In this episode of The Ecommerce Braintrust, Kiri Masters is joined by Emily Peterson, Team Lead at Acadia, and Damiano Ciarrocchi, head of Retail Strategy at Acadia. Kiri, Emily, and Damiano share insights on the trends and performance of the Black Friday/Cyber Monday event this year, including the significant increase in online spending and the observations made on Black Friday versus Cyber Monday sales. The conversation covers early promotions, advertising strategies, client outcomes, and lessons learned, providing valuable takeaways for navigating the peak selling period through the end of the year.  Make sure you tune in to find out more! In today’s episode, Kiri, Emily and Damiano discuss: - Black Friday/Cyber Monday event predictions and figures, Adobe predicted that the spend would be $12 billion on Cyber Monday and nearly $10 billion on Black Friday. - Observations that Friday saw more action than Monday on retail marketplaces like Amazon, despite traditional data showing Monday as the bigger volume day. - The trend of earlier and earlier sales and promotional activities by DTC brands and retail marketplaces, with brands launching holiday sales as early as November 1. - Strategies and outcomes for clients during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday period, including a client in the apparel category doubling down on promotional activities in early October and achieving a 36% increase from the previous year's sales. - The impact of proactive ramp-up periods on organic ranking and ad performance, resulting in more sustainable outcomes and less expensive advertising. - Observations of Black Friday as the standout day in terms of sales, with Saturday being the largest decline in sales and Cyber Monday being comparatively lackluster. - A minor operational issue with setting up Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals on Amazon where a specific checkbox had to be selected for the deals badge to appear on the product page. - Insights into ad spend allocation and impressions during Black Friday, including a slight decrease in ad spend compared to other events, but a higher ratio of impressions to cost. - Observations about trends and peak sales times during the event, as well as strategies for budget management and proactive budget adjustments based on hourly peaks. - The reminder that every day until December 21 is a peak selling day and the importance of maintaining momentum and managing budgets for continued success throughout the holiday period.