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Triple Whale Reports Record Engagement During BFCM 2025

In the 2025 Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) season, Triple Whale, an intelligence platform that supports over 50,000 ecommerce and retail brands, announced record levels of engagement among its users. The increase comes as brands increasingly rely on AI tools to navigate a challenging retail landscape characterized by rising advertising expenses and inflation.

This year, brands faced significant pressures to optimize their strategies, given the slower growth and higher customer acquisition costs. To remain competitive, they turned to AI-driven insights, which facilitated faster and more informed decision-making. According to AJ Orbach, founder and CEO of Triple Whale, this season marked a pivotal moment for their platform, emphasizing the need for operational efficiency and strategic advisory roles over merely providing data.

Key Findings from the BFCM 2025 Breakdown Report

Triple Whale’s report outlines several notable trends that emerged during the BFCM period:

• - Shift in Advertising Channels: Advertising performance on established platforms like Meta and Google experienced shifts, prompting brands to explore emerging channels such as TikTok and AppLovin.
• - Retention Over Acquisition: While larger brands predominantly in apparel and health & beauty sectors saw most of their revenue come from returning customers, smaller businesses actively pursued new customers during this high-traffic sales period.
• - Early Shopping Trends: Shoppers began making purchases earlier than in previous years, creating a significant revenue stream prior to the traditional BFCM weekend.

Across the entire Triple Whale ecosystem, brands collectively generated approximately $2.88 billion in revenue during the BFCM sales period. This sum constituted a remarkable 19.7% of total sales made by Shopify merchants. Advertisers allocated about $606 million on ads via the platform, resulting in 26 million orders and generating $1.4 billion in revenue from new customers. The platform's usage also peaked, with its AI assistant, Moby, managing nearly 25,000 real-time inquiries, underscoring the trust brands place in AI for guidance.

Economic Realities Impacting BFCM 2025

The 2025 BFCM event took place against a backdrop of sustained inflation, escalated consumer anxiety, and rising costs in advertising. Consequently, brands had to adopt more strategic spending habits. This season saw an increase in advertising expenses alongside fluctuating performance metrics within Meta and Google:

• - Meta's return on ad spend (ROAS) remained relatively unchanged at 2.26, with costs per thousand impressions (CPM) climbing to $22.26.
• - Conversely, Google recorded a steeper decline in ROAS, down to 3.62, alongside a significant 34.18% rise in costs per acquisition (CPA) to $26.31.

Amid these pressures, brands modified their strategies, experimenting with less conventional channels that promised better audience engagement and cost efficiency. For instance, despite the largest ad platforms commanding the majority of budgets, TikTok and AppLovin saw notable increases in effectiveness and advertising share, indicating a strategic diversification away from traditional duopolies.

Prioritizing Customer Retention

As advertising costs escalated, the focus shifted towards customer retention. Triple Whale's analytics illustrated that larger brands increasingly favored repeat customers. Smaller brands, on the other hand, still relied heavily on new customer acquisitions. A balanced mix was preferable for mid-sized brands while mature brands (those achieving over $10 million in revenue) enjoyed the benefits of repeat customer relationships.

Top-performing brands harnessed AI for predictive analysis regarding repurchase likelihood, automating lifecycle marketing through tailored communications and promotional offers to maintain customer engagement beyond the BFCM weekend.

The Expansion of the Shopping Season

The timeframe for BFCM sales broadened significantly, with brands grossing $1.77 billion in pre-BFCM revenue. Early promotional campaigns and extended sales proved instrumental in capturing consumer interest ahead of Black Friday, though they also compressed profit margins. Efficiency throughout this promotional phase emerged as the hallmark of success, necessitating continuous optimization strategies around the calendar.

Dominant Categories: Apparel and Health & Beauty

The sectors that thrived during this season were apparel and health & beauty, which together accounted for nearly 60% of sales across the Triple Whale platform. Apparel alone generated $1.07 billion, driven by high average order values and dynamic advertising strategies. Health & beauty entities followed closely, achieving $680 million, showcasing the importance of brand loyalty in the face of rising competition.

Overall, BFCM 2025 marked a transformative moment in ecommerce, clearly illustrating that AI, along with a focus on retention and effective marketing strategies, would define competitive success in the years to come.

About Triple Whale

Triple Whale is an agent-powered intelligence platform designed to facilitate rapid and informed decision-making for brands. By leveraging AI agents that operate atop an automated data warehouse, it transforms complex data into actionable insights geared towards profitable growth. Trusted by innovative brands like OUAI, Pressed Juicery, and True Classic, Triple Whale enables businesses to scale with assurance, achieving an average 42% increase in new customer revenue within just three months.