What 20 AppLovin Incrementality Tests Mean for BFCM

AppLovin was our third-highest-spending advertising channel during Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2025, behind Meta and Google. Our year-to-date investment in the channel had grown roughly 5× year over year at the time of this conversation.Tony Chopp and Steve Rekuc explain what roughly 20 incrementality tests have shown and why those findings give them confidence in AppLovin heading into BFCM. They discuss the relatively consistent results across our tests, how measurement informs media investment, and the creative deployment work underway to support the channel.In this episode:AppLovin incrementality testing: What our results suggest about the channel’s contribution and why the range across tests matters.Ecommerce media allocation: How greater confidence in measurement has supported increased investment across our portfolio.Creative deployment: The infrastructure we’re building to get more ads into AppLovin.Early holiday sales: Why returning-customer revenue and new-customer revenue need separate assumptions in your forecast.Demand after Cyber Monday: The stronger new-customer revenue growth Steve observed near the Christmas shipping cutoff in 2025.You’ll hear the evidence behind Tony’s prediction that AppLovin could be a breakout channel this Black Friday, along with the customer buying patterns informing our broader holiday plans.Show Notes:Q4 waits for no one. AppLovin is offering $5K ad credit when you spend $5K. Go to applovin.com/ctc to set up your first campaignLearn more: https://commonthreadco.comTrack your brand’s performance: https://statlas.ioWork with us: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/contactHave a question for the Ecommerce Playbook? Email [email protected]

When should you run your Black Friday sale? Ezra Firestone explains why his brands perform differently depending on whether customers are buying for themselves or shopping for gifts, and how those patterns shape his BFCM strategy.Ezra joins Taylor Holiday live at Commerce Roundtable in San Diego to walk through the holiday sales calendar he uses across his brands, from early November list building through the final week of December.Inside Ezra’s promotional calendar:- November 1–12: Build anticipation and collect signups for early Black Friday.- Around November 13: Launch the early sale, support it with advertising, email, and SMS, then pull back promotion before the next peak.- Black Friday through Cyber Monday: Return with another promotional window, adjusting advertising investment based on the brand’s performance.- December shipping cutoff: Concentrate on gifting demand as the deadline for Christmas delivery approaches.- December 26–31: Run a countdown-to-New-Year sale.Across Ezra’s brands, products customers buy for themselves tend to perform better early, while gifting brands find stronger opportunities during Cyber Five and approaching Christmas shipping deadlines. He explains how those differences influence where he puts his advertising budget.They also discuss strengthening holiday offers with bundles, gifts with purchase, and high-margin cart add-ons; why Ezra interviews every employee when stepping into a business; and the operating changes he’s making as product and marketing costs rise.This episode is brought to you by:- Trybe: https://bit.ly/4xXvD08- Alia: https://bit.ly/4yuP8ON- Bill: https://bit.ly/4e9JQQmShow Notes:Learn more: https://commonthreadco.comTrack your brand’s performance: https://statlas.ioWork with us: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/contactHave a question for the Ecommerce Playbook? Email [email protected]

Our team made more than 12,000 bid and budget adjustments across our portfolio during Cyber Five last year. For Black Friday 2026, we’re testing whether AI-assisted Meta media buying can make those decisions more consistent, timely, and aligned with business targets.McCay Rasmussen, our Senior Paid Media Manager, joins Richard Gaffin to explain the system we’re building for all 120 hours from Black Friday through Cyber Monday. It compares performance with hourly revenue expectations, identifies gaps, and uses business context to determine what should happen next.McCay illustrates the approach with our portfolio data suggesting roughly 27% of Black Friday revenue would arrive by 8am. That becomes a checkpoint for evaluating pacing, with a traffic-light framework helping distinguish a smaller shortfall from one that needs a larger response.In this episode:How an authorized AI agent could adjust a campaign’s budget at 4am while the team is offlineWhy contribution margin, marketing efficiency ratio (MER), and incremental ROAS inform account decisionsSetting limits on automated changes and alerts for human reviewReviewing the timing and impact of last year’s bid and budget adjustmentsPreparing for changes in demand after Black Friday and Cyber Monday peaksThe practical starting point is your own forecast. McCay explains how historical hourly revenue and your promotional calendar can establish expectations before you define which decisions to automate.Show Notes:Expand beyond your own site without building a whole new operation. Find out what’s possible at https://www.mirakl.com/ctcLearn more: https://commonthreadco.comTrack your brand’s performance: https://statlas.ioWork with us: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/contactHave a question for the Ecommerce Playbook? Email [email protected]

SHOPPS started with Taylor Holiday’s own baseball card and a question: why couldn’t the founders and operators building ecommerce brands have something like that, too?On this episode of The Ecommerce Playbook, Taylor and CMO, Grant Zanini, share how that idea became a physical trading card collection made for the ecommerce community.The first SHOPPS collection features 100 leaders, 1,000 packs, and $50,000 in real prizes. None of the packs are for sale, so you have to win one.They explain what it took to make cards worth collecting, why the featured players are helping distribute packs, and how the community can get involved. They also walk through the rare editions, 1/1 autograph cards with prizes attached, and sponsor Golden Tickets before ripping a pack themselves.There are SHOPPS packs up for grabs in the comments. For a chance to win, tell us about the most valuable card in your collection or let us know if you own Taylor Holiday’s Bowman Chrome baseball card from his playing days.See the collection and how to get a pack: https://www.shoppscards.com/Thanks to Fulfil and Omnisend for helping bring SHOPPS to life!-Fulfil: https://www.fulfil.io/-Omnisend: https://your.omnisend.com/TaylorHolidayShow Notes:Learn more: https://commonthreadco.comTrack your brand’s performance: https://statlas.ioWork with us: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/contactHave a question for the Ecommerce Playbook? Email [email protected]

Brandon Horoho, co-founder and CMO of Montana Knife Company (MKC), joins Taylor Holiday live at Commerce Roundtable in San Diego to break down a Black Friday strategy built around product drops. MKC creates five distinct shopping events across the week, giving customers reasons to buy full-price knives as new products and inventory become available.Brandon explains how the team plans those releases around different customer interests, gives each launch its own email and SMS push, and schedules additional drops after Cyber Monday to keep selling through the Christmas shipping cutoff.In this episode:Creating five Black Friday shopping events around culinary knives, pocket knives, and other product categories.Using product availability to generate excitement without running public discounts on knives.Why MKC sends each holiday event to its full audience instead of segmenting by customer interest.Planning BFCM launches around real manufacturing capacity and inventory constraints.Keeping products available for December shoppers after earlier years left the brand sold out before Christmas.Building demand through organic content and collaborations when paid advertising options are limited.This episode is brought to you by:- Trybe: https://bit.ly/4xXvD08- Alia: https://bit.ly/4yuP8ON- Bill: https://bit.ly/4e9JQQmShow Notes:Q4 waits for no one. AppLovin is offering $5K ad credit when you spend $5K. Go to applovin.com/ctc to set up your first campaignLearn more: https://commonthreadco.comTrack your brand’s performance: https://statlas.ioWork with us: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/contactHave a question for the Ecommerce Playbook? Email [email protected]

iOS 27 is raising questions about Meta ads tracking ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Tony Chopp and Steve Rekuc examine what changed, what CTC is seeing in conversion data, and which parts of your Shopify and Meta setup deserve a closer look.CTC’s early analysis showed Meta conversion rates down roughly 15% year over year from October 8–18. That decline caught the team’s attention, but it does not establish Apple’s update as the cause. Tony and Steve explain how to investigate your conversion tracking before drawing that conclusion.In this episode:What iOS 27’s browser-based tracking changes target and how they differ from iOS 14.5.How missing or incomplete conversion signals can affect attribution and ad targeting.What to review in your Meta Pixel, Conversions API (CAPI), and Shopify data-sharing settings.Comparing Shopify orders with purchase events in Meta Events Manager to investigate missing or duplicate events.Why event match quality matters and what changing iOS adoption means for the timing of incrementality tests.Start with the last 30 days of Shopify purchases and the corresponding purchase events in Meta. Tony and Steve explain what discrepancies can reveal and where to investigate before holiday spending increases.Show Notes:Go to https://www.universalads.com/middleman and use code UACTC to get $2,500 in matched ad credits when you spend $2,500.Learn more: https://commonthreadco.comTrack your brand’s performance: https://statlas.ioWork with us: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/contactHave a question for the Ecommerce Playbook? Email [email protected]

Profitable ecommerce growth gets harder when repeat purchases are limited. In his Commerce Roundtable San Diego keynote, Taylor Holiday examines how Skullcandy, The Normal Brand, and Spiral Bible are growing with low customer lifetime value (LTV) and a need to make customer acquisition profitable on the first order.Taylor walks through changes to distribution, creative production costs, and campaign planning that helped these brands find room to scale. He also shares CTC’s research on ad performance to explain why the cost of finding successful creative matters.In this episode:Skullcandy: TikTok Shop reached 4.3x its January level by August, while ecommerce reached 2.7x its January level. He explains how creator content can generate demand that converts across the website, Amazon, and retail.The Normal Brand: June ad spend doubled year over year while incremental ROAS held steady. He explains how commission-based creator production increased creative volume and reduced upfront production costs, making more testing financially viable.Spiral Bible: Coordinated marketing moments and creator production supported a 4.4x increase in ad spend from May to August, while platform ROAS improved from 1.63 to 1.91. He breaks down how the team aligned offers, creators, email, and website messaging.Creative testing economics: In CTC’s analysis of more than 1.3 million ads, the top 5% accounted for 73% of calculated contribution value before creative production costs. He explains why that distribution changes what brands can afford to pay for each new ad.Show Notes:Expand beyond your own site without building a whole new operation. Find out what’s possible at https://www.mirakl.com/ctcLearn more: https://commonthreadco.comTrack your brand’s performance: https://statlas.ioWork with us: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/contactHave a question for the Ecommerce Playbook? Email [email protected]

Black Friday ad spend can generate a different incremental return than it does during a typical sales period. Luke Austin, President of Common Thread Collective, joins Richard Gaffin to explain how incrementality testing can help you decide where your holiday budget belongs.They discuss what CTC has observed in promotional-period tests and why your usual return on ad spend (ROAS) target may need adjusting during Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM). The goal is to understand which sales your ads generate beyond what would have happened without them, then use that information to guide spending.From there, Luke explores where brands could reinvest if the results support a change, including offers that evolve throughout the day and a larger role for creators in promoting them. He shares examples brands have already tried and outlines his proposal for coordinating offers across larger creator networks.In this episode:Why Black Friday ad spend can be more or less incremental than spending during a typical sales periodUsing conversion lift studies and holdout tests to measure additional salesApplying incrementality findings to Meta and Google ad budgets and ROAS targetsGiving shoppers new reasons to buy through flash sales and changing gifts with purchaseEquipping creators with approved offers, inventory updates, and financial limitsGiving creators room to develop their own messaging while preserving essential product requirementsShow Notes:Go to https://www.universalads.com/middleman and use code UACTC to get $2,500 in matched ad credits when you spend $2,500.Learn more: https://commonthreadco.comTrack your brand’s performance: https://statlas.ioWork with us: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/contactHave a question for the Ecommerce Playbook? Email [email protected]

Luke Austin, President of Common Thread Collective, joins Richard Gaffin to explain how to keep shoppers engaged after your Black Friday sale goes live.They break down the Power 30, the holiday window that accounts for 55% of Q4 website revenue in the data discussed, and the offer decisions that deserve attention throughout it. Luke shares examples of brands using VIP hours, featured-product flash sales, and changing gifts with purchase to give customers fresh reasons to visit and buy.The conversation covers how to prepare those moments, adapt to sales and inventory, and keep each offer easy for shoppers to understand.In this episode:Building a holiday calendar around early access, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the shipping cutoffWhy Luke prioritizes offer strategy alongside the media plan during peak shopping daysWhat happened when one brand added its bestselling product line back into its holiday offerPlanning fresh offers and messages within a single dayUsing inventory, margins, and minimum order values to shape gifts with purchaseKeeping a consistent promotional theme as individual offers changeShow Notes:Q4 waits for no one. AppLovin is offering $5K ad credit when you spend $5K. Go to applovin.com/ctc to set up your first campaignLearn more: https://commonthreadco.comTrack your brand’s performance: https://statlas.ioWork with us: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/contactHave a question for the Ecommerce Playbook? Email [email protected]

Joy Sharma, who leads CTC's seven-figure service offering, joins Richard with one goal: give every 7-figure ecommerce brand a clear BFCM prep playbook before the season hits.They walk through five areas in order from least to most impact.Housekeeping: Make sure your ad account billing limit is higher than your expected spend. Check your Commerce Manager, confirm your pixel is firing with 90%+ match rate, and clear any blockages before November.Offer: Your discount needs to be 20% or higher. Anything below that doesn't register. Simplify it — no tiered structures, no math for the customer. If your BFCM customers have weak LTV, build bundles around AOV instead of chasing subscriptions. And have something for your whales — Joy has sold $1,000 bundles for brands with $50 products. People don't realize how rich their best customers are.Email and SMS: Run at least three emails a week during the pre-Black Friday period. One email a day during Black Friday week. Up to three emails on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Immediately after Cyber Monday, run a two-day extension. Then shift to a free shipping cutoff sale. Most brands stop on Cyber Monday. That last window has a lot of revenue left in it. Send on your peak hours — use your historical data to find them.Landing page: The homepage is the hero. Run your ads there. Add a countdown timer, a sticky bar, slashed prices in a different color, and at least three product blocks (bestsellers, highest AOV, highest margin). Build a whale bundle. Turn off your evergreen first-time-buyer pop-ups.Creative (highest impact): CTC's research across hundreds of brands found that BFCM-specific ads drive only 30% of total Meta spend during the holiday period. Evergreen carries 70%. Don't sacrifice October ad production to make more November ads — October ads spend 50% more over Q4. But nobody makes enough Black Friday ads. One brand went from $5K a day to $55K a day by making 1,500 ads. Creative hierarchy: frames first, then catalogs with sale creative, then statics with offers overlaid, then video remixes of top performers, then new creator content if you have capacity.BLACK FRIDAY AD RESEARCH: https://commonthreadco-global.com/bfcmShow Notes:Go to https://www.universalads.com/middleman and use code UACTC to get $2,500 in matched ad credits when you spend $2,500.Learn more: https://commonthreadco.comTrack your brand’s performance: https://statlas.ioWork with us: https://commonthreadco.com/pages/contactHave a question for the Ecommerce Playbook? Email [email protected]