"We looked at a number of competitors in the space, but ultimately chose ThoughtMetric because of its easy-to-understand interface and the support offered during and after implementation."
"With ThoughtMetric, we were able to refine our analytics and provide verifiable proof of the revenue we were driving in a previously underperforming area of the business."
Across 100 e-commerce stores tracked in ThoughtMetric, average daily ad spend rose 27.7% during BFCM 2025 against a three-week November baseline.
Black Friday Took the Largest Share of BFCM Spend
Black Friday took the largest share of four-day spend at 28.0%.
Spend share by day:
Friday, November 28 (Black Friday): 28.0%
Sunday, November 30: 24.6%
Saturday, November 29: 24.0%
Monday, December 1 (Cyber Monday): 23.4%
How to Start Planning for BFCM 2026
Planning works better when it starts from your own numbers, so start measuring now. ThoughtMetric’s attribution data is especially useful when it covers enough time to show patterns. August may seem early to start thinking about BFCM. However, every month you measure between now and then makes the planning easier. Pull last year's numbers. Your own BFCM history will be the most helpful. Look at what you spent per day, where it went, and how those channels performed. Set the budget. The average store in our database increased daily spend by 27.7% over its November baseline. If you are setting a budget with leadership, that is a number you can give them to make your case.
What Could Look Different This BFCM There are two changes that happened over the last several months to keep in mind when planning and measuring.
Google has pushed AI-driven campaign types, which means less manual control over where budget lands and more reliance on the signals you feed the system.
OpenAI launched ads in ChatGPT. Some brands might be testing out this new paid channel.
Measuring BFCM in ThoughtMetric
ThoughtMetric is an attribution tool specifically built for e-commerce brands. You can see performance by channel, campaign, ad set, and ad, along with product performance. ThoughtMetric offers five attribution models, including First Touch, Last Touch, Linear Paid, Position-Based, and Multi-Touch, with a configurable lookback window.
ThoughtMetric is easy to set up, and you don’t need a data scientist to interpret the data. By the time planning begins in a few months, you will confidently know which channels deserve the investment for BFCM.
