We’re Now POST-BFCM 🤯

Can you believe we’re already in mid-December? BFCM came and went, Christmas is around the corner, and Q5 will soon be upon us.

Before I begin, quick shoutout to the folks at FERMAT who made my Thanksgiving dinner a bit more special by gracing me with this ‘87 Sassicaia bottle. Disregard the Giants shirt, that wasn’t supposed to be seen in public. 🤫

This edition will recap our BFCM season, speak a bit about Holiday Shopping Season, touch on Q5 and why it’s important for your brand, and review the impact of Meta’s new health/wellness data-sharing policy.

This past week was a busy one in Miami for Art Basel. Spoke on a panel at FounderMade and it was great as usual. I might be biased, but this was my favorite FM location (on the beach, 75 degree weather, does it get any better?).

Keep an eye out this week 👀 

SHOPIFY WINTER EDITIONS release: December 11 @ 9am EST

1. 2024 BFCM Recap: How Did It Go?!

Data Sources: Source Medium's BFCM data, Avenue Z portfolio data, KeyBank consumer spending trends report, and other observations.

TL/DR: Solid weekend, in line with expectations, nothing crazy or unexpected in either direction.

I expected 2024 to show solid growth YoY as we just came out of a mum October/early November due to the uncertainty of election season. November was off to a rough start, but really picked up in the back half (directly coinciding with the early sales that went live this year). Take a look at how consumers were spending in early November and how it really picked up as we approached December.

KeyBank’s report revealed November as the strongest YoY growth month of the entire year, coming in at 4.4% YoY growth. Given that Cyber Monday came in December, I fully expect December to be as strong as November, if not higher.

This strong trend largely agrees with what I saw across Avenue Z’s portfolio of brands, as well as what Source Medium tracked for its high growth ecommerce portfolio.

My DTC BFCM Breakdown YoY (2024 vs 2023):
• Top line SALES growth w/ general efficiency growth (MER and aMER)
• Btwn Shopify, Adobe & Salesforce, it's being reported that Black Friday saw 5-22% YoY growth. Staggering in a year with basically no consumer spend growth (note the flat 0% red line in the graph above that speaks to this).
• Ad spend growth w/ improved efficiency (MER & CAC)
• Efficiency widely varied from brand-to-brand. Some big outliers improved the averages, more of a mixed bag in terms of performance. Seems that roughly half had better/half had worse efficiency YoY.
• DTC sales channel ("brand dot com") YoY performed better than Amazon in all of the most important metrics (Total revenue, New & Existing customer revenue, ads performance)
• YoY store sales improved each day over the weekend relative to same day last year, until Cyber Monday, which still had 20%+ growth, but was decelerated from the earlier days in the weekend.

AD CHANNELS:
• META: higher spend, better performance
• GOOGLE: higher spend, worse performance
• AMAZON: higher spend, worse performance
• TIKTOK: higher spend, worse performance
• REST OF FIELD: higher spend, similar performance
• Email/SMS: higher SMS volume sent, better performance

For brands looking to crush next year’s BFCM or any sales season, take inspo from my favorite website experience (Alpha Lion) that I came across from a consumer perspective.

2. Holiday Shopping Season (🦃 - 🎄) is SHORT This Year!

With BFCM starting earlier than ever this year, the remaining question is… did the strong 2024 BFCM szn just pull forward a bunch of revenue from the shortened holiday shopping season?

Fair question.

“Holiday shopping season” is defined as the # of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This year’s holiday shopping season (HSS) is tied for the shortest in two decades, with only 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas—a full five days shorter than last year.

I will be tracking 2 time periods and compare them YoY:

• Nov 1- Dec 31 = 61 days long both years

• BFCM / Holiday Shopping szn: 2 weeks leading up to CM + days until Christmas (41 days in ’23 vs 36 days in ’24) to see if there was pull forward in revenue this year due to earlier and shorter 2024 BFCM szn which largely started before TG or if there was similar incremental growth YoY to BFCM weekend.

I recently published a piece on Fast Company that speaks to this phenomenon and if we should be sweating the shortened HSS based on performance of years prior.

👉 View the full piece HERE 👈

3. Q5: Better than Q4?! How to Win (FREE EBOOK).

You’ve probably heard the term “Q5” get thrown around quite a bit.

Q5 is simply the time period between Christmas and New Years. Why is it so special?

• higher engagement rates on social

• lower CPMs on digital platforms as BFCM budgets dry up

It’s critical to treat Q5 with its own unique approach.

Highly recommend checking out this FREE ebook by Ramdam that breaks down all you need to know about Q5:

✅ Why Q5 matters

✅ Q5 retargeting strategy

✅ Q5 creative strategy

✅ Q5 campaign ideas

✅ Q5 revenue boosting ideas

➡️ Grab your FREE Q5 PLAYBOOK HERE ⬅️

Is the Sky Falling b/c of Meta’s New Data-Sharing Policy?!

If you’re just hearing about this, you’re living under a rock.

Meta recently dropped a bombshell announcement (ofc it came the week prior to BFCM, poor form Meta, poor form) that as of January 2025, brands in the following categories will be restricted from sharing certain data/events back to Meta Business Tools:

• Health & wellness: Is associated with medical conditions, specific health statuses, or provider/patient relationships (for example, a patient portal or wellness tracker for depression)

• Financial service: Provides financial tools, consultation and/or services, consumer credit reports

• Unsuitable content: Contains topics related to unsuitable content, including content that violates our Community and Advertising Standards (examples include hate speech, violence and illegal activities)

• Politics: Is associated with members of a specific political party, political position or contains topics related to a political issue

• Race: Is associated with individuals of a specific race

• Religion: Is associated with individuals with specific religious or spiritual beliefs and practices

• Sexuality: Contains topics related to sexuality or sexual orientation

• Gender identity: Is associated with individuals of a specific gender identity

• Nationality: Is associated with individuals of a specific citizenship status, immigration status or refugee status

• Trade union: Is associated with members of a trade union

• Personal hardship: Is associated with individuals likely facing personal hardship

Note: This list is not exhaustive and may evolve over time.

💥 If you haven’t yet: review the categories assigned to your data sources in Events Manager to confirm they are appropriately categorized. If you think a category is inaccurate, request Meta to review it again.

 Brands that are impacted most significantly fall under the Health & Wellness category (if they’ve claimed to target specific illnesses/conditions)… refer to HIPAA policies if you’re confused. As a dentist, I come from this world, so this isn’t at all surprising.

What events is Meta going to restrict for impacted brands? The down-funnel events that you optimize for…like “purchase.” Gulp. MORE INFO HERE.

I’m actually surprised this didn’t come sooner. Refer to FTC’s GoodRX ruling last year.

Here’s how Meta’s update will impact your active ad account (according to our Meta rep):

• Meta will not pause your ongoing campaigns as a result of these restrictions.

• You'll receive emails, and in-product notifications in Ads Manager and Events Manager about which ad sets and events are impacted.

• Your ads delivery and effectiveness may decline over time if the restricted standard event is required for campaign targeting, optimization, or measurement.

Meta’s Guidance if you’re impacted: 

• If you think your website or app is appropriately categorized, adjust your campaign strategy and shift to non-restricted events for audience targeting and campaign optimization.

  • Evaluate which events are restricted and explore alternative standard events that can help you meet your business objectives.

  • Consider optimizing for non-restricted events, such as Landing Page Views, Donate, Search, ViewContent, App Install, and Search to ensure continued campaign performance.

  • You should not send custom events that are similar to restricted standard events, i.e., that attempt to capture user actions or information similar to that of a restricted standard event.

• If you think that your website or app is inappropriately categorized, APPEAL the decision ASAP via Events Manager.

📩 If you’re in over your head on this, reach out to me. We have close relationships & partnerships with Blotout and Angler who are both already solving for this for clients.

What I’m Listening to 🎧

Beats of the Week: AMÉMÉ in The Lab Amsterdam | live from One Tribe at Shelter

Just saw AMEME live during Art Basel week here in Miami and he’s electric. Tribal, energetic beats. Give him a listen ASAP.

I welcome all feedback. Good, bad, everything in between.

Hit reply, and let’s hear it! 👂

📧 Share your thoughts or what you want me to cover next!