What Actually Wins on Black Friday and Cyber Monday: 6 Rules from 3 Years of Data 

Welcome to Issue 3 of  The Receipt, a recurring market insights series from Affinity Solutions that takes a focused look at consumer spending trends drawn from over 150 million U.S. credit and debit cards representing 100 M+ consumers. Each edition examines a specific moment, category, or behavioral shift to translate verified purchase activity into actionable insights for brands, agencies, and media partners.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday kick off the busiest shopping stretch of the year, and they’re often lumped together as one long weekend of deals. Three years of spending data (2023-2025) say otherwise. Here’s what the numbers say about where to focus.

1. Electronics is the single most reliable winner of the entire weekend. It ranks in the top three overperforming categories on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday, every year for three straight years, peaking at +70% per buyer above normal spend in 2025.Media strategy: This is the rare category that wins on both days, so treat it as an always-on push across the full weekend rather than a single-day spike. Since electronics is also the most heavily contested category on the calendar, the differentiator won’t be whether you show up. It will be whether you show up earlier than competitors and stay visible through Monday, when Cyber Monday spend for computers and peripherals climbs even higher than Black Friday.
2. Book stores are a bigger and more consistent story than most people would expect. They post a 29–40% spend lift on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday, each year from 2023-2025.Media Strategy: Most advertisers aren’t planning around this category, which likely means less competition and more efficient media costs while book and media spend is climbing. For marketers in this category, this is worth testing. Since fewer advertisers are competing here, media costs are likely cheaper than the spending data would suggest.
3. If you sell jewelry, don’t spend your budget assuming a holiday-weekend bump. Jewelry has underperformed on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday in every year of our study, down as much as 20% below normal.Media strategy: Black Friday and Cyber Monday are not the moment for jewelry brands to compete for premium inventory. That budget is likely to work harder closer to Christmas or around Valentine’s Day, when jewelry typically sees its real seasonal lift. Consider shifting weekend budget forward rather than spending into a category that historically underperforms on these two days specifically.
4. Black Friday gets people out to eat; Cyber Monday does the opposite. Restaurant and fast food spend rise 7–15% above normal on Black Friday but fall 1–7% below normal on Cyber Monday, and the Cyber Monday dip deepened each year from 2023-2025.Media Strategy: Restaurants and QSR brands should split their strategy by day, not treat the weekend as one block. Black Friday creative should lean into in-person, location-based messaging (ex., proximity targeting near shopping centers, “refuel while you shop” positioning). Cyber Monday calls for a different playbook: at-home occasions, delivery and takeout offers, or simply de-prioritizing the day in favor of Black Friday and the days immediately after Thanksgiving.
5. Department stores and electronics retailers are fighting for the same shopper on different days. Department stores win Black Friday (+12% to +15%); computer and electronics specialty retailers win Cyber Monday (+43% to +83%).Media strategy: Knowing which day is “yours” changes where the media dollars should go. Department store clients should front-load spend into Black Friday and taper into the weekend. Electronics specialty retailers should do the reverse, building toward a Cyber Monday peak rather than spreading budget evenly across all four days.
6. Toy and hobby retailers get twice the lift on Black Friday than Cyber Monday (+26–32% vs. +9–17%).Media strategy: If gifting is the strategy, Black Friday is where the budget should concentrate. Toy and hobby clients gain little by holding meaningful reserve budget for Cyber Monday. Better to spend heavier and earlier, then let performance data (not the calendar) decide whether Monday spend is worth it.

The Takeaway
The “Black Friday weekend” isn’t one event. It’s two different shopping behaviors, with different winning categories, different peak days, and different reasons people are spending. The advertisers who treat Black Friday and Cyber Monday as a single undifferentiated push are leaving performance on the table. The ones who split their strategy by day, and by category, are working with the grain of how people actually shop.

Methodology: