According to a recent survey, Britons are expected to spend nearly £14 billion over Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2025.
With concerns over the cost of living and rising prices, this huge amount reflects evolving shopping habits, changes in people’s online behaviour, and intensifying competition.
The public is eager for deals and wants to spend less overall at Christmas, so they are starting their shopping earlier and earlier to cut down on costs. Now, online shopping is dominating, with increasing numbers of people engaging in hybrid shopping (combining offline and online shopping) and becoming smarter buyers. They are spending more time researching, comparing and ensuring they are getting value for money before committing to a purchase.
This has led to intense competition between brands, leading to higher acquisition costs in 2025 and the need to stand out from the crowd and draw consumers in.
It’s important to have a retail marketing plan, know whether you need to approach Black Friday and Cyber Monday differently, and what you can do to turn site surfing into sales.
Black Friday vs Cyber Monday: The Differences
Black Friday is actually an American creation, the first Friday after Thanksgiving and in the 1980s got rebranded as the unofficial beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Cyber Monday was created in 2005 after the growth of online shopping and takes place on the Monday after Thanksgiving Weekend.
The terms have become globalised and are now two points of a weekend of deals and a shopping frenzy.
Despite becoming blurred, the days function differently, reflecting audience behaviour and the purchase intent differences on each day.
Black Friday is centred around impulse buys, big-ticket items and going out to the shops in person and finding deals that you come across. Cyber Monday exists primarily online. People these days are after value-for-money and smaller items that can be delivered and returned easily if needed.
Because of the differences in how consumers approach these days, your marketing strategies need to reflect that!
Creative & Messaging Differences
For Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you need to get the messaging right. Though the days are close together, and part of a wider marketing drive, you should consider how you advertise.
Black Friday 2025
When it comes to Black Friday 2025, your messaging should revolve around:
- Hype: You need to build excitement and create a sense of an event around the upcoming day.
- FOMO: Reinforce that people are missing out on deals that others are taking advantage of, creating a sense of urgency.
- Speed: Time is running out, and stocks are scarce! You need to emphasise that speed is the key and that these deals won’t last forever.
Cyber Monday 2025
When it comes to Cyber Monday 2025, your messaging should revolve around:
- Clarity: Informed buyers prefer clarity as they will be looking around. Transparent pricing shows you can be trusted.
- Value: Spending more time shopping around means shoppers want value-for-money. Show how much your reductions are, and that soon the value will go back up.
- Tech-focused: The name reflects the attitude of consumers. They are more interested in smaller, tech items and what you offer should match this intent.
Despite the differences, you need to maintain brand consistency when it comes to web design, whilst having dedicated landing pages for the tailored messaging efforts.
Black Friday Strategy 2025
Strategies you should look to employ for your Black Friday 2025 include:
- Channel focus: Hit your customers across multiple channels. Use paid social media marketing to gain visibility and paid Google ads to rank higher on Google Shopping. Create remarketing videos and upload to YouTube and your website to target customers who have already interacted with your brand.
- Diversify offers: Don’t let your deals get stale. Create urgency-based promos that rely on speed to take advantage of, promote bundle deals that offer value for money, and make early access lists that give people the chance to get deals before anyone else.
- Influencers and Creators: Nowadays, people are more likely to use products used by influencers and content creators than what is advertised traditionally. Social media figures can bring their own imagination and enthusiasm to your products, creating the hype for you.
- Stock planning and ad budgets: Ensure you have the stock to meet demand by making accurate demand forecasts, updating stock levels in real time and preparing ahead of time. Also, start early on ad budget planning. Acquisitions are higher around this time so test ahead of time to not waste money.
Other steps you can take include:
- VIP previews, early access and subscriber-first deals
- Mobile checkout optimisation to ensure no friction from browsing to purchase
- Scarcity messaging and countdowns to create urgency
- Price anchoring and bundle deals to demonstrate value for money
Cyber Monday Strategy for 2025
When it comes to Cyber Monday 2025, you are looking to target more informed buyers who are after value clarity. The Cyber Monday ecommerce trends tend to revolve around tech and software, where these types of digital products benefit the most.
Even if this is not your wheelhouse, you can focus on advertising subscriptions and making heavy use of email marketing and remarketing to entice previous customers across online channels.
Other strategies to employ include:
- Create post-Black Friday remarketing lists to know where to focus retargeting
- Send out personalised email offers
- Promote free trials, add-ons and loyalty rewards
- Make CRO (conversion rate optimisation tweaks) for frictionless checkout
Black Friday vs Cyber Monday: Budgeting & Traffic Planning
When it comes to a seasonal strategy, you need to think about budget and traffic. You need to split your budget across the weekend accordingly. Look into previous campaigns, define your goals and spend accordingly. Don’t just launch ads on the day; spend some of your ad budget on building warming sequences before the date to build expectation and momentum.
Allocate a significant portion of your ad budget for the weekend, focusing on retargeting audiences to improve conversion rates.
When it comes to traffic, plan for an increase. Ensure your pages are fast, you’re optimised for mobile and create dedicated Black Friday and Cyber Monday landing pages to lessen the chance of your website becoming overwhelmed and crashing. You should also check your hosting plan to see if it can handle the expected capacity and upgrade if needed.
Also, track conversions in real-time to get a more accurate ROAS (return on ad spend), as sometimes the conversions before Black Friday get attributed to those days, rather than on the day. This attribution lag could make you think your ROAS isn’t as good as it is, leading you to alter your strategy to something more conservative, missing out on conversion opportunities.
Black Friday vs Cyber Monday: Conversion Optimisation Tips
Conversion rate optimisation means turning people who visit your site into actual sales. Simple ecommerce conversion tactics you can employ over Black Friday and Cyber Monday include:
- Fast checkout & price clarity: Be clear on price and make the transaction process seamless to overcome friction from arrival to purchase.
- On-page timers: Use timers to create a sense of urgency on a page.
- Exit intent offers: Users’ mouse movements can be tracked, so you can trigger offers to pop up automatically when their cursor is moving towards the address bar or the close tab button.
- Trust signals: Include reviews, shipping times and security badges on item pages to reassure buyers and show that you can be trusted.
Who Will Benefit Most?
Many types of business may benefit most from optimising their marketing strategy for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, including:
- Direct to customer brands: A growing section of consumers looks beyond Amazon and massive retailers for deals. People will support the smaller, independent option if given the choice, as long as the value is there.
- Electronics and software providers: Cyber Monday is centred around digital. Smaller items and digital products mean lower delivery costs, or none at all, and easy returns and refunds. They are also usually higher-cost items that make great gifts, so discounts are jumped upon.
- Fashion and lifestyle ecommerce: Fashion items and lifestyle products used to be more traditionally purchased on the high street, but now many do this type of shopping online. Again, these are usually expensive items that, with discounts, instantly become more appealing.
- Local retailers going hybrid: If you are a small and independent business, becoming more online savvy can make you a huge success locally. People want to support a local business, and as long as you take advantage of Black Friday, optimise your online presence and offer similar shopping experiences to what consumers have become used to, you’ll prosper over the weekend.
Want to Create A Winning Strategy For Black Friday Weekend 2025? Maxweb Can Help
Ready to make the most of Black Friday weekend and Cyber Monday? It’s not too late!
Plan your peak season strategy with Maxweb to get the most out of your marketing efforts. For more information about our services, get in touch today by calling the team at 0151 652 4777.
Posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 in E-commerce.
