This Black Friday, retailers face a high-stakes balancing act. Consumers are still shopping but are more selective about when, where and how they buy. Inflation, new tariffs and a slowdown in discretionary spending are forcing shoppers to make tougher choices. That means retailers need to make every impression count.
The brands that succeed won’t be the loudest. They’ll be the ones that connect the dots using data to anticipate intent, personalize experiences and deliver consistency across every channel.
What Last Year Taught Us
2024 showed us what works when shoppers are cautious but willing to spend. Mobile orders made up nearly 70% of global sales. Buy now, pay later (BNPL) services helped spread out spending. And AI-powered tools like chatbots and product recommendations nudged more shoppers across the finish line, lifting conversion rates by up to 15%.
But it wasn’t just about the tools. It was about how they worked together. Retailers that created seamless, personalized experiences across platforms saw bigger carts, faster checkouts and stronger loyalty.
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What’s Accelerating this Year
Many of those trends are picking up speed. Mobile will remain the primary storefront whether shoppers are browsing from the couch, in-store or at the curb. Retail media and connected TV (CTV) are becoming full-funnel tools, not just for awareness. AI is shaping everything from discovery to checkout decisions. Off-site retail media is expanding rapidly, with spend projected to grow more than 40% this year, and with nearly half of browser traffic now cookieless, identity fragmentation is an immediate challenge that brands can no longer push aside.
With deal-seeking already underway, marketers can’t afford to wait for Cyber Week to get it right.
Four Moves to Make Before the Rush
1. Segment by behavior, not just demographics.
Forget generic segments. Shoppers behave differently, even within the same zip code. Some are early-bird deal hunters. Others wait for last-minute markdowns. Some click on social. Others buy in-store after researching online.
To reach them at the right time and place, retailers should activate segments based on intent, preferences and channel habits, not just age or past purchases. Ready-made audiences built around shopping behaviors like BOPIS shoppers, early deal hunters or big gift spenders can help retailers quickly activate campaigns that match how, when and where people shop during the holidays.
2. Make mobile your main storefront.
Mobile isn’t just where discovery happens; it’s where purchases happen. In 2024, mobile accounted for more than $195 billion in holiday sales. That number will only grow.
This year, clean design, fast load times and seamless checkout flows aren’t nice-to-haves; they’re table stakes. Features like buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) or curbside pickup should feel just as smooth as the rest of the mobile experience.
An identity graph can help reach mobile-first shoppers precisely at scale. By connecting mobile ad IDs (MAIDs) to individuals, you can activate campaigns across mobile apps, SMS and social with confidence. Define your audience once and deliver consistently personalized offers wherever they scroll, search, or shop.
3. Use retail media and CTV to do more than build awareness.
Retail media networks (RMNs) and CTV have become high-impact channels for the full funnel. When done right, they don’t just reach audiences, they move them.
That means linking first-party data to activation, retargeting across social and tracking performance in real time. An identity graph can help marketers do just that — activate consistent messaging across channels without duplication or wasted spend.
4. Address signal loss with a multi-ID strategy.
With cookies fading and ID fragmentation growing, marketers need to plan for reach without relying on a single solution. That means blending deterministic signals like hashed emails with contextual strategies and alternative IDs like Unified I.D. 2.0 (UID2) and ID5.
An identity graph makes this possible, connecting identifiers across devices to maintain accuracy, frequency and privacy throughout the busiest shopping weeks of the year.
Real-Time Agility Matters More than Ever
Campaigns shouldn’t be set-and-forget. With shopping behavior shifting by the hour, the best-performing retailers will watch what’s working and adapt fast, swapping out creative, updating offers and reallocating spend while Cyber Week is still in motion.
This Black Friday, success won’t come from one perfect ad or one powerful channel. It will come from connected strategies, powered by clean data, unified identity and a clear view of the customer.
Retailers that bring it all together will be the ones shoppers remember — and the ones that turn turbulence into growth.
Anne Passon, Senior Sales Director, leads the Retail vertical at Experian Marketing Services, where her team of account executives and customer relationship managers support clients to achieve their identity, data, activation and insights goals. She spent most of her career in marketing and retail media, working with some of the world’s largest CPG advertisers. Passon worked at Target before joining Experian in July 2023.
