Leading the Retail category was Best Buy Co., Inc., spending $22.6M on digital during the month of November. This level of spend also catapulted the company into the number one spot overall, outspending every other advertiser on digital during the month. Over 68% of their digital spend was shelled out during the week of Thanksgiving alone, with their largest spike in spend and impressions hitting on Black Friday. On that day alone, Best Buy dropped $5.5M garnering them over 491M impressions. If someone was browsing the web on Black Friday looking for deals, Best Buy was on a mission to find them. In the age of instant-everything, it makes sense for the brand to wait until the actual day of their sale to make a huge push online. If the brand released the campaign the day before Thanksgiving or on the actual holiday, prospective consumers might’ve forgotten about the deals. By targeting the day of Black Friday, the brand banked on consumers making impulse decisions after being seduced by huge discounts.

 

The retailer released 3,400 unique digital creatives during the month, with an emphasis on desktop/display. Looking at their cross-channel strategy, 82% of their spend went to desktop advertising, 19% went to pre-roll video, and 2% went to mobile+tablet. The brand reflected the category’s overall buying trends by funneling 90% of their digital dollars to direct buys, targeting YouTube as their top site.