As the Black Friday shopping frenzy approaches, businesses are gearing up for one of the most critical retail events of the year. Black Friday continues to show impressive growth in various key performance metrics, reflecting the evolving consumer trends and preferences in the retail landscape.
In this blog post, we’ll explore some of the key trends dominating the retail scene ahead of the Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend.
Assessing last year’s performance and current expectations
Analysing performance data from previous Black Friday periods reveals a pattern of substantial growth. Clicks are expected to surge by around 40% in Bing Ads and Google Ads during Black Friday week compared to last year. This significant increase highlights the immense potential for businesses to reach a wider audience and drive conversions during this crucial period.
Performance Max is projected to experience a more moderate increase in clicks of around 7% and only a 5% uplift in conversions. This discrepancy in growth rates suggests that businesses may need to adapt their strategies to optimise performance across all advertising channels and ask the question; are we leaning too heavily on Performance Max?
These variations in uplift highlight the importance of carefully evaluating the effectiveness of each advertising channel and allocating budgets accordingly to maximise overall profitability.
Maintaining a strong return on ad spend (ROAS)
While increases in advertising budgets and overall costs are expected during Black Friday, it’s crucial to maintain a strong return on ad spend (ROAS).
Despite rising costs, the average ROAS during Black Friday has remained consistent YoY. This trend is expected to continue this year, highlighting Black Friday’s significant potential for consistently generating returns on larger marketing investments.
Additionally, we anticipate, on average, a 15% better ROAS this year for Google Search and 5% for Bing Search, suggesting that these channels may offer more favourable ROAS profiles compared to, say, Performance Max.
Recommended budget adjustments for Black Friday
To optimise performance and maximise revenue during Black Friday, the ASK BOSCO® platform recommends the following marketing channel budget increases and decreases (based on aggregated data):
- Increase spend by:
- Bing Search: 6%
- Google Search: 4.5%
- Facebook: 2%
- Decrease spend by:
- Performance Max: 7%
- Google Shopping: 4%
- Bing Shopping: 2%
These changes, based on ASK BOSCO®’s extensive data analysis and optimisation algorithm, are projected to lead to revenue changes that follow symmetrically to the cost increases, meaning we will see an uplift in Bing Ads, Google Ads and Facebook whilst Performance Max, Bing and Google shopping will see decreases.
Overall, ASK BOSCO® clients are projected to achieve a total revenue of £10,000,000 with a cost of only £1,500,000 during Black Friday week.
Final thoughts: Are you underusing Bing Ads this Black Friday?
Bing Ads, Microsoft’s advertising platform, offers several advantages that make it particularly attractive for Black Friday advertising. Apart from its anticipated stronger performance compared to last year, Bing Ads is characterised by a strong average cost per click of just under £0.50. Bing Ads often has lower competition than Google Ads, so could you be missing out on customers by neglecting Bing Ads?
Enhancing performance with ASK BOSCO®
Incorporating ASK BOSCO®, a comprehensive marketing technology platform into your Black Friday marketing strategy can significantly boost performance beyond your expected results.
If you’d like to find out how ASK BOSCO® can help you make the most of your marketing strategy all year around, simply drop us a message to team@askbosco.io and we’ll be happy to help.
