The Cyber Weekend that was…

Black Friday, Cyber Monday round-up

War, the cost of living Crisis, The World Cup and lots of talk of imminent recession even had Google saying “we just don’t know” when asked what was going to happen to Cyber Weekend trading this year.

Well, it’s all over now and these were our vvast observations…

One standout from this years’ Cyber week was marked by the importance of mobile-friendly websites. We saw big increases in the use of a mobile device to shop compared to last year.

“Black Friday Cyber Monday proved once again to be driven by online sales, with 73% of sales made on mobile devices and 27% on desktop.” Shopify, 2022

With many reteailers over stocked from sluggish Q3 sales the prediction was they would go all out for a sale via paid media.

However, Shopify Insights had a different read on paid social in particular. We have seen a change in strategy, related to the use of “lookalike audiences”. During 2022, we noticed better performance coming from interest-based audiences on Facebook and Instagram. We are now achieving an incredible performance with Broad Audiences on Facebook ads, bringing in new customers with one of the lowest cost per results for the last 12 months.

These audiences, with the use of a clear discount message, don’t require the use of a promotional code. This created a strong revenue driver during the BFCM weekend.

Regarding the average CPC in Facebook and Instagram, there was a decrease compared year on year in most of our markets. This could be due to a bigger and wider market of social media platforms advertisement space. With TikTok including product catalogues and a more stable advertisement platform.

“Top product categories for this key trading weekend included apparel & accessories, followed by health & beauty, and home & garden.” Shopify Insights.

The standout result for BCFM 2022 is that consumers are spending more time browsing and can be incentivised by discounts. However, a more targeted and personalised approach is required due to the number of promotions and incentives on offer.