Old stalwarts email and TV powered many brands’ Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns

The news: With the holiday shopping season in full swing, relationship marketing provider CM Group and television analytics firm iSpot released data on how brands and retailers doubled down on email and TV during the critical Black Friday and Cyber Monday selling period.

The power of email: CM Group’s marketing technology powered more than 12 billion email sends from November 22 to November 30.

• Many brands see personalization as key to delivering strong ROI, with Liveclicker, the email platform behind personalization for Chipotle, Food Network, and WWE, reporting a 75% increase in emails sent this Black Friday versus 2021.
• Brands aren’t just selling; they’re making long-term plays. Many are leveraging experienced-focused campaigns to acquire zero-party data. CM Group’s Cheetah Digital, which powers loyalty and relationship marketing for enterprise brands like Levi’s, Disney, and Meredith, saw views on interactive experiences including questionnaires, quizzes, and polls nearly triple on Thanksgiving Day.

Tuning in: National TV ad spend around BF/CM was up 6.4% ($184 million), but impressions were down 4.6% (18.49 billion), per iSpot. That’s not insignificant, as it indicates that TV ad spending is getting more expensive at a time when advertisers really need to reach consumers to hit their end-of-year goals.

• Etsy and Wayfair combined for 44.19% of all impressions on D2C brands. Both jumped into the top 10 by impressions, despite marginal increases in spend.
• The NFL accounted for 30% more TV ad impressions for retail brands year-over-year.
• More impressions (28.4% of the total) shifted to the “Big 4” broadcast networks versus last year (24.0%). Undoubtedly, the World Cup and NFL played a big part in this.

The big takeaway: While TikTok, augmented reality, and metaverse marketing opportunities are certainly flashier and worthy of headlines, a vast amount of time and effort goes into email marketing and TV advertising—and they’re not going away anytime soon.