Black Friday Recap
We've crunched the numbers based on nearly two thousand Google Ads accounts for ecommerce, and here's what we found:
Black Friday volumes were up
year-over-year
Google Ads, Europe
Average gross profit margin eroded across November
Google Ads, Europe
Summary
Our best proxies for consumer demand were impressions and conversion rates. Neither disappointed, with a median 13% YoY gain in visibility and 16% gain in buying intent. Advertisers had to spend dearly to capture orders, with spend up 31% and CPCs up a punishing 24% year-over-year. What's more: order values shrank 6.6% despite >2% inflation. More squeeze, less juice.
Source of data:
Smarter Ecommerce
Black Friday hourly performance
Temu retreats from Black Friday. Amazon dominates
% of Google Shopping advertisers facing competition, Europe
Summary
We detected 12% more unique competitors on Black Friday 2025, yet Amazon stole the show (again). The most expensive time to advertise was mid-day, but it's important to be visible for early birds who might have already researched which product they are buying, or have high urgency around capturing deals; and late birds who have spent the day considering, or didn't have time to browse until evening.
Source of data:
Smarter Ecommerce