Digital Advertising Drives Black Friday 2022 Spend

With the fear of a recession looming, shoppers spent $9.12 billion online on Black Friday this year, according to Adobe Analytics — a higher spend compared to 2021 and a stronger than expected holiday weekend.

Digital advertising, specifically retail media, paid search and social activity, had a lot to do with the growth this year, according to Leah Na’aman, director of product marketing at Skai, in a company blog recapping retail media-fueled revenue from Black Friday.

“If Black Friday indicates how the rest of the year will play out, it’s a good sign for advertisers,” Na’aman wrote.

Particularly in terms of retail media ads, which generated 192% higher revenue on Black Friday when compared to the November daily average, according to Skai, the post-Thanksgiving shopping holiday was a clear success for marketers. This was partially driven by an average order size increase of 112% over the November days leading up to the Cyber Five (the days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday). 

“Even though brands have started upping their spending earlier in the season each year, the first significant jump occurred on Thanksgiving,” Na’aman wrote, adding that marketers spent 52% more on retail media, 56% more in paid search spend and 65% more on paid social on Thanksgiving, compared to the daily November average.

And the surge transcended Black Friday 2022, with retail media ad spending up 188% over the daily average in November, paid search spending up 160% and paid social up 76%. Retail media cost-per-clicks (CPCs) also rose by 43% on Black Friday compared to the daily November average. However, there was a 3% decrease in the average retail media CPC from Black Friday 2021, according to Skai. This trend was also seen in other channels, such as paid search on CPCs slipped 13% year-over-year.

Additional takeaways from Skai’s 2022 Black Friday recap included:

• Retail media advertisers across nearly all categories increased their Black Friday spending in 2022 compared to 2021, such as food (+159%), internet and telecom (+105%), cosmetics (+91%) and computers (+72%).
• More retail media spending generated greater revenue this year on Black Friday when compared to last year. Food was up 91%, cosmetics 72%, shaving and grooming 61%, and hobbies and leisure were up 8%.
• Black Friday CPCs this year dropped on average across many categories compared to CPCs in 2021, such as skin care (-34%), hobbies and leisure (-30%), household supplies (-24%) and shaving and grooming (-18%).