IT’S BEEN A WHILE!

It’s been 4 months since my last proper newsletter. All it took was BFCM to give me a shot in the arm to get me back on the content grind.

It’s been a BUSY last few months, content had to take a backseat for a bit. Been spending a ton of time building in-person teams here in our Miami office and have been going deep on genAI creative with the team. I’ll dedicate my next newsletter to genAI creatives and share some examples of ad creatives we’ve made. The future is here.

Moving forward, I plan to keep my newsletter monthly.

Quick aside - about 6mo ago we decided to focus all hiring efforts for our media/creative team in-office with a minimum of 4 days per week in the office.

Long story short, it’s been a total game changer. The amount I’ve seen people grow in such a short timeframe has been a great reminder of the pre-COVID office era. People are growing here more in 2 months than they did in 2 years being fully remote. There’s also something to be said for building a real culture in person. It’s not impossible with a remote workforce, but it sure as hell is way harder! Building a thriving business in ever-changing times is already hard enough. Having people in office rowing in the same direction is something that can stack another chip on your side.

Now… onto the BFCM 2025 Post-Mortem!

Overall, 2025 Cyber 5 (Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday) was a bit uneventful & slightly disappointing compared to last year.

2024 was largely an ok year, but Q4 and Cyber 5 surprised in a big positive way.

Overall, 2025 has been a great year compared to ‘24 and I expected Cyber 5 to continue that trend. However, Cyber 5 was kind of muted. I’d say it was slightly below or in-line with my expectations.

2024 is also a really tough comp year for ‘25. If you recall, holiday shopping season was shortened last year (the number of days between TG and Christmas) which means revenue consolidation AND there was a big spending spree following the election.

2025 didn’t benefit from either of these factors, but nonetheless will be pegged against them!

Also notable is the state of the consumer right now.

November 2025 just closed as the worst Consumer Sentiment Index month since June 2022! That’s 3.5 years 🤯

Anytime there is softness in the consumer, you can expect a similar softness in performance marketing efficacy.

If consumers aren’t spending as freely, that means they’re less likely to impulse purchase from your social media ad. With rising ad costs & lower discretionary consumer spending, you can expect lower performance of your ads.

I track KeyBanc’s Consumer Spending trends closely and you can note how 2024 had a big YoY spike in growth (baby blue line) for BFCM time frame, yet 2025 showed 0% growth (red line). Adjust for inflation and 2025 had negative growth YoY.

Here’s how media mix looked for our book over Cyber 5:

Meta: 58%

Google: 22%

Axon (AppLovin): 10%

TikTok: 6%

Snap: 4%

💥 Overall, spend in our book exceeded 50% YoY growth. Meta is still king and spend grew significantly on the channel this year. BUT, in terms of media mix share, Meta lost ground to new kids on the block like Axon, TikTok, and Snap.

As I’ve been saying all year, this is the only time in all of ecommerce that there have been THIS MANY viable paid ad platforms. And yes, they’re able to reach new audiences. They don’t just eat each other.

Paid media efficiency (ROAS, CAC, CPP) all took hits this year across the board. For the ad platforms, it was a big Cyber 5. All mentioned above should have solid earnings this season. $META ( ▲ 0.59% )  $GOOGL ( ▼ 0.35% )  $APP ( ▲ 0.67% )  $SNAP ( ▼ 0.68% )  $SHOP ( ▼ 2.64% )  

For brands? We’re hoping for a solid wrap to the quarter. We have an extra day of holiday shopping this year, so perhaps we’ll see this all normalize.

Despite a softer Cyber 5 than we had hoped, we are still bullish on the rest of the year and 2026.

Does Black Friday/Cyber Monday still have the same cachet that it once had? A counterargument…👇

What you’re seeing above is a screenshot from my Particl dashboard showcasing Free People’s estimated revenue for the month of November and early December.

I use Particl to analyze competitor and industry/category trends religiously. By spotting revenue trends and analyzing peaks and troughs for a variety of brands, we’re able to get insights into what’s working & reverse engineer tentpole moments to feed inspiration for our clients. With Particl, you’re able to drill down into product sales and marketing assets (email/SMS, Meta ads, etc) deployed over any time frame to give you visibility into what triggered spikes in revenue.

So in the screenshot above highlighting Free People’s GMV, do you notice something odd?

Their biggest revenue days happened in mid-Nov (Nov 14-15), NOT during Cyber 5.

For a brand doing close to $10-figures in DTC GMV annually, this isn’t by accident.

When I took a look under the hood, here’s what I found:

Nov 14 they launched their best sale, the “Everything Sale,” which required multiple product cart sizes ($250+ AOV) to get the discount👇

Then, on Black Friday, it seems like they didn’t even have a sale go out.

On Cyber Monday, they launched the 40% off sale, but ONLY on the styles that were already on sale in the Sales collection. Typically these are either undesirable items or those with outlier sizes available.

Despite there being no sale on Black Friday, there was still a mini bump. Probably by consumers who were holding out for a sale that never came & capitulated to purchase the products they were going to purchase anyways (regardless of the sale).

It’s clear the 40% off All Sale Cyber Monday offer did little in terms of revenue generation.

That being said, Free People decided to activate their best sale 2 weeks in advance of Black Friday. Are they onto something?

During Cyber 5, consumers are overloaded with different sales and offers. Brands are all competing for attention and consumers budgets only shrink as the weekend progresses.

During years like this one, where consumer sentiment & strength are at super lows, it could be savvy to get in front of your customers & prospects first, while consumers’ budgets are robust & your competitor’s budgets are in a holding pattern for Cyber 5.

Do people really care about Cyber 5 itself, or are they just waiting for the best deal a brand offers, regardless of the day?

If it’s the latter, it might make sense to hit consumers before your competitors do.

If the sale misses the mark, you have another opportunity on Cyber 5 to make up for what you left on the table.

Something to chew on for next year!

What I’m Listening to 🎧

Beats of the Week: SEBASTIEN LEGER b2b ROY ROSENFELD ARCANA ENTRE RIOS (2025)

I’ve been sharing a ton of Afro house sets, but it’s time to change things up a bit and share some of the melodic house sets that have been getting my attention. Roy Rosenfeld has definitely made my list before, but he’s been heating up B2B with Sebastien Leger through their Lost Miracle act. Virtually no lyrics, just pure vibes. Great music for deep work that takes you on a journey more than most of the Afro house sets that tend to cater more towards party vibes.

ENJOY!

You’re reading In The Snow, by Jonathan Snow.

This is where operators, media buyers, and digital execs stay ahead of the curve.

Feel free to reply directly with any thoughts or feedback.