Growth Strategy
Cyber Monday vs Black Friday: How Shoppers Behave Differently on Each Day
Written by Darkroom leardership
8 min read
Nov 9, 2026
Cyber Monday is the largest online shopping day, while Black Friday is quickly catching up. Each day attracts different shoppers, categories, and discounts, so a strategy that works for one may not work for the other.
This guide explains the differences between the two days and how to plan all five days of Cyber Week as a single period. It covers online sales versus shopper numbers, daily trends in mobile and buy now, pay later, when each category peaks, which offers and channels work best each day, and the main focus for each day from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday.
Key takeaways:
Cyber Monday generates more online revenue than any other day during the US holiday season. In contrast, Black Friday attracts more shoppers both in stores and online.
Black Friday is growing faster than Cyber Monday, which means the gap between the two days is shrinking.
Each product category reaches its biggest discount on a different day. Electronics and computers peak on Cyber Monday, while toys, TVs, and apparel see their best deals on Black Friday.
Mobile checkout, buy now, pay later, and AI shopping assistants matter more on some days than others.
Brands see the best results when they treat Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday as a single five-day period, giving each day a specific focus.
What's the difference between Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
Black Friday is known for deals in stores and online, while Cyber Monday focuses on online shopping.
Black Friday
Black Friday falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving, which is November 27 in 2026. Traditionally, it marked the kickoff of in-store holiday shopping, but now just as many shoppers are looking for deals online as in physical stores.
These days, Black Friday deals often start weeks in advance. For brands, it is a day to reach a wide audience, especially in gift and home categories, with shoppers engaging across both online and in-store channels.
Cyber Monday
Cyber Monday lands on the Monday after Thanksgiving, which is November 30 in 2026. Shop.org, the digital arm of the National Retail Federation, coined the term in 2005, when online sales spiked as people returned to work after the holiday weekend.
Cyber Monday remains focused on online shopping, with many shoppers coming back to purchase items they browsed over the weekend. For brands, this is the day to focus on driving online conversions.
Common user behaviors in Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Black Friday attracts a larger audience, while Cyber Monday converts more of those people into online purchases, especially on mobile devices and through installment payments.
Shoppers
According to NRF's December 2, 2025 survey with Prosper Insights & Analytics, Black Friday brought in 80.3 million in-store shoppers and 85.7 million online. Cyber Monday had 75.9 million online shoppers, up from 64.4 million in 2024. While Black Friday still has a wider reach, Cyber Monday's online audience is growing the fastest.
Focus your Black Friday strategy on reaching customers both in stores and online. For Cyber Monday, prioritize converting online visitors into buyers.
Mobile
Adobe's data shows that 57.5% of Cyber Monday online sales were made on phones. For Thanksgiving 2026, mobile sales are expected to reach a record 63%. NRF also found that phones were the top device for Cyber Monday shoppers, with 46.9 million using them.
Before Thanksgiving, test the entire mobile checkout process on a mid-range phone. Make sure Apple Pay and Google Pay work where supported, and check page speed on a slower connection. If a high-priced Cyber Monday item doesn't work with mobile wallets, address that before increasing traffic.
Buy now, pay later
Adobe's 2026 forecast shows that Cyber Monday will have about 35% more buy now, pay later spending than Black Friday (Darkroom calculated $1.09 billion versus $807 million), with 82% of that spending happening on mobile devices.
Display installment pricing on product pages and in the cart for expensive Cyber Monday items, especially electronics and computers. For example, if a $400 headphones bundle is popular on Monday, show "or 4 payments of $100" at the top of the mobile page, not just at checkout.
AI shopping assistants
Adobe predicts that AI-referred traffic to US retail sites will rise by 130% during the 2026 season, with the biggest jump on Thanksgiving (159%), followed by Black Friday (95%) and Cyber Monday (88%). Salesforce also reported that AI and agents influenced 20% of global Cyber Week 2025 orders, totaling about $67 billion (December 5, 2025).
Traffic from AI assistants peaks before the main shopping day. Make sure product titles, attributes, inventory, and shipping windows are easy for assistants to read before Thanksgiving, not after the first spike on Friday.
Which products sell best on each day?
Every product category has a day when it sells best. Adobe’s 2026 forecast shows which days have the biggest discounts for each category. Plan to feature your top products on the days when their category is expected to peak.
Black Friday categories
Toys, TVs, apparel, appliances, and furniture are expected to have their biggest discounts on Black Friday. These are popular gift and home items that attract many shoppers on Friday.
If your main product falls into one of these categories, make it the focus of your Friday promotion, and keep both in-store and buy-online-pickup-in-store options available.
Categories ranked by forecast peak discount off list price:
Toys, 29%
TVs, 23%
Apparel, 23%
Appliances, 18%
Furniture, 18%
Cyber Monday categories
Electronics (30% off) and computers (23% off) are expected to have their biggest discounts on Cyber Monday. In 2025, electronics was the top-selling category that day, reaching $3.7 billion in sales, a 12.8% increase. Feature these products on Monday and highlight installment payment options.
Online spend by category on Cyber Monday 2025, ranked by sales dollars (not discounts):
Electronics, $3.7 billion
Apparel, $2.6 billion
Furniture, $1.8 billion
Sporting goods, $0.6 billion
Cosmetics, $0.5 billion
Thanksgiving categories
Sporting goods (19% off) are expected to have their biggest discounts on Thanksgiving, making it the only category that peaks before Friday. If you sell sporting goods, consider offering early access on Thursday evening instead of waiting until Friday for the biggest discount.
Observed Thanksgiving Day 2025 discounts off listed price, Adobe data reported by Fox Business:
Electronics, 28%
Toys, 27%
Apparel, 25%
Computers, 23%
Televisions, 21%
When Cyber Week 2026 starts and how the five days connect
Cyber Week 2026 kicks off on Thanksgiving, November 26, and wraps up on Cyber Monday, November 30. This five-day stretch, often called Cyber 5 or the cyber weekend, sees shoppers active every single day.
Adobe projects $47.5 billion in sales for Cyber Week, a 7.4% increase that would make up 17.3% of the entire $275.1 billion holiday season. For context, the NRF reported a record 202.9 million shoppers across these five days in 2025, showing just how big this period has become.
Early deals
According to Adobe, shoppers can expect discounts of up to 14% in early November, increasing to 21% just before Thanksgiving, and peaking at 30% during Cyber Week itself. These early deals are great for attracting shoppers who are researching early.
However, it’s smart to save your biggest offers for the main event so Thursday and Friday still feel special and give shoppers a reason to buy.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day is expected to bring in $6.9 billion in online sales, an 8.5% increase, according to Adobe. This day is all about mobile shopping and early access. It’s a great time to offer perks like early access for subscribers, make sure your feeds are easy for voice assistants to read, and ensure your mobile checkout is as fast as possible.
The weekend
Last year, Saturday and Sunday together matched Black Friday with $11.8 billion in online sales. The NRF reported 63 million online shoppers on Saturday, up from 53.9 million, and a record 32.6 million in stores on Sunday.
The key takeaway is to keep your offers and creative fresh throughout the weekend. For example, try switching out Friday’s main gift bundle for a Saturday gift-guide email and send a Sunday reminder with a new offer tier. This way, shoppers who come back see something new and have another reason to buy.
Which offers suit each day
Make sure each day has an offer that fits its shoppers. Details like offer mechanics and creative formats will go in the ad campaign once Black Friday 2 of 4 is live. For now, this section just matches offers to days.
Black Friday offers
Start with the categories that are most popular that day. Create gift bundles for shoppers looking for gifts, and use offers that work both in stores and online, like buy online and pick up in store. Give subscribers early access on Thanksgiving evening to help keep Friday busy.
For example, a toy and apparel brand could offer a gift bundle just for subscribers at 6 pm on Thursday, then make the same bundle available to everyone on Friday morning with pickup options.
Cyber Monday offers
Focus on electronics and computers, and use site-wide or spend-based offers for online shoppers. Highlight installment options for expensive items. Add something new on Monday, like a featured product or a new spend tier, so people who visited over the weekend have a reason to return.
If the offer is the same every day, shoppers won’t feel motivated to buy on a certain day.
Which channels matter most on each day?
Email, SMS, and affiliates tend to drive the highest volume, while social and marketplaces help expand reach. Each channel performs differently by day.
For example, on Cyber Monday 2025, affiliates and partners accounted for 21.8% of revenue, which was a 7.4% increase from the previous year. Social media contributed 3.6% of revenue, up a notable 56.5%, according to Adobe’s release.
Email and SMS
Plan email and SMS sends by day for the best results. Start with early access messages on Thanksgiving evening, follow with a broad send on Black Friday morning, send a reminder over the weekend, and finish with a Cyber Monday message timed for the evening peak in each customer’s time zone.
Deliverability becomes especially important when send volume spikes, so make sure to warm up domains, suppress unengaged contacts, and stagger large lists before Thursday.
Affiliates and creators
Affiliates and partners drove more than a fifth of Cyber Monday revenue in 2025. To make the most of this channel, ensure that creator gift guides and publisher deal roundups have their final codes, deep links, and disclosure copy ready before Thanksgiving.
For example, secure a creator’s Monday electronics code by the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and have a backup code ready in case the primary offer sells out.
Marketplaces
Amazon and Walmart both host their own events during the same five-day period. Make sure listings, pricing rules, and A+ modules are finalized before the surge in traffic begins.
TikTok Shop
According to Adobe’s data, social commerce is the fastest-growing revenue source on Cyber Monday. For TikTok Shop, have campaign settings, creative approvals, and inventory locks ready before the peak shopping period.
Read also: The BFCM Paid Media Plan and What to Lock In Before Black Friday
How to plan Cyber Week as one five-day window
Assign a clear focus to each day, and then evaluate the entire five-day period together.
Thanksgiving (November 26): early access, mobile and AI readiness.
Black Friday (November 27): reach across stores and online, Black Friday categories.
Saturday and Sunday (November 28 and 29): fresh offers and gift guides.
Cyber Monday (November 30): online conversion, electronics, installment pricing, evening send.
Look at revenue and contribution margin for all five days combined, factoring in discounts and expected returns. Remember, someone who buys on Friday might have started browsing on Thursday, so focusing only on last-click sales from the busiest day can miss the bigger picture.
Here’s an example: a consumer tech brand offers early access to sporting goods on Thursday, a gift bundle with pickup on Friday, a new gift guide over the weekend, and highlights electronics with installment pricing and an evening SMS on Monday.
They measure success by the five-day contribution margin after discounts, not just Monday’s ROAS.
Plan Cyber Week with Darkroom
Cyber Monday tends to bring in the most online revenue, while Black Friday usually sees the most shoppers and overall growth. Each product category has its own peak day during this period. The best approach is to look at the entire five-day stretch as a single opportunity.
Assign a specific focus to each day, align your top products with the days when their categories are most popular, and evaluate performance based on full Cyber Week results, accounting for both discounts and returns.
With Darkroom, a dedicated senior strategist manages your entire Cyber Week plan across all channels. Shadow, the AI commerce platform, helps identify which investments drive additional revenue, while the live Flight Plan keeps the team aligned and agile during the busiest days.
Book a call with a growth strategist
Frequently Asked Questions
When is Cyber Monday 2026?
Cyber Monday 2026 falls on Monday, November 30, the Monday after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26, and Black Friday is November 27, so Cyber Week runs from November 26 to November 30. Adobe expects discounts to start building in early November and to reach their deepest levels during those five days.
Is Cyber Week the same as Cyber 5?
Usually, yes. Adobe defines Cyber Week as the five days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, the stretch retailers also call it Cyber 5. Some data providers use a longer window: Salesforce counted Cyber Week 2025 as the seven days from November 25 to December 1, so its totals can't be compared directly with Adobe's.
Do discounts continue after Cyber Monday?
Yes, but they get shallower. Adobe expects peak discounts of up to 10% to 15% in December 2026, well below the Cyber Week peak. A brand that extends its Cyber Monday offer into December is competing against lighter deals, so it doesn't need Cyber Week's discount depth to stand out.
Is Cyber Monday only online?
No, though it is still the online-led day. Cyber Monday began as an online sales event, and many large retailers now carry the same prices in stores. NRF's survey still counts Cyber Monday shoppers online only, and phones are the device most of them shop on, so the day rewards a fast mobile checkout more than a store promotion.
