Why Advertising Gets More Expensive During the Holidays
Understanding rising CPMs during Black Friday and why video ads outperform static creatives in high-competition periods
Every year, as Black Friday approaches and the holiday season begins, brands notice the same thing: advertising suddenly becomes more expensive. CPMs rise, daily budgets increase, and campaigns that performed well just weeks ago start delivering weaker results for the same spend. This is not a coincidence — it’s a predictable market shift that affects almost every industry, especially e-commerce and electronics.
Understanding why this happens — and how to react — is the difference between wasting budget and staying competitive during the most crowded advertising period of the year.
Holiday Competition Changes the Entire Ad Market
During Black Friday and the holiday season, almost everyone advertises at the same time. Big brands, small brands, marketplaces, retailers, and resellers all aggressively push their budgets. Platforms like Meta and Google don’t raise prices manually — instead, higher competition drives costs up automatically through auctions.
This is why CPMs become noticeably more expensive during this period. You are no longer competing with just your usual market players. You are competing with brands that are spending significantly more than usual, often without strict performance limits, simply to dominate visibility.
For some accounts, daily ad spend increases by 50–100% compared to normal periods. A budget that comfortably worked at €2,000 per day may need to scale to $3,000–$4,000 just to maintain similar reach and delivery. The result is clear: the same ads cost more, and efficiency becomes harder to maintain.
Why Static Ads Start Losing Strength
When costs go up, weak creatives suffer first. Static ads — especially repetitive or overly polished ones — tend to struggle during high-competition periods. Audiences are exposed to more ads than usual, and attention spans become even shorter.
During the holidays, users scroll fast. They see discounts everywhere. If an ad looks familiar, generic, or too “advertising-like,” it’s skipped almost instantly.
This is where many brands make a critical mistake: they increase budgets without changing creative strategy. Higher spend does not fix weak ad formats. In fact, it exposes them faster.
Why Video Ads Perform Better When Costs Rise
When CPMs are high, creative quality matters more than ever — and video consistently outperforms static ads in these moments.
Video ads feel more alive, more human, and more native to the feed. They allow brands to demonstrate products, show usage, highlight real benefits, and tell short stories — all within seconds. Even simple videos often outperform beautifully designed static images because they stop the scroll.
Short-form video, product demos, UGC-style content, and informal recordings tend to perform especially well during peak seasons. They feel less like ads and more like content, which helps lower resistance from the audience.
In crowded periods like Black Friday, the goal is not perfection. The goal is attention and clarity.
High Costs Don’t Mean Bad Performance — If Strategy Is Right
Expensive CPMs don’t automatically mean campaigns are failing. They mean the environment has changed.
Brands that understand seasonality plan for this in advance. They adjust expectations, test creatives earlier, and shift focus from pure scaling to efficiency and message clarity. Instead of fighting the market, they adapt to it.
This is also the time when strong offers, clear value propositions, and well-structured funnels matter more than minor targeting tweaks. When everyone is advertising, what you say and how you show it matters more than who you target.
The Real Advantage Comes From Preparation
The brands that win during the holiday season are rarely improvising. They enter this period with tested creatives, flexible budgets, and realistic performance benchmarks. They know costs will rise — and they plan creative strategies that can survive in a competitive auction.
Video content, especially product-focused and user-driven formats, gives advertisers a real advantage when prices are high. It helps campaigns stay efficient even when the market is expensive.
Final Thought
Black Friday and the holiday season don’t break advertising — they reveal it.
They show which brands rely too heavily on low costs, and which ones invest in strong creative, clear messaging, and adaptable strategies. When CPMs rise, only ads that truly connect continue to perform.
In the most competitive season of the year, creativity is not just important — it’s everything.
