The dust has finally settled on Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025, and what’s left is one clear snapshot of how quickly ecommerce is evolving.
Shoppers moved earlier, deal windows stretched wider, AI reshaped discovery, and Amazon introduced a cascade of new ad formats and experiences that shifted how brands showed up during Turkey 12.
To unpack the results, we asked 4 of our retail media experts to break down the data, dissect the trends, and share insights on how to win the rest of Q4.
- Ross Walker, Director of Retail Media
- Gavin Farnan, Senior Account Manager
- Hyunsoo (Jake) Park, Senior Advertising Manager
- Celina Arbelaez, Account Manager
Let’s dive in.
New Patterns: Shoppers Are Moving Earlier
One of the clearest behavioral shifts this year was the acceleration of shopping activity well before Black Friday or Cyber Monday officially arrived.
Data from Turkey 12 (T12) revealed:
- 52% of total sales occurred during the first eight days of the event
- 48% occurred over the core BFCM weekend (four days)
- Just a year ago, that split was a clean 50/50
This shift is driven by predictable deal depth across the full event. Shoppers no longer expect dramatic last-minute price drops and have learned that day one of T12 is a reliable and often safer moment to buy.
The trend stretches beyond T12. Media coverage signaled that many shoppers began their holiday buying in October, influenced by the mid-month Prime event. By the time T12 began, a sizable portion of consumers were already primed to complete their lists.
Several brands reported higher-than-modeled sales on day one of T12, showing that early demand is no longer limited to brand loyalists. Consumers broadly recognize the kickoff of T12 as a reliable starting gun for holiday deal-hunting.
Day one is beginning to behave like a shopping holiday of its own and may soon deserve its own name.
The Data Breakdown: BFCM Sales Are Still Growing & Participation Matters
BFCM delivered solid year-over-year gains across Acadia-evaluated brands, but the results weren’t driven by a single dramatic spike. Instead, performance reflected distributed demand across the full Turkey 12 window, and shoppers were engaging earlier than ever.
Key trends:
- 1.5× YoY sales growth during the core four-day BFCM window
- 1.6× YoY growth across the full 12-day event
- Lower incremental lift vs. recent tentpoles
- BFCM: 3.1×
- Prime Day October: 5.0×
- Prime Day July: 4.4×
While incrementality softened, total revenue increased due to longer engagement and steadier demand throughout T12.
What separated strong performers from the rest was participation. Brands that leaned in with promotions, operational readiness, and paid media saw 10–20%+ YoY gains, outperforming both the industry’s reported 7–8% retail growth and the pace of inflation.
Brands that deprioritized the event or shifted focus exclusively to Prime Days often saw muted or flat results.
The takeaway? Participation matters. BFCM rewards brands that plan, invest, and promote aggressively.
Price Parity Alone No Longer Moves the Needle
BFCM differs from Prime Day because it is not a retailer-exclusive event. Many brands still attempt to run differentiated promotions across Amazon, D2C, and retail partners. But the platform environment makes this increasingly difficult:
- Retailers often mirror one another’s price moves
- Amazon may match lower prices found elsewhere
- The market effectively pushes promotions toward uniformity, even when a brand’s intent is differentiated
Yet matching the price is not the same as participating in the promotion. Without a deal badge, a product might as well not be on sale.
In previous years, simply offering a low price could drive lift. This year, visibility hinged on being officially “on deal.” Price parity alone no longer moves the needle; platform badging does.
So What Felt Different This T12? New Badging, Glitches, and Category-Wide Discounts
Amazon Overhauled Deal Badging and Centered Urgency
In previous events, brands questioned whether higher-tier deals like “Best Deal” actually offered more visibility than Prime-Exclusive Discounts (PPDs), as they historically appeared nearly identical.
This BFCM, Amazon began differentiating deal types through experiments that included:
- “Deal selling fast” labels
- A distinct Cyber Monday badge applied selectively
- A countdown timer appearing on Cyber Monday evening for certain Best Deals
These experiments suggest Amazon is developing a clearer internal hierarchy of deal types, adding urgency cues to accelerate purchase decisions. But without impression-level reporting by badge type, the true impact remains unclear.
Brands should treat high-tier deals as potentially more powerful—but still test closely once reporting evolves.
Category-Wide Discount Expectations Rose
Discount depth rose from ~20% to ~30% year-over-year across many categories, intensifying the competitive environment. Deal badges became even more critical for visibility.
The PPD Glitch That Forced Deeper Discounts
One of the most disruptive moments was a widespread PPD glitch that caused Amazon to:
- Remove deal badges without warning
- Repeatedly demand an additional 1% discount
- In extreme cases, escalate a discount requirement from 1% to 51% off with no rational
Teams were forced into rapid margin and participation decisions, sometimes sacrificing profitability simply to keep a badge active.
New Price History Tools Boosted Shopper Trust
To address growing scrutiny around “fake deals,” Amazon added 30-day and 90-day price history widgets directly on PDPs.
This allowed shoppers to verify the authenticity of discounts without relying on third-party tools. The addition provided greater transparency, helping build shopper confidence and likely supporting conversion rates overall.
Major Shifts in Sponsored Brand Ad Placements
Amazon removed static image assets from Sponsored Brand product collection creatives without notice, reducing ads to:
- A headline
- One to three product tiles with deal badges
The format was highly functional at the top of search, but brands lost significant branding value.
The change reinforced just how often Amazon tests Sponsored Brand variants, and how little warning advertisers receive at times.
unBoxed Releases Arrived Closer to T12 Than Ever
With unBoxed pushed to mid-November, brands had just 10 days between major feature announcements and Amazon’s peak shopping period.
Many tools, including Sponsored Product Video and Sponsored Brand Collections, went live during T12 rather than ahead of it.
Some features were definitely intriguing but incomplete; others were technically available but lacked the infrastructure to drive meaningful impact.
The rest of Q4 will allow brands to see more of these exciting rollouts in action.
Rufus Prompts Stole the Attention
The most disruptive update appeared just above the fold: Rufus results began showing directly below Sponsored Brand placements. Though rolled out quietly, the impact was anything but.
These large, interactive prompts immediately drew shopper attention, and brands saw reduced click-through rates and lower spend efficiency across both Sponsored Brand and Sponsored Products campaigns.
Yet the feature launched with no visibility. Advertisers received a new reporting tab that surfaced no data: no impressions, no engagement signals, no ranking insights, leaving teams unable to quantify the impact or optimize against it.
Even so, Rufus’s influence is undeniable. Shoppers appear to be adopting the feature rapidly, with unofficial estimates citing an 800% surge in usage.
Once Amazon enables reporting, prompt data will likely become a critical window into shopper intent, revealing what questions consumers are asking and which PDP, Store, and creative elements matter most in an AI-driven discovery environment.
Sponsored Product Video: High Potential, Low Availability
Advertisers saw far more Sponsored Brand video placements this year, with video surfacing at the top of search at an unexpectedly high rate: clear evidence that Amazon was leaning heavily into video-forward formats throughout the event.
That momentum set expectations for the debut of Sponsored Product Video, which Amazon positioned as a major new capability. The format promised richer visual context than static ads and the ability for advertisers to upload up to five videos per placement.
But the rollout felt rushed and uneven. Some advertisers avoided activating the format altogether due to confusion and early-stage glitches. Others launched campaigns only to see virtually no impressions.
For several brands, ads served fewer than five impressions in total: a strong indication that meaningful inventory simply wasn’t available yet. No one reported seeing the placement live on a PDP or search results page.
Despite the underwhelming launch, there’s a broad consensus that Sponsored Product Video will eventually become a valuable, high-impact placement. It just isn’t ready for prime time yet.
DSP Online Video Remains the Workhorse
While new ad formats struggled to take off, video in DSP continued to be the most reliable engine for incremental reach and traffic.
Top-performing brands leaned heavily on DSP online video both before and during T12:
- Video drove awareness and top-of-funnel traffic ahead of the event
- Retargeting those viewers with Sponsored Products helped close the loop
- This full-funnel approach consistently lifted performance across accounts
The contrast was unmistakable: Amazon’s newest tools were still in beta mode, while video, especially DSP, remained one of the strongest, most scalable levers for growth.
AI Search Is Reshaping Discovery
While Rufus made a lot of noise during T12, it’s part of a much broader change in how shoppers discover products across the entire ecommerce ecosystem.
Consumers are increasingly turning to conversational, criteria-based queries on Amazon, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google, and beyond, to find “the best” option without sorting through dozens of listings.
This shift elevates the importance of clear, structured, benefit-led product content. AI surfaces only the listings that best communicate what they do, who they’re for, and why they’re the right fit.
On Amazon, strong reviews, crisp attributes, and direct answers to common questions now play an outsized role in determining whether a product appears in these AI-generated recommendation paths.
Even with Rufus reporting still in development, the implications are clear: brands don’t need to guess at algorithmic nuance to prepare for an AI-first environment.
The core optimizations (refining titles and bullets to reflect shopper intent, addressing high-intent use cases explicitly, strengthening reviews, and ensuring PDPs resolve common questions) create the signals AI depends on to match products to needs.
We believe Amazon’s continued investment in AI discovery suggests more transparency and tools are coming, likely in formats similar to Search Query Performance. As usage accelerates, these insights will help brands better understand the queries shaping their visibility.
For now, the advantage goes to those who align their content with how AI evaluates relevance, not just how humans browse.
Must-Deploy Tactics for the Remainder of Q4
With T12 and BFCM complete, nearly a month of meaningful holiday demand remains, especially for gifting categories. The focus now shifts from aggressive discounting to protecting momentum and setting the stage for a strong start to the new year.
- Defend Your BFCM Momentum: Protect Bestseller Rank and Keep Ads Active
The lift brands achieved during BFCM can erode quickly if advertising pressure softens. Maintaining bestseller rank now requires:
- Staying aggressive on hero product ads
- Running lighter, strategic promotions where possible, enough to attract shoppers but not enough to damage reference prices already influenced by BFCM
- Ensuring inventory remains stable and ads deliver cleanly
For many brands, December is a profit-focused month. High demand allows for more selective discounting, but visibility must remain strong.
- Refresh PDP Content With AI Best Practices
Rufus and AI-enabled search have added a new layer of content requirements. Brands should now:
- Review the most common Rufus prompts and shopper questions
- Ensure PDPs answer core attributes (size, color, use case) clearly and high in the content hierarchy
- Prepare updated copy to deploy in early Q1 if implementation before holiday cutoff isn’t feasible
Even if changes can’t go live immediately, brands that draft and prioritize these updates now will be ahead going into the new year.
- Lean Into Creator Connections and Off-Amazon Demand Drivers
These continue to be one of the strongest contributors to your Amazon performance.
The brands that perform best during tentpole events are those investing in creator relationships and off-site demand year-round, not just during peaks.
This period is no exception: maintaining these campaigns throughout December helps reinforce BFCM ranking gains and fuels organic momentum.
- Don’t Slow Down. December Drop-off Is Your Opportunity
Advertiser fatigue is common in December. Many brands ease off spend after BFCM or lose focus once shipping cutoff passes. But this lull presents a strategic opening:
- Competitors may vacate key placements
- CPCs can soften
- High-value inventory becomes easier to win
Staying alert and ready to capture those openings can create durable advantages heading into Q1.
- Kill Your Darlings
The remainder of Q4 is not the time for experimentation. Brands should refine their focus to the keywords and products that have demonstrated traction:
- Identify the highest-value, highest-volume keywords you must hold or gain rank on
- Increase bidding and focus on those proven terms
- “Kill your darlings”: cut low-volume or unsuccessful tests that dilute spend and distract from core drivers
With only a few weeks left in the holiday cycle, concentrating spend on what has worked, not what might work, delivers the highest return.
Final Thoughts
BFCM may be behind us, but Q4 is far from finished.
The insights from this year’s event offer a clear roadmap for what to prioritize next: defend your ranking momentum, optimize content for AI discovery, lean into proven ad tactics, and stay agile as Amazon continues to evolve.
Use these insights to stay sharp, stay visible, and keep your momentum strong through the final weeks of the holiday cycle.