Playbook · Seasonal planning

Black Friday is decided in October.

November and December are the biggest selling months of the year. They are also when every store is bidding for the same ad space, and shoppers start buying weeks before the sale. Here is when to start your holiday ads, and how many you need for each product.

Updated October 2026 · Sources checked

Two months, a trillion dollars.

In the United States, shoppers spent more than a trillion dollars in November and December 2025, the first time the season passed that mark.1 Close to 258 billion of it was spent online.2

The biggest online days fall in one long weekend. Shoppers spent 14.25 billion dollars online on Cyber Monday, more than on any other day of the year, and 11.8 billion on Black Friday. Across the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, they spent 44 billion.2

For most online stores, these eight weeks decide the year. This playbook is about the eight weeks before them, when you make and test the ads that will sell in November.

1 trillion Dollars spent in US shops and online in November and December 2025.1
258 billion Of it spent online.2
14.25 billion Spent online on Cyber Monday alone, the biggest day of the year.2
A front doorstep in December with a stack of cardboard delivery parcels, a wreath on the door and warm light in the window.

Everyone bids at once.

Meta’s advertising revenue in the last three months of 2025 was 58 billion dollars. In the three months before, it was 50 billion.3,4 The year before showed the same jump. Meta’s annual report gives the reason: the fourth quarter is “traditionally seasonally strong” because of holiday demand.5

Meta does not publish how much an ad costs in November compared with September. It does publish its revenue, and advertisers paid Meta about a sixth more in the last quarter than in the one before. TikTok’s holiday guide recommends January to advertisers for its “lower CPMs”.6 We read both the same way: more advertisers compete for the same feeds in November and December, exactly when you most need your ads to be seen.

An ad you launch in October gets through its slow first week while the auction is quieter. An ad you launch in November has to do that first week in the busiest auction of the year.

What advertisers paid Meta, by quarter
Q3 2024 39.9
Q4 2024 46.8
Q3 2025 50.1
Q4 2025 58.1

Meta advertising revenue in billions of dollars. From the quarterly results Meta files with the SEC.3,4

Shoppers start before the sale.

Two in five shoppers start browsing and buying before November.7 By the middle of October, 40 percent already know exactly which gifts they are buying, up from 32 percent the year before.8 TikTok tells its advertisers that shoppers are already searching by September.6

Black Friday gets the attention, but it is only part of the season. Google tells advertisers that shoppers buy from October through January, and not to limit their campaigns to Black Friday.8

Most of what shoppers buy is for someone else. Of the 890 dollars the average shopper planned to spend last season, 628 went on gifts for family and friends.7 So make at least one ad that sells your product as a gift: show it being wrapped, given or opened.

A kitchen table in October: a laptop open on a shop page, a phone, a coffee, a handwritten list and one gift already wrapped in brown paper.

Ads that sell a gift.

A bag, a golf club, a lipstick and a knit: four InstantClips video ads for products people buy as gifts. Tap one to play it.

Scale on the body 12s
Feature demo 15s
The ritual 12s
Second look 12s

A new ad starts slow.

A new ad set on Meta is in its learning phase until it has about 50 results in a week. While it learns, Meta says, it is less stable and usually costs more per result.9 Change the creative or the targeting, or add an ad, and the learning starts again.10

Then it wears out. Meta marks an ad as fatigued when its cost per result doubles, and warns you when that is likely inside the first seven days. Meta’s advice is to replace it with an ad that is “materially different”.11 TikTok’s holiday guide says to refresh creative weekly.6 The first playbook goes through these figures in more detail.

So each new ad set starts slow, and each ad in it can wear out in about a week. One ad will not last from October to December. You need a steady supply, with the next ad ready before the current one wears out.

A new ad set, from launch to fatigue
  1. First week Learning The ad set needs about 50 results before delivery settles. Delivery is less stable, and each result usually costs more.9
  2. Then Working Delivery is stable. This is the part you are paying for.
  3. About a week on Fatigued The ad’s cost per result reaches double what your past ads paid. The fix is a materially different ad.11,12

How many ads one product needs.

Count back from Cyber Monday. From 1 October to Cyber Monday is nine weeks. TikTok says to start the season with at least six creatives and refresh them weekly, and to replace a tired ad with three to five new ones, which it says happens about every seven days.6,12 Meta says to replace a tired ad with a materially different one.11 Neither platform gives a number for the whole season, so we worked one out: at TikTok’s pace, one product needs between 27 and 45 different ads over those nine weeks.

Treat that as an estimate. Even the low end is 27 ads for one product, and you probably sell more than one. Filming and editing that many by hand could take the whole quarter. The first ones need to be live before October starts, so they are through learning by the time October’s shoppers arrive. If you are reading this in October, it is not too late: an ad you launch this week has its slow first week behind it well before Black Friday.

9 weeks From 1 October to Cyber Monday, 30 November.
3–5 New creatives TikTok says to add when an ad tires, about every seven days.12
27–45 Ads for one product at that pace, from October to Cyber Monday. Our estimate, not a platform figure.
The season, in order
  1. By 1 October Make the first batch Get the first ads live before October, so they are through learning before shoppers start spending.
  2. 6–7 October Amazon’s Prime event Prime Big Deal Days. From here on, shoppers are looking for deals.13
  3. 11 November Singles’ Day The 11.11 sales, two weeks before Black Friday.
  4. 27 November Black Friday 11.8 billion dollars online last year.2
  5. 30 November Cyber Monday The biggest online day of the year.2
  6. 17 December Shipping cut-off USPS’s last recommended send-by date for standard post within the lower 48 states. Orders for Christmas delivery have to come in before then.14

Dates for 2026. Thanksgiving falls on 26 November, so Black Friday is the 27th and Cyber Monday the 30th.

InstantClips makes the batch.

Paste the link to a product page. InstantClips reads the page, drafts the hook, the format and the first three seconds, and makes a vertical video ad. Ask for a gift angle and you get a gift ad. Ask again for a deal, a fit check or an unboxing, and you get a new video for each angle, not the first one re-cut.

One product page is enough for a season of ads, and you can make the next one every week. The first video is free, and you see the plan for each video before anything is made. See what it makes for beauty, sports and fashion, or every category, and see what it costs.

Same product page, different ad.

The camp shirt worn, then its fabric up close. The supplement as a morning routine, then as a glass of water. Two products, two angles each. Tap one to play it.

Fit check 15s
Detail pass 15s
The ritual 14s
The ritual 15s

Your product page is enough to start.

Four stores, and the ads made from their product pages. Yours works the same way: paste the link, check the plan, run the ad. The first one is free.

puffinlime.com
The Puffin Lime product listing photo: a silver carriage music box with an oval photo frame.
The product page
Gift moment 10s Made from puffinlime.com’s product page.
jpauloinc.com
The J. Paulo listing photo: the wrapped kojic acid and turmeric soap bar beside a cut bar.
The product page
Detail pass 15s Made from jpauloinc.com’s product page.
takomogolf.com
The Takomo Golf listing photo: the 201 MKII iron head face-on in studio light.
The product page
Detail pass 15s Made from takomogolf.com’s product page.
velanardo.com
The Velanardo listing photo: a white Bianca ankle boot in profile, the square buckle fastened at the ankle.
The product page
Fit check 20s Made from velanardo.com’s product page.

Your first video ad is free.

Paste a product link, or upload photos. The first video is free, and there is no card to enter.

Upload photos in the app

Sources 14
  1. 1 National Retail Federation, “CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor’s December Data Shows Strong Holiday Season Spending”, 12 January 2026: holiday sales from 1 November to 31 December 2025 “grew 4.1%” to just over one trillion dollars. NRF press release
  2. 2 Adobe, “Holiday Shopping Season Drove a Record 257.8 Billion Dollars Online”, 7 January 2026: 257.8 billion dollars spent online from 1 November to 31 December, up 6.8 percent; Cyber Monday 14.25 billion; Black Friday 11.8 billion; Thanksgiving Day 6.4 billion; Cyber Week 44.2 billion. Adobe News
  3. 3 Meta Platforms, “Meta Reports Third Quarter 2025 Results”, exhibit 99.1: advertising revenue of 50,082 million dollars for the quarter, against 39,885 million a year earlier; average price per ad up 10 percent year over year. SEC filing, exhibit 99.1
  4. 4 Meta Platforms, “Meta Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results”, 28 January 2026, exhibit 99.1: advertising revenue of 58,137 million dollars for the quarter, against 46,783 million a year earlier; ad impressions up 18 percent and average price per ad up 6 percent year over year. SEC filing, exhibit 99.1
  5. 5 Meta Platforms, Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025: “Revenue is traditionally seasonally strong in the fourth quarter of each year due in part to seasonal holiday demand.” SEC filing, Form 10-K
  6. 6 TikTok for Business, NA SMB Holiday Playbook 2025: “Start early — Shoppers are already searching by September”; “Kick off with ≥6 creatives”; “Refresh creative weekly”; and for January, “With lower CPMs and warmed-up audiences, January is white space.” TikTok for Business (PDF)
  7. 7 National Retail Federation with Prosper Insights & Analytics, “Consumers to Spend Second-Highest Amount on Record”, 16 October 2025, 8,247 adults surveyed 1 to 7 October: “42% of shoppers planning to begin browsing and buying for the holiday season before November”; planned spend of 890.49 dollars per person, of which 627.93 “will go to gifts for family and friends”. NRF press release
  8. 8 Samantha Gelinas, “The clock is ticking: 3 urgent actions to capture ready-to-buy holiday shoppers”, Think with Google, November 2025, on a Google-commissioned Ipsos study of 9 to 15 October 2025: “as of mid-October, 40% of shoppers are ‘absolutely certain’ about the gifts they need to buy, a significant increase from 32% in 2024”; “Holiday shoppers are buying from October through January, so don’t limit your campaigns to just Black Friday.” Think with Google
  9. 9 Meta Business Help Center, “About the learning phase”: ad sets leave it “after about 50 results in the week after the ad set’s last significant edit”; during it they “are less stable and usually have a higher CPA”. Meta Business Help Center
  10. 10 Meta Business Help Center, “Significant edits and learning phase”: “Any change to ad creative”, “Any change to targeting” and “Adding a new ad to your ad set” each return an ad set to the learning phase. Meta Business Help Center
  11. 11 Meta Business Help Center, “About creative fatigue recommendations in Meta Ads Manager”: the status applies when cost per result is “more than or equal to twice as much as ads you ran in the past”, with a warning “if we predict creative fatigue may occur in the first 7 days”; the fix is “a new image or video that is materially different from the original creative”. Meta Business Help Center
  12. 12 TikTok Creative Center, Creative Accelerator guide: “Advertisers need to upload new creatives (3-5), whenever they detect that creative fatigue happens (around every 7 days).” TikTok Creative Center
  13. 13 Amazon, “Prime Big Deal Days is Back October 6-7, Kicking Off the Season with Two Days of Exclusive Savings for Prime Members”, 14 September 2026. Amazon press release
  14. 14 United States Postal Service, “Postal Service Recommends 2026 Holiday Mailing and Shipping Dates”, 22 September 2026: Ground Advantage and First-Class Mail by 17 December, Priority Mail by 18 December, Priority Mail Express by 19 December, within the contiguous United States. Ground Advantage to Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the territories by 16 December. USPS Newsroom