smallest discounts grew 14%, with home and garden the main exception. These are Klaviyo's approximate figures for its own customers. Adobe's peak Cyber Monday discounts varied widely by category: electronics 31%, toys 28%, apparel 25%, furniture 19%, sporting goods 17%.
Keep your "was" price honest. The FTC's guide on deceptive pricing says a former price should be one the product was openly and actively offered at for a reasonably substantial period. Raising a price in early November to set up a bigger discount is the case it warns about.
On Amazon, count what is already checked in. Amazon's event dates were October 21 for minimal shipment splits and October 28 for Amazon-optimized splits. Amazon also warned of lower capacity limits in November and December. Peak fulfillment fees, about $0.32 a unit on average, run through January 14, so add them to your margin math. Send ad budget to the products with enough stock, and lower it on the ones that would sell out early.
November 9 to 15: build it and test it
Amazon deal options are the first deadline. Amazon listed October 20 as the close of the deal window. My Amazon Guy reported on October 23 that Amazon moved the deadline to November 13 and gave details only for Prime Exclusive Discounts. We could only confirm this from that report, so check Price Discounts and the Deals dashboard in your own Seller Central. The fees below are the ones Amazon posted for 2026, so confirm the figure your dashboard shows. The minimum discounts and the coupon fee are Amazon's 2025 terms, and Amazon has confirmed the 15% for Prime Exclusive Discounts this year.
| Amazon option | Minimum discount | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Best Deal | 15% (2025) | $100 per promotion plus 1.5% of promotional sales, capped at $5,000 |
| Lightning Deal | 20% (2025) | $100 per promotion plus 1.5% of promotional sales, capped at $5,000 |
| Prime Exclusive Discount | 15% | $100 per promotion plus 1.5% of promotional sales, capped at $5,000 |
| Coupon | Not listed | $5 plus 2.5% of sales on the coupon (2025) |
Fix the pages the traffic will reach. Amazon Ads asks for four or more zoomable images, at least three bullet points and stock that lasts through the event. Then stop editing your best listings until December, because a rejected change in deal week costs more than a slightly better title.
On Shopify, build the discounts now and test them on a phone. Mobile drove 57.5% of Cyber Monday spending. Shopify's discounts do not combine automatically: you set each one's combination options, so place test orders with every code and automatic discount you plan to run. We suggest a hold on theme changes from about November 20, so agree the date with your developer now.
Write the email and text schedule, and check your sending health while you do. Gmail's sender rules ask bulk senders for one-click unsubscribe and a spam rate below 0.30%, with below 0.10% as the goal. Clean out long-inactive subscribers before you raise volume. If you want help with the list or the flows, see our email marketing services.
November 16 to 22: warm up past customers and submit promotions
Send past customers something first. Revenue from repeat customers grew 13.5% in 2025 across Klaviyo's brands and outpaced new buyers, helped by early access and segmented VIP offers. In its 2024 analysis, many brands started promotions as early as November 7, so inboxes are already busy. Give your list a date and a reason to wait for you.
Add text for the people who agreed to it. Shoppers who got both email and text placed 11% more orders in Klaviyo's data. Those may simply be your keenest shoppers, so treat it as a reason to test. Federal telemarketing rules require prior express written consent for automated marketing texts and bar solicitations before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. in the recipient's local time.
Get approvals out of the way before Thanksgiving week:
- Submit Merchant Center promotions. Google asks for at least 24 hours' notice, says review can take up to three days, and advises submitting on weekdays during business hours.
- Upload new Meta ads. Meta's ad review is typically completed within 24 hours, and it may take longer.
- Schedule Amazon Brand Store changes. Amazon asks for submission at least 48 hours before the start.
- Hold back Amazon deal ads until the deal is live. Amazon does not allow deal teasing, and prices in the ad must match the landing page.
Set expectations for Google Ads too. Smart Bidding already handles seasonal events, and seasonality adjustments are for major changes in conversion rates. Google Ads product manager Tal Akabas, as summarized by Search Engine Journal, said you do not necessarily need them for Black Friday, because Google's models already expect the usual holiday spikes. Save one for an unusually deep discount or a flash sale, and keep it to one to seven days.
November 23 to 30: run the weekend
Raise budgets a few days ahead. Amazon Ads' holiday guide puts the rise at 20% to 30% of daily budget around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, starting three to five days before each peak. That means November 22 to 24 for Black Friday. A campaign that runs out of money at lunchtime on Friday misses the busiest hours. Our post on Amazon PPC management covers who should watch those budgets day to day.
Plan each day's job, and send at the hours buyers are active:
| Day | Date | What to run | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thanksgiving | November 26 | Offer opens to everyone, morning send | Checkout errors on phones |
| Black Friday | November 27 | Main email before noon ET, text for opted-in buyers | Stock, budgets by midday |
| Saturday and Sunday | November 28 and 29 | Reminder to non-openers, retargeting ads | Spam complaints, ad costs |
| Cyber Monday | November 30 | Last-chance email and text, evening reminder | Budgets into the evening |
Those hours come from recent peaks. Shopify's busiest minute was 12:01 p.m. EST on Black Friday, and Klaviyo saw 2024 Black Friday orders peak between noon and 1 p.m. ET. Adobe put the Cyber Monday peak at $16 million a minute between 8 and 10 p.m.
Change one thing at a time. Akabas said changing targets or budgets on a steady campaign does not reset learning, but results can still shift, so avoid repeated target changes inside one conversion cycle. Check the numbers each morning and each evening, then act on your margin and on TACoS, which is ad spend as a share of total sales. Our ACoS vs TACoS post explains why ACoS, ad spend as a share of ad sales, can mislead you when read alone.
December 1 onward: keep selling and write it down
Do not turn everything off on Tuesday. Amazon Ads cites Mintel data showing that about 31% of US shoppers planned to buy between Cyber Monday and New Year's. Bring budgets back to normal over a few days, retarget people who viewed and did not buy, and give the weekend's new customers a thank-you email and a reason to return.
Write your numbers down while they are fresh: revenue after discounts and fees by channel, the offer on each product, what sold out and when, and which send made the most money. Keep that page for next year's plan, and start it in September.
Riithink runs email, Amazon and ads for e-commerce brands. Look at our Shopify and Amazon work, and get in touch if you want a second pair of eyes on your plan before November 27.
