Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2025 Recap With Team Acadia - Episode 421

🎙️Black Friday & Cyber Monday Data Breakdown With the Acadia Team

 

DESCRIPTION

Welcome to The Ecommerce Braintrust podcast, brought to you by Julie Spear, Head of Retail Marketplace Services, and Jordan Ripley, Director of Retail Account Management.

We’re coming to you late in the day on December 3rd, less than 48 hours after the whirlwind of Cyber Monday has wrapped up. The dust is barely settling, and we’re diving straight into what really went down.

To help us make sense of it all, we’ve gathered a powerhouse panel.

• From the operations and organic side of the action, we have Gavin Farnan and Celina Arbelaez from our Account Management team, two people who’ve been in the trenches all weekend.

• And bringing the media perspective, we’re joined by Hyunsoo Park and Ross Walker, ready to unpack the wins, surprises, and standout trends of the season.

Let’s dive in.

Quote:

Over the BFCM weekend, we saw a 1.5x lift in sales, and then over the 12 days, a 1.6x multiple compared to last year's BFCM.

Gavin Farnan

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

In this episode, the team discusses:

• Personal Recaps: The group shares what they bought during the sales

• Shift in Shopping Patterns: The panel discusses how consumers are increasingly buying earlier in these tentpole events, with a higher share of sales happening in the initial days of Turkey 12, and why waiting for bigger deals later doesn’t always pay off.

• Data & Sales Insights: Client data showing a 50–60% year-over-year lift in sales, and the group explores trends in daily sales spikes and the spreading out of purchases across event days.

• Cross-Channel Promotions: The challenges and strategies around promo consistency across Amazon, D2C, and other retailers like Target and Ulta, and the importance of deal badging on Amazon for visibility.

• Event Differences & Glitches: Insights into new Amazon features like improved deal badging, the impact of glitches (like PPD discount badge issues), and increases in category discount depth.

• AI & Discovery: The growing importance of AI-driven discovery with Amazon’s Rufus and how brands must optimize content to be surfaced by these tools, despite the limited data currently available from Amazon.

• New Ad Tech & Sponsored Content: The rollout and mixed success of product video ads, sponsored brand video priorities, and ongoing Amazon ad platform updates leading right up to the event.

• Q4 Holiday Advice: Practical tips for brands to close out the quarter strong, like maintaining bestseller rank, doubling down on winning products, leveraging creator campaigns and off-Amazon traffic, and keeping content fresh and responsive to new search behaviors.

• Team Takeaways: Encouragement to focus budget and effort on high-performing keywords and channels, and reminders not to slack off as shipping cutoffs approach.