Ad Dose #21: We pulled 13,652 Black Friday ads

Welcome to ClickDose!

Last week we took apart the 3 ads big brands ran 461 times. This week is about Black Friday. We pulled 13,652 ads that 30 big brands ran around Black Friday and Cyber Monday last year, and wrote down what they had in common.

In today's edition:

🥃 What 13,652 Black Friday Ads Have in Common
13,652 ads. 30 brands. 11 things most of them did.

🧠 The Setup

Black Friday 2025 was Friday, November 28. Cyber Monday was December 1. We pulled every ad that 30 big brands had running in the UK and Europe between October 20 and December 8 last year. That's 20 ecommerce brands (SKIMS, Gymshark, HexClad, Our Place, True Classic and more) and 10 software and app brands (Canva, NordVPN, MasterClass, Headspace and more). 13,652 ads in total.

3,450 of them say "Black Friday," "Cyber Monday" or "biggest sale." 22 brands ran at least 10 of those. Everything below counts brands, not ads, so one brand with 400 ads can't tilt the list.

Why the UK and Europe, and not the US? Meta's Ad Library only keeps an ad after it stops running in two cases: ads about politics and social issues, and ads shown in the EU, which stay for a year after they were last seen. UK ads were still there too.

So these are the UK and EU versions of the same brands' Black Friday campaigns. The prices are in pounds and euros. The offers and the wording are the part to use.

One more catch. Meta doesn't show spend, so "biggest" here means the most ads and the longest run.

🛍️ The 11 Things They Had in Common

1. Black Friday starts in early November. The typical brand ran its first Black Friday ad 21 days before the day. Our Place, True Classic, The Oodie and Gymshark all had one running by November 2. Our Place kept "The Black Friday Sale Is Here 🎉" up for 31 days. The latest starter, Huel, waited until November 25.

2. A third of them announced the sale before it opened. 7 of 22 ran a teaser first. Gymshark: "The Gymshark Black Friday Sale starts 16th Nov, 4pm GMT. Prep your basket." Lounge: "Up to 70% off. Coming Soon... Sign up now." Mejuri sold early access to its members. Dyson's only Black Friday ads were sign-up ads: be the first to know when it starts.

3. The discount is the headline. Most of these ads are the number and not much else. The common ones: 50% (The Oodie, Gymshark, HexClad, Allbirds, MasterClass), 30% (SKIMS, Mejuri, Glossier, Oura, Olaplex), 25% (Manscaped, Jones Road) and 70% (True Classic, Lounge).

4. "Up to" does a lot of the work. 15 of 22 used it. "Up to 70% off" tells you the best price exists somewhere in the store. It doesn't say you'll get it on the thing you want. Only SKIMS, Manscaped and Olaplex ran one flat number on everything.

5. "Sitewide" or "everything": 14 of 22. It answers the shopper's first question ("is the thing I want included?") before they ask it.

6. Half of them called it their biggest sale. 11 of 22 said "biggest sale of the year," "biggest sale ever" or "biggest drop ever." HexClad put it in capitals with a gift emoji on each side. Jones Road had a better version: "We've never done a sitewide sale before."

7. Cyber Monday got its own ad. Usually the same ad. 11 of 22 ran a Cyber Monday version. Manscaped's ran on 83 ads, its biggest batch of the season, and it's the Black Friday ad with the sale's name swapped. MasterClass's Black Friday ad text is three words: "Black Friday Sale." Its Cyber Monday ad says "Cyber Monday Sale."

8. Then a "last chance" ad. 11 of 22 ran "last chance" or "final day" ads at the end. True Classic: "Final Day to Save. Don't Miss Out." Most brands had switched their Black Friday ads off by December 6.

9. Where the click goes. For each brand, we looked at where most of its Black Friday ads sent people:

The sale page is the most common choice, but plenty of big brands just send you home. Manscaped sent 88% of its Black Friday ads to the homepage.

10. They let Meta mix the ad. 80% of the Black Friday ads were dynamic creative: you upload a few images and headlines, and Meta puts them together for each person. 13 of 22 brands also ran catalog ads, which pull products straight from the store's product feed. SKIMS's biggest batch (193 ads) is a catalog ad for one bralette with "30% OFF SITEWIDE" in the text.

11. Software brands mostly skipped the words "Black Friday." Only 3 of the 10 ran 10 or more ads that say it. Headspace ran 50% off for 30 days as "Our best price for a happier year." Canva waited until November 30 and called it a Christmas gift. Grammarly went the other way: "Forget seasonal deals." NordVPN did say Black Friday, but its biggest batch led with the monthly price: "Just £3.56 per month." We found no Black Friday ads at all from Duolingo, Semrush or Squarespace.

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📋 Your Black Friday Checklist

Here's the list above cut down to what you can do this month.

Both are affiliate links.

We put our whole process into one prompt. Paste in any ad and it does the teardown, rebuilds the ad for your brand, writes the creative brief, and tells you which landing page the ad needs.

It's called The Machine Prompt. Send ClickDose to one person who buys ads. When they subscribe, it lands in your inbox.

Reply with your Black Friday offer and we'll tell you what we'd change.

See you soon,

Eric and Rob | The ClickDose Team

P.S. If you'd rather we looked at your Black Friday ads than SKIMS's, that's the Growth Review. It's free, and you keep the report.

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