Last year, we published a study that challenged a common assumption and asked the question: Is Cyber Monday really the biggest day of the year for online sales?

When we specifically examined Google Ads conversion value, we found that Black Friday outperformed Cyber Monday across thousands of advertiser accounts.

We revisited the same question in 2025, examining the same advertisers who were included in our 2024 study. We also ran this updated study with a more refined lens. By segmenting results into e-commerce and lead generation, the story became more precise and more nuanced than before.

Same Question, Better Lens

In our 2024 analysis, we evaluated all advertiser accounts together and found that Black Friday generated more Google Ads conversion value than Cyber Monday.

In 2025, we refined the methodology by segmenting results by business model:

• E-commerce
• Lead generation

That extra layer of detail matters a lot.

2025 Results: One Question, Two Very Different Answers

Two years of data now point to a clear pattern: e-commerce has a winner during BFCM. Lead gen does not.

E-commerce saw a 34% surge on Black Friday, while Lead Gen remained completely flat. This 34-point delta proves that “rising tides” do not lift all boats equally.

E-commerce Advertisers: Black Friday’s Lead Is Growing

For e-commerce advertisers, Black Friday didn’t just win again; it won by more, for the second year in a row.

Google Ads E-commerce Conversion Value

The trend of Black Friday being bigger is accelerating.

Efficiency metrics tell the same story in 2025:

• ROAS: 835% (BF) vs 674% (CM) → 24% higher on Black Friday
• Conversion rates: Higher on Black Friday
• CPCs: Lower on Black Friday

More e-commerce demand is converting on Black Friday and it’s being captured more efficiently.

Lead Generation Advertisers: Both Days Perform Equally

For lead generation advertisers, the story is very different.

In 2025, Black Friday and Cyber Monday delivered virtually identical conversion value, a sharp contrast to e-commerce.

Google Ads Lead Gen Conversion Value

In 2025, Black Friday and Cyber Monday delivered virtually identical total conversion value.

Importantly, this wasn’t true last year, so unlike e-commerce, lead gen has no reliable “bigger day.”

ROAS reinforces this pattern:

• ROAS: 357% (BF) vs 332% (CM) → a modest 8% difference

This reflects fundamental differences in how demand converts.

Black Friday Wins on Efficiency, Not Just Volume (E-commerce)

Conversion value tells us where demand landed.
ROAS tells us how efficiently that demand was captured.

When we examine the return on ad spend for e-commerce advertisers in 2025, the pattern reinforces the conversion-value results.

Google Ads E-commerce ROAS (2025)

This matters for two reasons:

1. Black Friday didn’t just drive more revenue; it did so more efficiently.
   Advertisers weren’t paying a premium to capture that demand. In fact, lower CPCs and higher conversion rates combined to produce meaningfully better returns.
   
2. The growing conversion-value gap isn’t driven by overspending.
   If Black Friday’s higher revenue were at the expense of efficiency, we would have seen lower ROAS. Instead, ROAS increased, reinforcing that buyer intent is stronger and easier to monetize on Black Friday.

Taken together, conversion value and ROAS point to the same conclusion: for e-commerce advertisers, Black Friday is increasingly the moment when demand is both highest and easiest to convert.

Lead generation tells a very different story.

Lead Generation Efficiency: No Clear Advantage on Either Day

Just as conversion value showed no clear winner for lead gen, efficiency tells the same story.

While Cyber Monday slightly outperformed Black Friday in terms of conversion value in 2024, and the two days tied in 2025, the ROAS differences remain modest and inconsistent.

Google Ads Lead Gen ROAS (2025)

An 8% difference is modest relative to normal day-to-day variation in lead gen performance, and far smaller than the efficiency gap seen in e-commerce.

In short, neither Black Friday nor Cyber Monday reliably converts lead gen ad spend more efficiently.

Why Black Friday’s E-commerce Dominance Keeps Growing

BFCM Is Fundamentally a Retail Event

BFCM and the Cyber-5 are a retail event. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are built around:

• Promotions
• Pricing urgency
• Inventory availability

Those mechanics map cleanly to e-commerce. They matter far less for lead generation, where purchases aren’t usually driven by one-day deals or expiring discounts.

So, if lead-gen isn’t promoting extra deals during this period, it makes sense that there won’t be any big differences between the days.

“Black Friday” Started Long Before Friday

In 2025, many retailers launched promotions throughout November, often in staggered waves. Black Friday became less of a starting point and more of a moment of peak intent.

By the time Black Friday arrived, shoppers had already:

• Seen competing offers
• Compared prices
• Decided what qualified as a “good deal”

Early Deals Likely Primed Buyers

With deals visible well ahead of Black Friday, shoppers had time to evaluate and commit mentally.

When urgency peaked on Black Friday itself, many were already prepared to buy, helping concentrate ecommerce conversions on that day rather than pushing them to Cyber Monday.

Cyber Monday Didn’t Consistently Raise the Stakes

While some categories (notably electronics) can see deeper Cyber Monday discounts, for many shoppers the deals weren’t meaningfully better than what they’d already seen.

If Black Friday already looks attractive, waiting until Monday offers limited upside and fewer reasons to delay a purchase.

Why Lead Generation Behaves Differently

Lead generation doesn’t follow a retail playbook.

While e-commerce thrives on ‘buy now’ panic, lead generation thrives on consideration. The very mechanics that supercharge Black Friday, like expiring timers and scarcity are often irrelevant or even detrimental to the high-consideration journey of a lead gen prospect.

Most lead gen advertisers don’t face:

• Inventory constraints
• Doorbuster-style promotions
• “Buy today or miss out” pricing

Instead, perceived value is driven by:

• Intent timing
• Availability
• Speed and quality of follow-up

As a result, demand spreads more evenly, and the idea of a single “biggest day” largely disappears.

What This Means for Advertisers

If You’re an E-commerce Advertiser

• Treat Black Friday as the primary conversion event
• Prepare budgets, bids, and promotions accordingly
• Don’t rely on Cyber Monday to close the gap
  

If You’re a Lead Gen Advertiser

• Don’t force a retail calendar onto lead gen
• Optimize for consistent coverage, not spikes
• Focus on lead quality and follow-up

Data & Methodology

This study analyzed aggregated Google Ads performance data from Optmyzr-managed accounts, comparing Black Friday (Nov 28, 2025) and Cyber Monday (Dec 1, 2025).

• E-commerce accounts: 5,134
• Lead generation accounts: 14,463
• Metrics analyzed include spend, clicks, conversions, ROAS, and total conversion value
• Conversion value reflects advertiser-defined values in Google Ads
• All data was aggregated and anonymized

Data current as of December 12, 2025.
To reduce the impact of conversion lag on our findings, we waited more than one week past Cyber Monday to pull the data, but note that the final conversion values may still increase due to the time between the click and when the user completes their purchase.

Looking Ahead

The data confirms that the Cyber-5 is no longer a monolithic event.
→ For e-commerce, it’s a front-loaded sprint.
→ For lead gen, it’s largely business as usual.

As we look toward 2026, the smartest advertisers will stop asking, “How much should we spend during Cyber Week?” and start asking, “Does our business model actually benefit from participating in this retail cycle?”

Book your free 14-day trial today and put these insights to work.

We’ll continue running this analysis in future years to track how these dynamics evolve and to separate retail myths from data-backed reality.