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Black Friday in Paid Social: What we learned

Social Media plays a huge role for eCommerce businesses, especially in seasonal sale periods! It brings bucket loads of new customers to online stores all year round however, during big shopping days like Black Friday, social media’s role in the buyer journey takes centre stage. We interviewed our Senior Paid Social Manager, Danielle Ward, on her findings from this Cyber Period across Paid Social…

What was the general consensus of Black Friday across Paid Social this year?

Well, I’ve done my research, and according to Emplifi, Social media mentions for Black Friday have been up this year, compared to previous years. Brands are running Black Friday content on social media more than any previous year, with a 40% YoY increase in UK brands mentioning the event on IG. It also looked as though eCommerce and retail brands were posting more about Black Friday than any other industry - 4x more than beauty brands and 3x more than fashion! 

Also, according to a recent ‘pulse check’ poll by Forrester of 837 adults from the US, UK and Canada to understand the likelihood to shop via social media platforms this holiday season, consumers have little interest in doing their shopping - let alone holiday shopping - on social media platforms themselves. A stat I think to take with a pinch of salt! For our clients we noticed amazing uplifts in revenue and for others a huge increase in ROAS, this Black Friday period! 

Many consumers are aware of social media ads, even if they aren’t actually clicking and purchasing through them. According to Forrester’s recent research 26% of online adults have seen shoppable content on social media platforms. Social ads expose audiences to new products, building an awareness for brands, even if the consumer isn't buying at that moment. 

When did retailers kick off their BF promos this time round?

Despite the cost-of-living crisis threatening to dampen consumers' appetite to spend money this Black Friday, retail sales had a boost, with shoppers looking for those pre-Christmas deals. Barclaycard reported transactions rose 3.2% compared to last year’s Black Friday period, with an all time record number of transactions taking place between 12 noon and 1pm (on Black Friday itself).

From our perspective, we saw many of our own retail clients starting to promote their Black Friday sale earlier this year, many of which even crept into the end of October! One of our clients who did start much earlier (last week in October to be exact!) had amazing results, YoY they saw Paid Social revenue increase by a whopping 415% - so potentially it pays to be early.

Another of our clients (in the homeware sector) aren’t usually one to partake in Black Friday but decided to jump on the bandwagon in order to boost sales - off the back of this they’ve had an unbelievably successful Black Friday weekend which surpassed all of their expectations. For them, they actually spent 18% less YoY but increased Social revenue by 15%!

What ad types from your own experience looked most used?

From my constant scrolling on social media (it’s a bad habit, I can’t help it!) I’ve seen a variety of different ad types being used, which in all honesty is good to see. A lot of brands chose to overlay text on product or lifestyle imagery which I thought worked really well. Another tactic we love seeing from brands, and is a proven performance driver, are video ads - customer or influencer videos which don’t quite look like normal ads and blend seamlessly into a user’s organic feed.

A little chunk of insight again highlighting the importance of testing was from one of our own retail clients in the homeware sector. The client usually utilises graphics (with no product imagery) for their sale periods, (we find that their ads showing lifestyle images with sale ad copy do perform better) however, for Black Friday they created graphics which featured lifestyle imagery this time which proved to perform better! I covered the importance of testing creatives in a blog earlier in the year here!

What were your most standout BF Paid Social ads? 

With that many brands promoting on social media over Black Friday it's essential to try and stand out from the crowd with your creative, and your offer, of course! Some of my favourites (I managed to remember to save for future inspo!) were from fashion brand Never Fully Dressed and another which was from Rheal, a superfood brand, their ads were so simple but did stand out to me as a consumer.  

These aren’t just any ads, they’re actually from brands that know I’m familiar with them, and have even engaged with their site/content at some point quite recently. Essentially, they’re ‘retargeting me’ - clever stuff! There is little copy to tell me about the brand, as both retailers are aware I know enough about them, for these two it’s all about the creative product imagery and graphic overlays that stand out (as you can see) and a super clear offer (both pretty decent offers, too!). 

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What are your key learnings/takeaways from Black Friday 2022? 

  • Although we’re in a cost of living crisis, people are still spending (obviously they’re trying to get the best deal to save money!).

  • Generally, we have seen CPA’s rise over the past year however over Black Friday we’ve seen amazing results for our clients, they’re spending less YoY but still able to increase revenue.

  • Black Friday is no longer just a weekend, it’s getting earlier and earlier. Brands are going sooner rather than later with their sales in order to beat the competition and boost sales faster. Immediately following Halloween!

  • Testing a variety of ad formats and creatives is essential, although this isn’t necessarily a new learning (we push this all the time!) we find that different creatives may perform better over this period, for example graphics with text over lifestyle only images. 

 

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