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Billy Grace said cost per order fell 18% during Black Friday week in 2025, while return on ad spend also increased.
The analysis used aggregated first-party advertising performance data from eCommerce and omnichannel advertisers across nine paid media channels between September and December 2025.
Average CPMs rose from about £5.50 in the run-up to Black Friday to about £7.50 during Black Friday week, an increase of roughly one-third. Even so, median return on ad spend increased by about 26% between the pre-Black Friday period and Black Friday week.
The figures point to a peak trading period in which advertisers paid more for inventory but still saw stronger purchasing activity. Billy Grace said higher media costs were offset by better conversion performance, improving the overall economics.
Around two-thirds of orders placed around Black Friday and Cyber Monday came from new customers. That suggests the period remained an important moment for customer acquisition, rather than simply a chance to drive more spending from existing buyers.
Google remained an important conversion channel in the data set, while channels associated with earlier stages of the buying journey accounted for a higher share of new customers. Social and video platforms were particularly prominent at that stage.
Budget patterns also shifted before the peak week. Google and Meta still accounted for the majority of ad spend, but YouTube and TikTok posted the strongest increase in budget share between September and December.
Together, YouTube and TikTok roughly doubled their budget share over that period and stayed above September levels after Cyber Monday. The analysis did not assign a reason for the change, but Billy Grace said the pattern was consistent with advertisers using video and social channels earlier in the purchase process.
Attribution gap
The company also compared conventional last-click attribution with its Unified Marketing Measurement model, which includes earlier touchpoints, impressions and view-through effects. The gap between the two approaches was widest for several social and video channels during Black Friday week.
Under Unified Marketing Measurement, Billy Grace attributed 9.2 times more revenue to Pinterest than last-click attribution, 7.8 times more to Reddit, 7.4 times more to YouTube, 4.5 times more to TikTok and 2.2 times more to Meta. For Google and Bing, attributed revenue was broadly similar under both methods.
Those differences don't establish a definitive view of causality, but they show how channel performance can look different depending on the measurement system used. For advertisers making rapid budget decisions during a compressed trading period, that can change where spend appears to work best.
"Black Friday is not simply a period for extracting more value from existing customers. For many advertisers, it is also one of the most important customer-acquisition moments of the year. The risk is looking only at the channel where the final purchase happens. That can obscure the advertising that first introduced the customer to the brand or created the demand in the first place," said Mitch Voskuilen, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Billy Grace.
Media inflation varied significantly by platform during the week. Snapchat recorded a 72% rise in CPM, YouTube 51%, Meta 45%, TikTok 45% and Google 22%.
Even so, Billy Grace said higher auction prices should not be viewed in isolation during periods of strong buying intent. The data indicates that rising media costs can coincide with improved returns when shoppers are more likely to convert.
"A rising CPM can look alarming when viewed on its own. But the more useful question is what happens to the economics of the order. During Black Friday last year, advertisers were paying substantially more for media, but stronger conversion performance more than compensated for that increase," said Voskuilen.
Beyond Cyber Monday
The analysis also found that advertising patterns did not immediately revert to pre-Black Friday levels after Cyber Monday. YouTube and TikTok retained a larger share of ad budgets through December than they had in September, while auction competition began to ease from peak-week levels.
That suggests advertisers may be treating Black Friday and Christmas less as separate campaigns and more as connected phases of the same trading window. Billy Grace said marketers should plan for activity after Cyber Monday rather than treat it as an automatic cut-off point.
"Cyber Monday creates a natural deadline internally, but consumers do not stop shopping because the promotional calendar says peak week is over. The period between Cyber Monday and Christmas can have a different cost and demand profile. The point is not simply to leave campaigns running indefinitely, but to plan for that period deliberately rather than switching spend off by default," said Voskuilen.