Black Friday 2025 Results Recap: AI, Social, and the Identity Advantage (And What Marketers Should Do Next)

The 2025 Black Friday-Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend set new records — not just in total spend, but in the ways consumers discovered, evaluated, and purchased products.

Holiday shopping has officially entered a new era: AI-assisted decision-making, social commerce acceleration, and flexible checkout options are reshaping how customers engage with brands.

For CPG and durable goods marketers, this shift represents both a challenge and an advantage. Consumers are more distributed, more empowered, and more mobile than ever. But brands that can capture identity — and turn one-time purchasers into known customers — unlocked massive upside.

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The 2025 BFCM Headlines: Massive Volume, Smarter Shoppers, Channel Fragmentation

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Consumers spent aggressively across the Cyber Weekend, with Adobe and Retail Dive reporting:

• $44.2B in U.S. online sales across the Cyber 5 period (+7.7% YoY)
• $11.8B in online spending on Black Friday alone (+9.1% YoY)
• $14.25B in Cyber Monday sales, marking the biggest online shopping day of the year

For the full 2025 holiday season (Nov 1–Dec 31), Adobe forecasts U.S. online retail sales will surpass $253.4 billion (+5.3% YoY)

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Mobile, AI, Social, and BNPL Redefined BFCM

The biggest story of the season wasn’t any single sales number. It was the shift in shopper behavior driven by mobile adoption, AI-assisted discovery, social media, and flexible payment options.
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Mobile cemented its dominance.

Adobe Analytics reported that 57.5% of online sales on Cyber Monday came through mobile.

This represents $8.2B in spend (up 8% YoY). Mobile wasn’t just big. It was the checkout channel of BFCM 2025.
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AI shopping exploded.

Adobe reported that AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail sites increased by 670% on Cyber Monday.

For the season to date (Nov 1–Dec 1), AI traffic is up an astonishing 758%. This year, AI didn’t just influence holiday shopping; it actively shaped it. AI assistants, smart recommendations, and conversational shopping interfaces now drive meaningful, conversion-ready traffic.
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Social commerce surged.

On Cyber Monday, social media drove 3.6% of all online revenue, up 56.5% YoY (2024: 2.3%).

Platforms like TikTok Shop posted staggering growth, with U.S. sales hitting $500M over Black Friday weekend — a 5× increase from last year.  For many brands, social was no longer a discovery channel; it was a transaction channel.

CPG and durable-goods brands that invested early in social-first creative and shoppable experiences saw disproportionate gains, especially among younger and mobile-native shoppers.

Together, AI + social have made discovery nonlinear. Customers bounce between apps, devices, and channels — meaning retailers no longer control the path, but they can control the relationship that follows.
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BNPL quietly became a top conversion driver.

While AI and social captured the headlines, BNPL was one of the most important and under-appreciated conversion unlocks of BFCM 2025.

Budget-conscious consumers leveraged flexible payment options to complete purchases in categories like furniture, appliances, and premium CPG.

• BNPL use on Black Friday reached $747.5M, up 8.9% YoY
  
• Electronics, apparel, home goods, and furniture were among the top categories driving BNPL adoption
  

This is important for retailers as BNPL reduces friction for mid- and high-ticket items, improves mobile checkout performance, and gives budget-sensitive customers the confidence to convert the moment they’re convinced.

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Why Fragmented Discovery Makes Identity Capture Essential

The results of BFCM revealed how dramatically the path to purchase has splintered.
A single customer might: 

• Discover a product through an AI shopping assistant
• Watch a creator review it on TikTok Shop and purchase there
• Compare prices on mobile sites
• Receive the product as a gift
• Buy it online at Amazon, Target, Walmart, or in-store at a physical retailer
  

In these instances, a brand may win the sale, but not the customer. When discovery happens everywhere, the only scalable strategy is to own the relationship that begins after the purchase.

Brij customers saw a massive revenue lift this BFCM because identity drove their strategy.  Across our customers, Brij-attributed revenue for Shopify merchants increased roughly 400% on Black Friday compared to typical daily revenue. Revenue remained strong through Cyber Monday, at roughly 200% above baseline.

This is the result of brands entering the holiday season with large, high-intent email and SMS audiences built from retail and marketplace purchasers.

Brij uniquely enables brands to:

• Turn retail + marketplace customers into known CRM profiles
• Drive them into email/SMS flows
• Re-engage them during major selling events
• Attribute revenue back to those identity-driven touchpoints

Because they had captured these customers wherever they shopped — and because they understood their behavior — Brij brands were able to pull shoppers directly into their owned channels and convert them at the moments that mattered most.

And this season, they captured even more previously unknown customer profiles that they’ll continue activating throughout 2026.

As AI and social media increasingly influence the first purchase, Brij ensures brands can drive the next one. That’s the real competitive advantage.

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What This Means for CPG & Durable-Goods Brands Going Into 2026

BFCM 2025 made one thing clear: the channels driving discovery — AI, social platforms, mobile devices, retail marketplaces, and even gifting — are more fragmented and fast-moving than ever. Consumers are increasingly guided by algorithms, creators, and convenience, not by brand-controlled pathways.

For marketers in CPG and durable goods, this shift brings both complexity and opportunity. Here’s what the results mean for the year ahead:
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1. Identity capture is now the backbone of growth.

With AI and social platforms dominating discovery, more customers than ever are coming from indirect, non-owned channels. Without identity capture and engagement, these high-intent buyers simply disappear after purchase.

And while BFCM delivered massive sales volume, the only way to amplify that momentum is by converting a one-time spike into customers you can reach — and re-engage — again.
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2. Retail, marketplace, and gifting customers are your highest-potential segment — if you can reach them.

Millions of holiday purchases happened through Amazon, Target, Walmart, TikTok Shop, and in physical stores. Many more were given as gifts. These buyers love your product, but they remain invisible unless you intentionally connect them to your CRM.

By partnering with an omnichannel marketing platform that gathers first-party data, turn “lost” customers into known profiles you can activate year-round.

3. Mobile-first behavior demands mobile-native identity capture.

With 57.5% of Cyber Monday sales happening on mobile, the post-purchase experience must meet customers where they already are. QR-based onboarding, packaging-driven identity capture, and mobile-first flows transform one-time holiday buyers into owned audiences ready for re-engagement throughout the year.
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4. AI-driven discovery requires structured product data and a unified customer experience.

AI surfaces products it can understand: those with consistent metadata, clear attributes, and strong downstream engagement signals.

When a brand unifies onboarding, registration, product education, and identity capture, it strengthens the signals AI platforms use to recommend and resurface products. This is increasingly essential for durable goods and premium CPG categories.
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5. BNPL behavior signals high-intent buyers who need structured retention pathways.

BNPL was a major conversion driver for mid- and high-ticket items. These shoppers are prime candidates for onboarding, product education, warranty flows, and long-term loyalty plays. Identifying them early is key to unlocking a retention strategy tailored to their needs.

6. The brands that prepare all year will dominate next BFCM.

The companies that won in 2025 didn’t scramble during Cyber Week. They built momentum through identity, education, and re-engagement months beforehand.

Next year’s winners will ensure they have systems in place to:

• Capture identity from day one
• Activate customers through owned channels
• Build high-intent lists primed for peak moments
  

BFCM is no longer just an acquisition event. It’s an amplification of the relationships you’ve already built.

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Black Friday 2025 Results: The Final Takeaway

BFCM 2025 was the strongest holiday performance we’ve seen, and it was also a preview of the future of commerce. 

AI-shaped discovery. Social platforms shaped influence. Mobile shaped checkout. BNPL shaped conversion. 

Today’s customer journey is increasingly fragmented and algorithm-driven. Brands need owned connections that persist beyond channels, platforms, and promotional windows. 

Brij enables CPG and durable-goods marketers to turn every purchase — whether it happens online, in-store, on a marketplace, or through a gift — into a relationship they can nurture, grow, and activate.

The brands that embrace these post-purchase moments now will win BFCM 2026 and build the foundation for the next decade of customer loyalty and lifetime value.