By Will Burghes, Head of Professional Services, DV Rockerbox
Black Friday Cyber Monday used to be a four-day sprint. For marketers in 2026, this critical selling season is a multi-month test of discipline: how early you build demand, how rigorously you test, and how well you can prove your marketing delivered incremental revenue.
The brands that achieve strong results during peak season are not necessarily those discounting the deepest; they are the ones planning well and executing flawlessly.
To set up your business for success, DV Rockerbox™ recommends making five moves right away:
1. Start Earlier Than You Think You Need To
No longer limited to Thanksgiving weekend, BFCM starts in early fall. Shift some brand awareness to October to build demand ahead of the rush.
Consider teasing sales early using owned channels like email, SMS and push; or opening a VIP early access window to build anticipation before the wider sale.
tvScientific by Pinterest, 2026 Holiday & Seasonal Shopping Trends Report (N=487), US, July 2026
2. Test a Small Channel Before You Scale It
Most brands pause incrementality testing in Q4, then restart their testing program in the new year. A better approach is picking a lower-risk channel with limited spend and testing it throughout the season.
Run the channel as a geo test, holding out a well-planned selection of geos. As the season progresses, watch how the test performs. A channel that looks promising in early November can behave very differently closer to Black Friday, once CPMs spike.
Then extend the read into December and January, since returns, loyalty signups and repeat purchases are part of judging whether the channel is worth scaling.
3. Plan with the Incrementality Data You Already Have
Testing during a season tells you what is working right now for that season. This idea is different: Use the incrementality data you already have from past seasons or campaigns to shape this year's plan before you spend a dollar.
Look back at last year's biggest promotional pushes and identify which ones drove lift and which just pulled forward sales that would have happened anyway.
Use that history to set this year's promotional calendar and discount depth. Allocate this season's budget not toward the channels with the highest reported ROAS, but toward those with a track record of incremental lift for your brand. Treat any channel or promotion with a history of borrowed demand as a lower priority for new investment.
4. Build a Decision Tree Before the Chaos Starts
A calendar tells you what you plan to do. A decision tree tells you what to do when the plan breaks. (And for a marketing team of any complexity, the plan will break somewhere.)
Map out the disruptions most likely to hit your category and size: a competitor ramping spend harder than expected, a channel suddenly underperforming, a viral moment demanding a fast spend increase, a platform outage during peak hours. For each scenario, identify the trigger signal that will tell you “this is happening” and how you will respond. No one should be debating strategy in real time on Black Friday!
Set your lowest tolerable ROAS in advance, so you know when to pull back spend instead of continuing to invest in an underperforming channel by default. Set your highest spend ceiling in advance, too, so a weak revenue trend does not turn into an unplanned budget blowout.
5. Analyze Last Year's CPM Inflation Before Ramping Up Spend
CPMs spike every BFCM, as every brand in your category fights in an auction for the same audience. The question worth asking before you plan this year's spend: Did last year's spend increase pay off, or did you just pay more for the same result? Remember: There isn’t that much more inventory available during BFCM than there is any other weekend, because consumers aren’t consuming radically more content.
Pull last year's BFCM CPMs by channel and compare them to your non-peak baseline, so you know exactly how much the auction inflated. Did you get more impressions for your extra spend, or were you spending more just to reach the same number of customers?
To see whether the extra spend bought you extra sales, match the CPM spike against your incremental attributed lift — not just raw conversions — from the same period. Identify the specific days or channels on which CPM inflation outpaced any lift you got in return, and treat those as your first candidates to cut or cap this year.
Don’t wait until you’re in the middle of a bidding war: Set a clear point in advance at which rising CPMs are no longer worth chasing.
The Throughline
None of these five moves works in isolation. Starting early pays off only if you are testing what you learn along the way. Testing pays off only if your plan is grounded in what truly drove incremental sales last time, not just what converted. And none of it matters if a competitor's move on November 27 catches you with no plan for how to respond.
The brands that drive profitable growth during BFCM 2026 will be the ones treating it as a season-long discipline, not a four-day sprint.
Next Steps
Contact a DV Representative.
Learn more about DV Rockerbox.