Cyber Monday can feel like the neglected younger sibling of Black Friday, but it should be an important part of your marketing mix in the days after the US Thanksgiving celebrations.
This is especially true for ecommerce and online retail websites. Cyber Monday was created for you, so don't miss out on the marketing opportunity it represents.
With that in mind, let's take a look at some stats surrounding Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, as well as some research into the impact of Cyber Monday deals on buyer behaviour.
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| Laptop and cute little shopping trolley full of items |
What is Cyber Monday?
I touched on this in my Black Friday Deals on Outsourced Writing update, but it's worth making sure we understand each of the three calendar dates mentioned on this page:
Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Thanksgiving is an annual US holiday that takes place on the fourth Thursday in November.
Black Friday is (in principle) a one-day bricks-and-mortar shopping event the day after Thanksgiving.
Cyber Monday is (in principle) a one-day ecommerce shopping event on the Monday after Thanksgiving.
In practice, Black Friday deals have expanded from what was once a one-day bonanza of special offers and discounts, to several days of promotions and intensive email marketing.
How Many Emails Are Sent on Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
So, just how many emails ARE sent on Black Friday and Cyber Monday? According to Campaign Monitor, it's a lot. In their infographic 'Holiday Email Marketing by the Numbers', they listed the following stats:
Number of Marketing Emails Sent Per Day
Thanksgiving: 95 million
Black Friday: 116.5 million
Cyber Monday: 106 million
Campaign Monitor, 2017
Unsurprisingly, Black Friday is the busiest day of the year for marketing emails. But I was surprised by how close behind Cyber Monday ranks.
Bear in mind that Cyber Monday comes AFTER Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the weekend. Yet it's within touching distance of Black Friday with well over 100 million marketing emails sent out, pushing Thanksgiving down into third place in this marketing trinity of US holidays.
Cyber Monday and User Reviews
Customer reviews are one of the five main types of user-generated content (IAB, 2019). The IAB groups together user reviews, forum posts and comments into a single category.
5 Main Types of UGC
Text: Reviews, forums, comments
Social: Social platform content
Images: User-posted photos
Video: Recorded and live streaming
AR: Filters applied to any content
IAB, 2019
Reviews can have significant positive impact. BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2023 found that a whopping 98% of people read online reviews about local businesses.
Interestingly, the survey found that 37% of people will ONLY leave positive reviews. And 95% of people have either written an online review in the past 12 months, or would consider doing so in the future.
So, user reviews have become a near-universal form of UGC and (luckily for ecommerce operators) are likely to be positive in tone.
Black Friday, Cyber Monday and User Review Scores
What does all this have to do with Cyber Monday? For that, we look to the Proceedings of the 56th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences and a research paper titled 'Bargain Hunting on Black Friday - Making Great Deals and Bragging About Them'.
You can read the full study on the linked page (just click through to the PDF) and aside from having an excellent title, the research found that 'Black Friday' purchases - defined as including both Black Friday and Cyber Monday - typically score higher ratings in user-generated reviews.
"We find that numerical ratings from Black Friday purchases are considerably higher. This effect is also observable in an increase of the average numerical rating through Black Friday purchases."
Züllig et al, 2023
So if you're targeting positive customer reviews as part of your online marketing mix, it might make sense to offer Cyber Monday deals as a way to generate some higher average ratings from your UGC.
How Effective are Time-Limited Promotions?
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are, by definition, time-limited promotions. In recent years they've expanded to cover at least a week, but ultimately they are still very much centred around Thanksgiving and the days immediately following.
That means there's limited opportunity to capitalise on Cyber Monday in terms of generating sales and positive reviews - but does it also have an impact on the effectiveness of the deals you offer?
A study in the Journal of Marketing Research (2023) suggests that some limited-time offers are also limited in their impact, and suggests some ways around this.
"Although positive effects of time scarcity promotions on consumer interest have been evidenced in the brick-and-mortar world, should retailers expect similarly robust effects online? The present research suggests the answer may be no.
"The authors report meta-analytic and experimental results suggesting that previously identified positive effects of time scarcity promotions observed offline may not emerge in online shopping contexts."
The study found that applying an arbitrary deadline to online offers can be less effective than giving a deadline with an 'exogeneous justification'.
We've all seen websites with a 'Sale Ends Soon' countdown on the homepage, usually dubious ecommerce sites linked from a Facebook or Instagram ad. Even if your website is totally legit, this isn't a good look with consumers who've been scammed by low-quality products in the past.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday ARE arbitrary, in the sense that they're not really tied to a specific seasonal change or any external factors. But because they're part of a wider trend, they still fall into that retailer-exogeneous category, giving ecommerce operators an extra chance to run promos.
If It Weren't for the Last Minute...
Finally, what effect does a deadline have on time-limited sales? The JMR study found that as time runs out, the impact on sales can be substantial.
"Results suggest that the positive effects of including exogenous time justification may be more likely when less time remains until the online promotion's expiration."
This effect isn't guaranteed - the researchers stress that "careful managerial use" is required if restricted-time offers are to outperform other types of online promotions.
But if you have products to sell, the studies listed here show that time-specific sales like Cyber Monday (and looking ahead, Christmas and January sales too) could be a good way to generate sales AND some positive UGC all in one.
