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5 data-driven takeaways from Black Friday 2023

Ryan Johnson
Marketer @ SegMetrics
5 data-driven takeaways from Black Friday 2023

We crunched the numbers. Here are our favorite insights.

A great Black Friday promotion can be a windfall for your business. Year after year, Black Friday continues to drive serious interest from consumers and revenue for businesses. Even at a glance, the BF/CM numbers are impressive:

  • Consumers spent $9.8 billion on Black Friday 2023 (up 7.5% from 2022). Source
  • The average discount was 28%. Source
  • Over 60% of people think Black Friday sales are generally a good value. Source

But with competition and costs rising, the ugly flipside is that the risk of investing serious time and money on a Black Friday dud is also a possibility.

This is where data-driven decision making can help.

To help you prepare for Black Friday 2024, we analyzed last year’s results and pulled out our 5 favorite 2023 BF/CM takeaways to help sharpen your strategy.

Let’s dive in!

Inside the Black Friday / Cyber Monday data

In order to protect the confidentiality of customer data and marketing strategies, the following information is taken in aggregate from over 1000 SegMetrics accounts who have agreed to anonymously share their Black Friday data. No email addresses, products purchased, nor any personally identifiable information were used in the analysis. All sales and marketing funnel data was combined for analytical purposes.

The businesses included represent a variety of industries and sizes. The average annual revenue for the businesses analyzed was $2,313,455. The average list size was 79,474, and the median list size was 13,191.

When we refer to “Black Friday” in this report, we’re talking about the 4-day Black Friday weekend, from the Friday after Thanksgiving through Monday at midnight (Cyber Monday). We’re also ignoring any revenue generated from recurring purchases or subscriptions created before that timeframe.

Takeaway #1: Yes, BF/CM remains a major sales driver

Compared to the rest of 2023, we saw businesses enjoying significant increases in core sales metrics during the Black Friday to Cyber Monday sales window.

Pre-BF vs During BF sales stats

In other words, BF/CM brought about:

  • 4x as many sales/day
  • 4x as much revenue/day
  • 4x as much revenue/customer/day

Recommendation: Don’t half-ass your Black Friday promotion. There is a significant opportunity here. Use our Black Friday Readiness Checklist to make sure you’re doing everything you can to make the most of this rising tide.

Takeaway #2: You can drive significant list growth during BF/CM, too

On average, the businesses we analyzed averaged 76 new leads/day between January and Halloween 2023. By comparison, they averaged 233 new leads/day during BF/CM — a 3x jump!

This is a radical shift from the analysis we ran on Black Friday 2018 where holiday lead gen was a losing proposition.

One of the implications is that the lifetime value of your Black Friday promotion may stretch much farther than it used to. BF/CM success or failure could be measured not by your upfront revenue but by the quality of the new leads you attract — and how much they spend with you over the weeks, months, and possibly even years ahead.

Recommendation: While you’ll still want to push for BF/CM sales, don’t forget to provide opportunities for people to opt-in, too. Optimize your lead magnets. Don’t lose track of the long-game.

Takeaway #3: ROAS pressure is tight

While Black Friday and Cyber Monday should bring in record sales, revenue and leads, the impact on ROAS is a different story.

In 2023, we saw average ROAS drop nearly in half during the holiday window compared to pre-BF/CM averages.

Average ROAS Before & During BF/CM 2023

Even though companies saw a 4x increase in sales and revenue – and a 3x increase in ad impressions and ad clicks – they also saw a 3x increase in ad spend.

Spending 3x to get 4x the results works out well, but a lot of that success is fueled by ads that are getting much, much more expensive each year.

Recommendation: With so much riding on your ROAS during Black Friday, you need to be 100% certain your ad attribution is watertight. We offer a free Ad Attribution Audit to everyone who signs up for a 14-day free trial of SegMetrics. We can help you optimize your ads before BF/CM.

Takeaway #4: Don’t forget about Black Friday deal sites

While ads remained the primary traffic source for companies both before and during BF/CM, the percentage of traffic coming from referrals jumped by 50% during Black Friday 2023.

That’s a huge swing!

This shift is driven by all of the countless sites posting topical Black Friday deal roundups and reviews. This is a powerful way to get your offer in front of the right audience.

Recommendation: Plan ahead to get your product and offer included in any relevant Black Friday round-ups. Announcing your offer early can help spread the word.

Takeaway #5: Pricing matters

Discounts get a lot of attention on Black Friday, but your core pricing matters, too. 

First we looked at the distribution of product prices above $100. It followed the expected drop-off. On BF/CM, we’d expect a higher number of lower-priced products.

BF Product pricing graph 1

Then we looked at the distribution of product prices below $100. 

BF Product pricing graph 2

Here, we can see the $10 and under range sells the most – as expected – but there are also pops in the $30-$40 range and the $80-$90 range. These reflect compelling price tiers for consumers during BF/CM 2023.

Recommendation: When you’re building your Black Friday offer, don’t just focus on the discount. Also look at the end price. (And don’t forget to make sure you don’t discount so much that you erode your profits!)

Closing thoughts

There are a lot of factors to consider when building and executing your BF/CM promotion. We hope these Black Friday takeaways give you some new ideas and helpful reminders for your planning.

For more advice on how to uplevel your 2024 Black Friday strategy, check out our free Black Friday Boot Camp. We’re sharing all new videos, checklists, deep dives, tutorials and more.

And if you want to talk through your BF/CM strategy with one of our analytics experts, book a call today. We’re here to help!

 


Ryan Johnson

Marketer @ SegMetrics

Ryan Johnson is a content strategist and product marketing manager with over 15 years experience bringing brands and products to life with integrated editorial and sales collateral, value-based messaging, and GTM strategies.


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