Black Friday 2023 is behind us but the Holiday season with its’ sales, promotions, and shopping frenzy. It’s a good moment to pause and look at this year’s results - generally, in e-commerce and with our clients’ push strategies. 

Black Friday 2023 - what did we learn? 

As expected, the annual shopping spree was less impressive than in previous years. According to Reuters, the 6.3% increase in sales was “the smallest Black Friday-week gain since 2017's 4.8% year-over-year increase”.

In their summary, Mastercard states that “Consumers are also shopping smarter, using all of their tools – from searching across channels to cross-checking on apps and websites – to maximize value while they spend time with friends and family.”

In the era of economic uncertainty and the growing tech-savviness of buyers, retailers must employ more tools to ensure they’re the top choice for shopping. This includes push marketing. 

Back Friday 2023 push statistics

How did web push notifications perform during Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Our analysis of client data reveals some noteworthy insights.

Web push mass campaigns

In the context of Black Friday, the volume of web push campaigns deployed by e-commerce entities witnessed a remarkable surge, spiking by 136%. On Cyber Monday, there was a notable increase of 36% compared to the average on any other day in November.

Companies sent on average two times more web push campaigns on Black Friday than on other days and generated three times more clicks than on other days.

Delving into specific dates, the analysis of mass campaigns sent on the first Friday of November 2023 (3.11.23) and Black Friday (24.11.23) revealed a significant increase of 349.73% in clicked notifications.

Moreover, a comparison between Cyber Monday (27.11.23) and the first Monday of November (6.11.23) showcased a notable increase of 38.55% in clicked notifications.

Web push automation

Throughout November, the number of clicked push notifications experienced a substantial uptick of 37.21% compared to the annual average, coupled with a 28.98% rise in the number of notifications successfully delivered.

The main reason is that more automation scenarios were triggered in November. More shoppers rushed to online stores en masse, browsing through store listings to snipe deals in anticipation of making purchases on Black Friday.

As illustrated by this chart, the count of subscribers receiving automated web push notifications began to rise from mid-November.

Interestingly, 38% of the web push campaigns from November 24 contained the words “Black Friday”.

Black Friday top push strategy

Planeta Sport, a major sports equipment retail chain in Serbia achieved noteworthy performance results using PushPushGo tools. A remarkable 4.35% of recipients engaged by clicking on the notification.

Marija Anđelković, Performance Marketing Specialist from Planeta Sport, stated:

“We are quite satisfied with the web push results during the entire Black week. In push notifications, we have followed the promos we had on the website and adjusted it to the communication we used on all other channels. The dynamics was one push per day during weekdays, and two during the weekend – one in the morning, and the other reminder in the afternoon. In this particular winning push on 24/11, we have emphasized two important benefits – the percentage of the discount and free delivery which we had on all orders during Black Friday weekend.”

The Planeta Sport’s strategy and their results highlight the key takeaways from the Black Friday manual: 

• keep your communications consistent across all platforms, including web push 

• don’t overwhelm your customers with too many messages - keep it simple and user-friendly to avoid the subscribers’ exhaustion

• highlight the elements your customers care about: namely, the discount and additional benefits like free delivery. 

We’ve talked about those elements before, in our Black Friday ebook. Head over there to learn more about using web push marketing in the busy sales period. 

Black Friday is over, long live Holiday sales

2023 is still far from over - and so is the spike in spending, due to Holiday shopping and last-minute gifts (according to the cited Mastercard article, jewelry and apparel remain high on the list of presents). We’re looking forward to learning and sharing with you more about interesting solutions and statistics employed in the push strategies of our clients. 

And if you want to discuss more in-depth solutions suitable for your business, drop us a line at [email protected]