Brands planning to participate in Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales should test their advertising creative months before the shopping frenzy begins, according to new data that shows waiting until the traditional fourth quarter can mean competing in a more expensive advertising market.

Data from marketing platform Billo, based on Meta advertising activity tracked between June and December 2025, shows competition increased by about 40% between August and the November Black Friday peak. Over the same period, the cost of reaching 1,000 impressions rose by roughly 18%.

The findings suggest brands that leave creative testing until October or November risk launching campaigns at the precise point when advertising costs are at their highest.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have become the biggest ecommerce advertising period of the year, creating intense competition for attention from consumers across Meta and other social platforms. 

“Everyone treats Black Friday as a fourth-quarter problem, so everyone ends up competing for the same ad space at the same time,” said Donatas Smailys, co-founder and CEO of Billo, which connects brands with creators to make social video ads.

“Brands that create their ads early and test them in August get better results than brands that wait until October or November. By the time November comes, the brands that tested early already know what works, while the brands that waited are launching untested ads during the most expensive weeks of the year.”

According to Billo, August provides a window for brands to develop, test and refine creative before the cost of advertising starts to accelerate.

The process can be timely, involving producing several short-form video variations for the same product.

Rather than immediately committing significant paid media budgets, brands can test different versions with targeted audiences, or through organic social posts. The strongest performers can then be developed into the primary paid advertisements for the Black Friday period.

“You don’t need a media budget to find out if an ad works,” Smailys said.

“In August, we tell our clients to post a few short variants organically, each with a different hook and a different creator. A small, specific audience responds within days, and that tells you which version actually lands.”

Billo recommends producing around three to five short creative variations per product to systematically test different approaches and establish which messages resonate with potential customers.

Once the successful creative has been identified, brands can put their advertising budgets behind the strongest-performing versions to make the most of the peak shopping period.

Billo’s analysis is based on client Meta advertising data tracked monthly from June through December 2025. The reported 40%increase in competition and 18% rise in the cost of reaching 1,000 impressions compare August 2025 with the November 2025 peak.

The company says the cost-per-1,000-impressions figure is derived from total advertising spend divided by total impressions, multiplied by 1,000, rather than being a directly reported metric in the underlying dataset.

For brands preparing for Black Friday 2026, the message is to put in the groundwork now.