30 Black Friday ad examples from real brands, grouped by offer
AG1 launched its Black Friday ad on October 31, 2025, four weeks before the day itself. Our Place launched one on November 4 and another on November 14. Glossier's price-card ad went live November 20 and was gone within two weeks. That's what Black Friday ads look like in Meta's Ad Library: short, early, and stacked. Below are 30 real Black Friday ad examples from brands like Glossier, HexClad, Dyson, Our Place, and Allbirds, grouped by the offer they lead with, with run data for the 12 we can date and a plain note on the 18 we can't. Or jump straight to the ads.
One scope note: this post is about brand ad creative for Facebook and Instagram. If you searched "black friday ads" looking for a store's weekly circular, the retailer's own site is the place for that.
What a Black Friday ad has to do
A Black Friday ad has about one second to say three things: who is selling, what the deal is, and that the deal ends. Every ad below makes a trade-off between those three. Brand-led ads (Dyson, Our Place) bet the name carries the deal. Percentage-led ads (True Classic, Pottery Barn Kids) bet the number carries the name. A third group changes the format entirely: a Notes app, an email, a phone call, a chatbot.
Counting across the 30 ads in this post, here's what the creative does, as opposed to what Black Friday ad roundups say it does:
| What the ad shows | Count (of 30) | Ads |
|---|---|---|
| A percentage off, anywhere in the image | 17 | Most of the set |
| A currency figure ($600 off, £589 off, was/now prices) | 9 | HexClad, Withings, Eight Sleep, Jones Road, Made In, Heights, others |
| No discount number at all | 7 | Glossier, Dyson, Our Place (2), Drowsy, Kind Patches, Pela |
| The product in frame | 25 | All but Pottery Barn Kids, Dose, Allbirds, Cuts, Babbel |
| A free gift or bundle on top of the price | 7 | AG1, Made In, Kind Patches, Carpe, Pela, Heights, Jones Road |
| An "early," "pre-sale," "VIP," or "month" frame | 6 | Pottery Barn Kids, Eight Sleep, AG1, Inside Weather, Dose, Drowsy |
| A deadline or scarcity line in the image | 8 | Withings, Our Place (2), DRMTLGY, Cuts, Babbel, Herbivore, Alo |
| A drawn button or call to action in the image | 8 | Glossier (2), AG1, Made In, Drowsy, Our Place (2), Herbivore |
| A black background | 6 | Bad Birdie, HexClad, Withings, Dyson, Cuts, Babbel |
Two things stand out. First, "Black Friday ads are black" is mostly a myth: 24 of 30 use color, cream, or white, including Glossier's white-and-red bottle ad, which ran 263 days. Second, 7 of 30 lead with no discount number at all. They lean on the brand, the product, or a format trick, and two of them come from Our Place, which ran at least four distinct Black Friday ads in 2025.
Black Friday 2026 in numbers: when to launch and what it costs
Black Friday 2026 falls on November 27 and Cyber Monday on November 30. Adobe's forecast, built on more than 1 trillion visits to US retail sites, expects US online holiday spend of $275.1B from November 1 to December 31, up 6.7%, with Cyber Week (Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday) worth $47.5B, or 17.3% of the season (Adobe, September 28, 2026). Cyber Monday is forecast at $15.1B and Black Friday at $12.9B, with Black Friday growing faster (up 9.2%), driven in part by TVs, apparel, and appliances hitting their deepest discounts that day.
Last year's actuals set the baseline: Black Friday 2025 brought in $11.8B online (up 9.1%), Cyber Monday $14.25B (up 7.1%), and Cyber Week $44.2B (Adobe, December 2025). On Thanksgiving, mobile crossed 60% of online sales for the first time, at 61.6%. Most people will see your Black Friday ad on a phone.
| What | 2025 actual | 2026 forecast | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Holiday season online (Nov 1 – Dec 31) | $253.4B (Adobe's December projection) | $275.1B | Adobe |
| Cyber Week | $44.2B | $47.5B | Adobe |
| Cyber Monday | $14.25B | $15.1B | Adobe |
| Black Friday | $11.8B | $12.9B | Adobe |
| Peak discount | Electronics 31% (Cyber Monday) | Up to 30% off list (Cyber Week) | Adobe |
| Mobile share, Thanksgiving | 61.6% | 63% | Adobe |
Your offer has to beat the discount curve. Adobe expects deals of up to 14% in early November, up to 21% just before Thanksgiving, and up to 30% during Cyber Week, with apparel peaking at 23% and furniture at 18%. If your Black Friday ad says "15% off," it's competing with an early-November number, not a Black Friday one.
When to launch. Meta's own 2026 holiday guidance tells advertisers to build in Q2, launch and test in Q3, and scale in Q4, because "the earlier your 'hearts' campaigns go live, the more they learn before peak" (Meta for Business). Mechanically, it's the learning phase: an ad set needs about 50 optimization events in a week to stabilize, and a significant edit restarts the count. An ad set launched on November 26 spends Black Friday learning. All four short-run Meta ads we can date below launched between October 31 and November 20, 2025, 8 to 28 days before Black Friday.
What it costs. Impressions get expensive. In a sample of large Meta advertisers ($22.6M of spend, September to November 2025), the median brand paid 59% more per 1,000 impressions in Black Friday week than in September, and 84% more on Black Friday itself (Lebesgue, vendor data). Cost per purchase for the same brands fell 20% that week, as conversion rate rose 48%. CPMs started climbing the week of November 10. The 2026 Facebook ads cost breakdown covers the baseline numbers those percentages sit on.
30 Black Friday ad examples, grouped by offer
Every ad below is one of the real Black Friday Facebook ads and Instagram ads in the AdDogs ad library. For 12 of them we hold a run-length, and the source matters:
- Meta-measured (7 ads): days from the ad's start date in Meta's Ad Library to the last time our tracker checked it. Each one links to the ad's own Ad Library page so you can read the dates yourself.
- Foreplay-measured (5 ads): days running as recorded by Foreplay, the ad-tracking service, when the ad entered our library on April 8, 2026.
- No run-length (18 ads): imported from a curated ad gallery without dates. We know the brand ran them. We don't know for how long, and we say so on each one.
What the number proves: the advertiser kept paying for the ad. It doesn't prove the ad was profitable, and for a seasonal ad a long number has a second reading. When a Black Friday ad shows 263 days, the brand either kept it in rotation long after November or left it on at a trickle. Short numbers are normal here, because the sale ends. In the short runs, the useful signal is the launch date. For a refresher on reading the Ad Library, see the Meta Ad Library guide.
The percentage is the headline. It's the default Black Friday sale ad: the number does the selling, and the design decides whether anyone remembers whose number it was. Glossier's opener drops the number entirely, for contrast.
1. Glossier — the bottle and one word
The Glossier You bottle, tilted, rising out of a red swoosh on white. A blue ticker reading "SALE SALE SALE" across the top, "BLACK FRIDAY" in small blue caps, "SALE" in huge blue, a tiny "Shop now" button, and "Exclusions apply" in the corner. No percentage at all. 263 days per Meta's Ad Library data (ad), the longest Meta-measured run of any ad in the sale-led group.
Why it works: Glossier spends its whole frame on the brand's most recognizable product and its exact blue. Anyone who knows Glossier reads it in a glance; the discount lives on the landing page, where it can change daily without a new creative.
Clone it: One hero product, your signature color on the type, one word. Works for any brand with a product people already recognize.
2. Bad Birdie — the word repeated until it's a texture
A 9:16 story: script logo, "UP TO 50% OFF," then "black friday" stacked five times in heavy white lowercase, overlapping, with a golfer in a printed polo cutting through the bottom of the stack. No run-length on record.
Why it works: Repetition fills the frame faster than a photo and reads as urgency without a single urgency word. An athlete breaking the type keeps it from being a text card.
Clone it: Stack the event name until it's a wall, then put one product-in-use photo through it.
3. True Classic — 70% in yellow, stacked tees
"Up To 70% Off Sitewide" in enormous mustard-yellow type over a gray backdrop, a red "Black Friday Sale" seal, and a tall stack of folded tees in navy, white, olive, and charcoal. No run-length on record.
Why it works: One stack shows the product range and the value argument in one picture. At that size, the number works as a thumbnail.
Clone it: Fold, stack, or line up your range; put the percentage above it at three times the size of anything else.
4. Grüns — cropped type, flying gummies
Kelly green, "BLACK FRIDAY" in cream letters so large they run off both edges, "UP TO 60% OFF" in yellow italic across the middle, a pouch, and dark-green gummy bears scattered over everything. No run-length on record.
Why it works: Cropping the headline off the frame signals scale; the gummies make it look like a product shoot rather than a banner.
Clone it: Set the event name too big for the canvas and scatter the product over it.
5. Pottery Barn Kids — the serif sale
Pale gray, faint red snowflakes in the corners, "Early Black Friday Deals" and "UP TO 60% OFF" set in a thin, high-contrast red serif. No product. No run-length on record.
Why it works: It looks like the brand's catalog, not a doorbuster. "Early" lets the ad run before the competitive week, when CPMs are still near their September level.
Clone it: If your brand is quiet, keep the Black Friday ad quiet: your house typeface, one color, the word "Early."
The price is the headline. Currency beats percentages when the basket is expensive. "$600 off" says more than "20% off" on a $3,000 bed.
6. HexClad — the set, the list, the saving
Black, smoky background. "BLACK FRIDAY SALE," "BESTSELLING 13-PIECE SET," the full item list in small caps (20 cm pan, 25 cm pan, 30 cm pan, 2 L pot, 3 L pot, 7.5 L pot, 30 cm wok, six lids), the set laid out below, and a yellow circle: "£589* OFF." The footnote: "From total value of individual products £1,148." 268 days per Meta's Ad Library data (ad).
Why it works: An item list does the value math for the shopper, and the footnote makes the claim defensible. It's a catalog page shrunk into one square.
Clone it: Any bundle or set. List everything in it, total the separate prices, and put the difference in a sticker.
7. Withings — "now or never," in French
A 4:5 French-market ad: black frame, "BLACK FRIDAY" at the top, a white card reading "C'est maintenant OU JAMAIS !" ("now or never"), two ScanWatch watches, and "Jusqu'à -90 €" set big at the bottom. 293 days per Meta's Ad Library data (ad), the longest Meta-measured run in the set.
Why it works: A card inside a black frame reads like a price tag. After the product, the currency figure is the biggest element.
Clone it: Frame your product on a white card, deadline line on top, euro or dollar figure on the bottom. It also translates cleanly, which is why it ran in French.
8. Glossier — was, now, and a ticker
"30% OFF" in huge Glossier blue, then a rounded product card with "WAS £116" struck through and "NOW £81.20," a "Shop now" button, and a blue "BLACK FRIDAY SALE" ticker along the bottom. 13 days per Meta's Ad Library data (ad), launched November 20, 2025.
Why it works: It borrows the product card from a shopping site, so the ad already looks like checkout. Paired with ad 1 it shows how one brand splits the job: the brand ad stays on, the price ad runs two weeks.
Clone it: Build a fake product card: photo, strike-through price, new price, one button.
9. Eight Sleep — $600 off, pre-Black Friday
Warm beige light, a woman with her hand on the Pod's hub, and "GET UP TO $600 OFF / Pre-Black Friday Sale" in a clean sans with an italic accent. No run-length on record.
Why it works: On a high-ticket product a dollar figure beats a percentage, and "Pre-" lets the ad run in early November without competing against everyone else's Black Friday.
Clone it: If your product costs more than $300, lead with dollars. Add "Pre-" and launch two weeks early.
10. Jones Road — three prices in a row
"All of this for" in a thin serif, then three prices in a row: "$118" and "$86" struck through and "$74" in hot pink. "5 AWARD-WINNING PRODUCTS IN 1 POUCH," the products and a kraft-paper pouch, and "BLACK FRIDAY SALE" in small typewriter caps. No run-length on record.
Why it works: Two strike-throughs tell a story (full price, holiday-kit price, Black Friday price) in one line, and the bundle hides the per-item discount.
Clone it: Show the price path, not only the endpoint.
The bonus is the headline: bundles, gifts, and tiers. When you can't or won't cut the price further, add something.
11. AG1 — a gym bag for "Black Friday Month"
Deep green, a "Save 50%" ticker across the top, "GET YOUR EXCLUSIVE AG1 GYM BAG DURING Black Friday Month," and the full kit in a row: shaker (free), 1-month supply, canister (free), D3+K2 drops (free), gym bag (free). An "ORDER NOW" button and the logo. 14 days per Meta's Ad Library data (ad), launched October 31, 2025.
Why it works: "Black Friday Month" gives the brand four weeks of urgency instead of four days. Labeling each free item under the product turns a gift-with-purchase into a visible pile.
Clone it: Line up the product plus every add-on, and label each one "free."
12. Made In — the order summary as the ad
"Save Up To 30% — And Free Gifts With Select Sets" over a mock checkout: a 13-piece stainless set struck from $1,408 to $999.99, a $269 Dutch oven at "FREE," free shipping, a total of $999.99, "TOTAL SAVINGS $677.00" in red, and a red "SHOP THE BLACK FRIDAY SALE" button. No run-length on record.
Why it works: Shoppers already trust an order summary. It shows the gift landing in the cart, which a "free gift" badge can't.
Clone it: Screenshot-style checkout with your bundle, the gift at $0, and the savings line in red.
13. Kind Patches — the Black Friday Kit
White, "Black Friday Kit" in bold black, "Stay Healthy, Dont Snack & Get rested through the Holiday Season," six patch packs in a grid, a green "6 for 4 bundle" sticker, and "+Free Gift of Cloudie GLP-1." No percentage. No run-length on record.
Why it works: Naming the bundle after the event makes it a product, not a discount, so it can't be compared to last week's price.
Clone it: Package three to six items as "the Black Friday Kit," price it as "6 for 4."
14. Carpe — 67% off plus four gifts
Aqua gradient, "BLACK FRIDAY SALE" in heavy black and white condensed type, "UP TO 67% OFF + 4 FREE GIFTS," five tubes on a concrete plinth, and an orange "OUR BIGGEST DEAL OF THE YEAR" roundel. No run-length on record.
Why it works: It stacks every lever (percentage, gift count, "biggest of the year") and keeps it legible by giving each one its own type size.
Clone it: Headline, offer line, product row, one sticker. Never more than four type sizes.
15. Pela — buy more, get more
Patterned phone cases in rows top and bottom, and between them "Black Friday Sale" with three tiers in columns: "BUY 1 / GET 1 FREE," "BUY 2 / GET 3 FREE," "BUY 3 / GET 4 FREE." No run-length on record.
Why it works: Tiered offers raise basket size, and the columns make the best tier obvious without a sentence of explanation. So many patterns argue for buying several.
Clone it: Three columns, three tiers, the product variety around them.
Early access and VIP. Run before the expensive week, these ads harvest email and SMS sign-ups for the day itself.
16. Inside Weather — early access, $3,500 off
A family and a dog on a cream modular sofa, then "get early access to black friday sales / beat the holiday rush and save up to $3500 off sitewide," and two smaller photos labeled "100+ Life-Proof Fabrics" and "Custom Cloud-Like Comfort." 112 days running, per Foreplay.
Why it works: "Beat the holiday rush" is a delivery promise as much as a discount, which matters for furniture with lead times. It is also a lifestyle ad first, so it can keep running after the sale.
Clone it: Lifestyle hero, one line of early-access copy, two feature tiles.
17. Dose — VIP pricing, set in type only
Sage green, "Dose" in a serif, "VIP EARLY ACCESS: BLACK FRIDAY," then "40% OFF / YOUR FIRST ORDER" and "25% OFF / EVERY FUTURE ONE." No product. No run-length on record.
Why it works: A subscription brand's real Black Friday offer is the recurring discount; this ad sells the second line, not the first.
Clone it: If you sell subscriptions, put the lifetime discount next to the first-order one.
18. Drowsy — "on sale for the very first time"
Soft white, "Black Friday VIP Sale," "On sale for the very first time" in a light serif, a hand lifting a stack of teal silk sleep masks with gold trim, and a pill button: "Get on the list." No number. No run-length on record.
Why it works: A brand that never discounts has a stronger Black Friday hook than any percentage: rarity. Its ask is a sign-up, which is cheaper in early November than a purchase.
Clone it: If you've never run a sale, say so, and collect emails before the day.
Brand-led and pattern interrupts. No percentage in the headline, or a format that doesn't look like an ad.
19. Dyson — two products and two words
Black, "dyson" in white, "BLACK FRIDAY" in light gray, an air purifier on the left and a cordless vacuum angled across the right. No offer, no price, no button. 2,053 days running per Foreplay. For a seasonal ad that number more likely reflects an ad kept in an always-on set than five Black Fridays in a row; the data can't tell us which.
Why it works: Dyson doesn't need to say the price drops; the event name and the product do it. It's the luxury approach to a sale.
Clone it: Only if your products are instantly recognizable. Otherwise the shopper won't know what's on offer.
20. Our Place — "Black Friday is Calling"
A 9:16 incoming-call screen on terracotta: "Black Friday is Calling," "Answer for the lowest prices of the year — only for a limited time!," a steel Always Pan in the middle, and a red "Decline Offer" and green "Accept & Save" button at the bottom. 19 days per Meta's Ad Library data (ad), launched November 14, 2025.
Why it works: Stories are full-screen, and an incoming call is a full-screen UI people react to by reflex. "Decline Offer" makes skipping feel like a choice.
Clone it: Any phone-native UI: incoming call, lock-screen notification, text message.
21. Our Place — the pan grid
White, 32 Always Pans in a grid in every colorway, broken by two rules and "BLACK FRIDAY IS HERE / HUGE SITEWIDE SAVINGS, WHILE SUPPLIES LAST," the wordmark and "Shop the Sale" at the bottom. 29 days per Meta's Ad Library data (ad), launched November 4, 2025.
Why it works: A grid shows every color at once, so the viewer picks one before they click. "While supplies last" adds scarcity without a fake timer.
Clone it: Repeat your hero product in every variant; one headline band through the middle.
22. Allbirds — Black Sheep Sale
A black sheep's face filling the lower two-thirds, staring into the lens. Above: "UP TO 50% OFF SHOES & MORE," then "BLACK FRIDAY SALE" with "FRIDAY" crossed out and "SHEEP" scrawled in, and "STAND OUT. SAVE BIG." No shoe in sight. No run-length on record.
Why it works: A pun that only Allbirds (wool shoes) can make. It stops the scroll because it shows a sheep, not a shoe.
Clone it: Find the one word in "Black Friday" your brand can twist, and let the image carry the joke.
23. Heights — "We don't do Black Friday discounts"
An iPhone Notes screen: "We don't do Black Friday discounts — because we don't cut corners," a short list of what's in "The Ultimate Sleep & Energy Bundle," "Worth £110, yours for just £50," and a photo of the boxed bundle with a silk mask. No run-length on record.
Why it works: It refuses the discount and then offers a better deal through a bundle, which protects list price. The Notes format reads like a founder's message, not an ad.
Clone it: Notes app, three lines of conviction, one bundle price.
24. DRMTLGY — "We're sorry."
A cream note taped to dark green: "We're sorry. We accidentally made a duo that makes you look put-together in under a minute," 35% off with code BLACKFRIDAY30, the two products, and "$75 → $47.88." No run-length on record.
Why it works: An apology opener is a curiosity gap, and the joke lands only after the reader has read the offer.
Clone it: Fake apology headline, product benefit as the "mistake," discount in the body.
25. Cuts — the chatbot recommends you
A dark chatbot interface labeled "CutsGPT 5." The user asks, "Whats the best place to buy men's premium essentials during black friday?" The reply names CutsClothing.com and "up to 60% off," and the chat ends with "don't wait too long." No run-length on record.
Why it works: It borrows a format people now trust for shopping advice. Adobe expects AI-referred traffic to US retail sites to rise 130% this season (Adobe), so the mockup matches how some shoppers now search.
Clone it: One question, one answer naming your brand and offer. Keep the interface generic rather than copying a real product's branding.
Proof and gift framing. Lead with a reason to believe or a reason to buy for someone else, then add the discount.
26. Buffy — an award on top, the sale in a strip
A dark green strip, "Black Friday Sale: 25% Off," over a beige photo of a folded white comforter, with "HGTV Best Overall Duvet Insert" in large white type and "Cloud Comforter Buffy" bottom right. 95 days running, per Foreplay.
Why it works: An award does the persuading and the strip does the dating. Remove the strip and the ad runs all year, which is cheaper than shooting a new one.
Clone it: Take your best-performing evergreen ad and add a one-line Black Friday strip. The testimonial ad examples post has more proof-led layouts worth adapting this way.
27. Babbel — the 3D headline
Black, "Get access to all languages." in orange serif, five flag circles, "Black Friday" rendered in glossy 3D orange chrome letters, a white badge with "70% OFF" and "For a limited time" circling it, and "Invest in you." 249 days running, per Foreplay.
Why it works: An app has nothing to photograph, so the headline becomes the object. Its benefit line sits above the event, not below it.
Clone it: Apps and services: make the event name the hero visual, and put the benefit first.
28. The Ridge — "His wallet sucks."
A split: left, a bulging brown leather wallet under "HIS WALLET SUCKS."; right, a slim metal wallet under "GIFT HIM ONE THAT DOESN'T.," a "BLACK FRIDAY" tag, and a black "UP TO 42% OFF" roundel. No run-length on record.
Why it works: Black Friday opens gift season. Speaking to the gift-giver, with a before-and-after, beats speaking to the user.
Clone it: Old thing vs your thing, written to the person buying the gift.
Cyber Monday ad examples. Same mechanics, different day. Cyber Monday is the bigger online day ($14.25B in 2025, $15.1B forecast for 2026), and its ads lean harder on codes and "last chance."
29. Herbivore — Cyber Week as a pop-up
Pink shelves of Herbivore skincare behind a mock pop-up window: "CYBER WEEK," "25% OFF sitewide," "Code: CYBER," a cursor hand, a black "SHOP NOW" button, and "Ends 11/27. Exclusions apply." 85 days running, per Foreplay.
Why it works: A pop-up looks clickable, and the end date is printed, which keeps the claim honest.
Clone it: Product shelf, pop-up card, code, end date.
30. Alo — "last chance" on a loop
A split square: left, a model in black activewear and sunglasses; right, black with "alo," "CYBER MONDAY," and "30% OFF sitewide" in lime; a "last chance" ticker running across the bottom. No run-length on record.
Why it works: Cyber Monday is the final day of the window, and the ticker says so without a countdown clock.
Clone it: Half product-on-person, half offer, one ticker.
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What these 30 Black Friday ad examples have in common
The offer is readable in a second. Every ad states its deal in ten words or fewer, and in most of the 23 with a number, the number is one of the two biggest things in the frame. Fine print exists (HexClad, Glossier, Herbivore) but sits at the bottom.
The good ones change format, not only color. A phone call (Our Place), a checkout (Made In), a Notes page (Heights), an email-style apology (DRMTLGY), a chatbot (Cuts). In a feed where every brand says "BLACK FRIDAY SALE," a familiar interface is the pattern interrupt.
Bundles beat deeper cuts. Seven of the 30 add a gift or bundle on top of, or instead of, a bigger percentage. That protects list price and makes the offer impossible to compare to last week's.
They launch early and run short. Dated short runs here lasted 13 to 29 days. Plan for a creative to live two to four weeks, not a quarter.
Brands run several at once. Our Place ran at least four, Glossier at least two. Meta needs variety to find winners, and a seasonal window is too short to test one ad at a time. The guide to how many ad creatives to test has the math, and creative testing explains why creative is now the main lever.
The famous Black Friday campaigns, briefly
Roundups and AI answers for this search lean on the same famous campaigns. Most aren't static ads you can clone. They're brand stunts, and the table shows what each one did, with sources.
| Campaign | Year | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patagonia, "Don't Buy This Jacket" | 2011 | A full-page New York Times ad on Black Friday asking readers not to buy the jacket pictured, tied to its Common Threads pledge to consume less | Patagonia |
| REI, #OptOutside | 2015 onward | Closed its stores on Black Friday and paid employees to go outside; by 2016 that was 149 stores and 12,287 employees, with 1.4M+ social mentions and a 26% rise in online traffic over the holiday weekend in year one | Retail Dive |
| Cards Against Humanity | 2014–2016 | Sold bull feces to 30,000 people for $180,000 (2014), collected $71,145 for nothing (2015), raised $100,573 to dig a pointless hole (2016) | NPR via WBEZ |
| Deciem / The Ordinary | 2019 | Shut its website and stores on Black Friday and ran 23% off through most of November | Hypebae |
They share one move: refusing the day in public. That works for brands with an audience large enough to make the refusal news. For everyone else, the borrowable piece is smaller, and Heights (ad 23) shows it: say no to the discount in one line, then give the shopper a bundle.
How to build your Black Friday ad
1. Pick one offer mechanic. Percentage, dollars off, bundle, gift, tiers, early access, or no discount. Use dollars when your average order is above roughly $300 and percentages below it, as Eight Sleep and HexClad do. Don't stack more than two.
2. Choose a layout that matches the mechanic. Black Friday ad design starts from the offer, not the color scheme. From the 30 above:
| Mechanic | Layout that carries it | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Percentage | Giant number over a product stack or grid | True Classic, Grüns |
| Dollars off | Product on a card with was/now or a savings sticker | HexClad, Glossier (8) |
| Bundle or gift | Product row with each item labeled, or a checkout mockup | AG1, Made In |
| Tiers | Three columns | Pela |
| Early access / VIP | Lifestyle photo plus one sign-up line | Inside Weather, Drowsy |
| No discount | Hero product, brand color, one word | Glossier (1), Dyson |
3. Write the offer in ten words or fewer. Then add the deadline ("Ends 11/30") or the scarcity line ("While supplies last"). Adobe's numbers say most of these ads will be seen on a phone.
4. Export three sizes. 1:1 for the feed, 4:5 for taller feed placements, and 9:16 for Stories and Reels, with the offer kept out of the top and bottom of the 9:16 frame where the interface covers it. Specs for each placement are in the Meta ad sizes guide, and every other platform is covered in the ad sizes and specs reference.
5. Make several, and launch early. Have three to five variants live by mid-November so the ad sets clear learning before Black Friday week, then swap in a "last chance" version for Cyber Monday.
If you'd rather start from a layout that already ran, every ad here is in the ad library, with more in the sale and promo ad examples. AdDogs clones a reference ad with your product and brand colors in seconds; 1 credit makes one ad in the size you pick, and plans start at $12/mo for 30 credits (Basic covers 1:1, 9:16, and 16:9; Pro and Ultimate add 4:5 and the other ratios).
Method
Library ads: we pulled every public ad in the AdDogs library whose headline, overlay text, primary text, or name mentions "Black Friday" (about 205 ads across roughly 70 brands), plus Cyber Week and Cyber Monday ads, on October 25, 2026. We downloaded and looked at each candidate and kept 30 for variety of mechanic and brand, at most two per brand. Copy is transcribed from the images. Run-lengths come from two sources: Meta Ad Library data for 7 ads (days from the ad's start date to our last check, between November 14, 2025 and September 7, 2026), and Foreplay for 5 ads (recorded April 8, 2026). Another 18 came from a curated gallery import with no dates, and we report no number for them rather than an estimate. Several of those images are small (338 pixels wide) because that's the resolution the gallery held. Counts in the pattern table are our own tallies from the 30 images.
Market data: Adobe Digital Insights for 2025 actuals and the 2026 forecast, Meta for Business for holiday timing guidance and the learning phase, and Lebesgue for CPM change (vendor data from a sample of large Meta advertisers, labeled as such). What we could not find and so left out: a Meta-published figure for Black Friday CPM inflation, and any public test showing one Black Friday ad layout outperforming another.
FAQ
When should you start running Black Friday ads?
Have your Black Friday ads live by mid-November, two weeks before Black Friday on November 27, 2026. An ad set needs about 50 optimization events in a week to exit Meta's learning phase, and in 2025 Meta CPMs began rising the week of November 10. All four dated short-run ads in this post launched between October 31 and November 20.
What makes a good Black Friday ad?
An offer you can read in a second, the product in frame, and one deadline or scarcity line. In our 30 examples, 25 show the product, 23 show a percentage or a currency figure, and only 6 use a black background, so color isn't what separates them. Standouts change the format (a checkout, a phone call, a Notes page) rather than the color scheme.
How much do Black Friday ads cost?
CPMs climb sharply. In one vendor sample of large Meta advertisers, the median brand paid 59% more per 1,000 impressions in Black Friday week than in September, and 84% more on Black Friday itself. Cost per purchase still fell 20% as conversion rates rose 48%, so higher prices don't automatically mean worse returns.
What's the difference between Black Friday and Cyber Monday ads?
Cyber Monday is the bigger online day ($14.25B in 2025 vs $11.8B for Black Friday, per Adobe) and the last day of the sale window. Cyber Monday ads lean on codes and "last chance" lines, while Black Friday ads lean on the offer reveal and early access. Many brands keep one creative and swap the headline.
What sizes should Black Friday ads be?
Export 1:1 for the feed, 4:5 for taller feed placements, and 9:16 for Stories and Reels. Keep the offer away from the top and bottom of the 9:16 frame, where the app interface covers it. Mobile was 61.6% of online sales on Thanksgiving 2025, so design for the phone first.
What are good Black Friday ad ideas for a small brand?
Use a mechanic big brands can't: a first-ever sale (Drowsy), a named kit (Kind Patches), a no-discount bundle (Heights), or a pun only your product can make (Allbirds). Launch an "early access" sign-up ad in early November, while CPMs are still near September levels, and save the full offer for Black Friday week.
