Blog Part 1: What is the Cyber Five period? (...

Part 1: What is the Cyber Five period? (Answer: Revenue opportunity)

E-commerce apps, now that Amazon Prime Day has come and gone, the next major focus of your marketing efforts will likely be the upcoming holiday season. But more specifically, many marketers are turning their attention and budgets to the Cyber Five period.

While November is still three months out, it’s imperative e-commerce marketers plan in advance for Cyber Five. Gain a better understanding of Cyber Five, and get four reasons why your e-commerce app should be planning campaigns for it in part one of our latest e-commerce series.

Q: What is Cyber Five?

Cyber Five is the five-day period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. This time frame is also commonly referred to as Cyber Week.

Why Cyber Five should be on e-commerce apps’ radar

Essentially, Cyber Five is a five-day revenue hike prompted by online sales, which takes the tradition of the brick-and-mortar Black Friday consumer sprees to the digital realm and expands it across several days.

Here are four reasons e-commerce apps need to zero in on Cyber Five.

1. It drives consumer revenue

Although Cyber Five has the strongest presence in its origin country—the U.S., Salesforce data reported that global online sales for Cyber Week in 2022 hit US$281 billion! This figure proves Cyber Five has become an international event and deserves marketers’ attention worldwide.

Zooming in on the U.S., below is a breakdown of revenue across the five days of Cyber Week, per Adobe Analytics. Over 2022’s Cyber Week, consumers spent 4% more online than the year before, at US$35.27 billion. Notably, consumers spent the most on Cyber Monday 2022 at US$11.3 billion, up 5.7% from the previous year, setting a new record for the day. Black Friday’s revenue came in second at US$9.1 billion, up 2.3% YOY.

Cyber Five revenue 2022

2. 58% of consumers prefer to shop more online than in-store

During this time, consumers get holiday gifts, score big-ticket items they’ve been waiting to purchase, and peruse festive discounts to see what deals are available. And, according to Klarna Insights, 58% of U.S. shoppers say they prefer to shop more online during Cyber Five than in-store. Of these shoppers, 74% believe they will get lower prices online and 78% prefer shopping online to save time.

3. More shoppers are moving to mobile

Related to the above, consumer preference to shop online didn’t diminish post-pandemic as expected. In fact, two million more people shopped online during Cyber Five 2022 than Cyber Five 2021. And in better news for e-commerce apps, mobile shopping drove 55% of the sales coming from smartphones.

4. November e-commerce app installs and revenue soar

Per data from Adjust’s Mobile app trends: 2023 edition, November 2022 was the top-performing month for global e-commerce app installs, a stunning 21% above the yearly average.

E-commerce app install growth 2023 graph

But November’s show-stopping moment didn’t end there. November 2022 was also the highest month ever tracked by Adjust for e-commerce in-app revenue. Users are spending more in the month of November, likely linked to the approaching holiday season and seasonal discounts that tend to abound during Cyber Five.

E-commerce in-app revenue January 2021 - January 2023

Stay tuned: More Cyber Five coverage coming up!

Just as we recently covered the hype around Meta’s Threads app, or generative AI and CTV, Adjust is continually reporting on the hottest app trends. We provide the best in-depth, data-driven analysis for marketers looking to take their holiday season e-commerce campaigns to the next level, which is why this is a three-part series.

Therefore, in the upcoming weeks, we’ll deliver two more blogs, the second will cover the newest insights for e-commerce apps during Cyber Five and the November surge. The third will investigate how marketers can leverage the latest technologies to amplify their Cyber Five campaigns.

Want to get the most powerful analytics for your e-commerce app? Schedule your demo now to see how Adjust’s mobile measurement and analytics platform can help you meet your growth goals.

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