What U.S. consumers know as the shopping extravaganza that begins with Thanksgiving and ends with Cyber Monday is known to retail advertisers as “the Turkey Five” — or simply “T5” if you’re hip.
As it turns out, T5 2022 was no small hen. Amazon, which coined the term “Turkey 5,” declared it the biggest holiday shopping weekend ever. Adobe Analytics corroborated that claim. According to its research, U.S. shoppers smashed expectations and spent more money on Cyber Monday than any other day in the history of retail.
On Black Friday, consumers spent a record $9.12B online, which is up 2.3% compared to 2021. Adobe originally forecast a 1% increase. Spending really caught fire on Cyber Monday, when consumers dropped $11.3B on online purchases, up 5.8% from last year’s $10.7B.
This spending rally was no surprise to the retail advertising professionals at Search Nurture. In managing millions of advertising dollars across a dozen retail ad platforms, retail ad managers saw momentum in the weeks leading up to T5.
Lindsey McAndrews, Search Nurture’s head of paid media, spotted a few interesting trends. Most notably: advertising spend went down after Thanksgiving.
“While we saw a decrease in spend in some of our accounts, the conversion rates are double or even quadruple because people were just waiting for Black Friday.”
This trend suggests that advertisers need to land their customers well before the shopping weekend, as they are loading their carts and waiting for deep discounts to hit.
“Shoppers started shopping and adding to cart earlier than we have seen in previous years, but ultimately held out for potential Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals before checking out and making that purchase,” McAndrews said.
Lizzie Drury, a retail ads account manager at Search Nurture, also reported a huge increase in ad engagement on all campaign types during the week before T5. She also saw an influx of consumers purchasing through the Brand Store.
“Utilizing Amazon’s Sponsored Brand Ads to drive traffic to specific pages of the store is a great way to showcase seasonal products and T5 deals all in one place,” she said. “With consumers pre-shopping, it is essential to utilize robust ramp-up strategies to support upcoming deals leading into T5 to increase brand visibility and awareness during this period.”
Want more T5 insights?
Check out these cool data points from Adobe Analytics.
Do you have questions about retail advertising? Whether you’re interested in expanding to Walmart.com or looking for an agency to manage your Amazon account, Search Nurture can help. Start by telling us about your retail advertising goals.
