By Jordan Zall
The Black Friday sales event is no longer a single day -it has evolved into a month-long, multi-phase cycle spanning channels, audiences, and creative needs. As consumers begin shopping earlier and expect more relevant experiences across channels, brands must navigate an increasingly dynamic environment where promotions, inventory, and shopper intent are in constant flux. Despite the rising complexity for advertisers, the value in ad investments remains. Adobe Analytics reported a record $11.8B in U.S. online spend on Black Friday, up 9.1% from last year.
This year, Clinch powered Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns across an array of verticals, like travel, CPG, retail, gaming, and more to meet that pace head-on, and deliver personalized, performance-driven creative across every stage of the holiday shopper journey. We’ve rounded up three campaign examples below, and tapped some of our experts in omnichannel content orchestration to share first-hand insights into how brands executed their most agile, efficient, and impactful campaigns yet, along with recommendations to adapt these strategies into your own campaign approach.
Prioritize Audience-Specific Deal Paths
A leading retailer is elevating its Black Friday approach with a dynamic, multi-audience strategy built to keep shoppers engaged across the full two-week promotional window. Instead of relying on a fixed set of static offers, the brand is activating tailored deal streams for different audiences, each powered by a live product and pricing feed.
As inventory and pricing change daily, creatives update automatically through Clinch’s Agentic AI Platform, ensuring only in-stock items and the most relevant offers are shown. This level of automation removes the complexity of manual creative versioning and supports a high-frequency promotional cadence that reflects the urgency of the season.
My recommendation: Center your Black Friday strategy on audience-specific deal paths supported by automated creative updates. When relevance and speed work together, it becomes far easier to maintain momentum throughout the entire promotional window.
Noemi Mesas
Client Partner, EMEA
Deploy End-to-End Automation for Real-time Dynamic Updates
For a top international travel brand, our strongest Black Friday results came from a segment-driven, omnichannel approach. Instead of pushing broad “sale” messages, we tailored creative to specific traveler mindsets, like Weekend Travelers or Experience Seekers, and extended that personalization across Meta, Snap, Pinterest exports, Display, OLV, YouTube, and CTV.
We also launched our first dynamic Snap campaign with audience-specific end cards and ran four additional Meta campaigns for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Cyber Week -all deployed within two weeks, enabled by Clinch’s AI content orchestration technology for rapid activation.
My recommendation: Lead with audience specificity and move quickly. When each traveler segment receives messaging aligned to the way they book, and you can update that creative rapidly across channels, you unlock peak Black Friday performance.
Ashley Hoblin
Client Experience Director
Reduce Operational Lift Through Streamlined Creative and DCO Automation
For one of our global gaming partners, the Black Friday campaign setup is a strong example of scaling smartly without unnecessary creative lift. Across 10 regions, we’re running the full campaign using only two core creatives (one for Meta and one for Display) that power more than 900 dynamic variations through Clinch.
On the programmatic side, we streamlined everything to a single placement and creative tracker per region, keeping trafficking simple and manageable. All dynamic elements, -product, price, legal, ratings, and more - update automatically by market, ensuring accuracy without additional creative rounds. Once live, event-based reporting breaks down performance at the product, region, and message level.
My recommendation: For global Black Friday sales events or any high-volume promotion, prioritize a streamlined creative layout and let DCO handle the scale. It’s the most efficient way to execute globally while maintaining accuracy and reducing operational lift.
Claire Weil
Senior Client Success Manager
The takeaway is clear: top brands didn’t work harder this Black Friday—they worked smarter. Dynamic creative, audience-first strategy, and cross-channel agility are no longer advantages; they’re requirements. The teams that embrace them will continue to set the pace for holiday performance.
