Australians are expected to spend $6.8 billion over the Black Friday to Cyber Monday weekend, up 4% from last year, according to figures from the Australian Retailers Association and Roy Morgan.
Black Friday out-does Cyber Monday, with analysis from media, social and consumer intelligence platform, Meltwater, showing how Australians are already engaging with Black Friday online. Black Friday has 16,600 mentions on social media and a 92% conversion volume. Cyber Monday only brings in just over 1k mentions.
The “holiday” has a total engagement of 206k and reach of 51 million.
Podcasts continue to influence retail spend, with popular financial entertainment podcast Two Broke Chicks the most engaging content source, with more than 17,800 engagements. This is popular for millennial and Gen Z consumers.
While the data also shows a “consumer sentiment” divide. More than twice the amount of people expressing joy (411 million) towards brand deals, are dissatisfied. They expressed feelings of frustration and distrust over reported price manipulation and misleading tactics used by big retailers like Amazon and Samsung.
Amazon still comes out on top for the top performing brand, achieving 37% of Black Friday mentions (688k), reaching 1.53 million, and driving 9.59K engagements. The marketplace also tops product categories including fashion, travel and health and fitness, bringing in on average, a third of brand share across both Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
The company also performed well with its viral announcement of a limited-edition ‘Hot Chriss Pud’ in partnership with former Master Chef contestant Declan Cleary.
The campaign across Amazon’s own Facebook post alone reached 117K users and generated 465K views.
Fashion marketplace, The Iconic, achieved 18% of Black Friday mentions coming in second for reach, with 1.3 million.
Myer overt-took Amazon for Cyber Monday, with the highest reach (840K vs 832K) and ranked in the top three for engagement, with 1.29K, compared to Amazon’s 2.52K.
The most popular topics were health and fitness (1.71k mentions) and travel (1.63k) mentions for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
For Cyber Monday, travel achieved 35.9% of all category-specific mentions, with health and fitness coming in at 31.6%.
Cyber Monday content is mainly news-driven, over community-driven, with 64% of mentions from news and 15% for Black Friday.
Ross Candido, VP ANZ at Meltwater, said the surge in Black Friday, reveals how consumers are connecting with brands through social media. He also recognises the influence of AI engines and the growing importance of generative engine optimisation for brand visibility.
“This year’s Black Friday surge underscores more than just consumer appetite - it reveals a critical shift in how brand discovery happens,” he said.
"With six in ten Australians now turning to social platforms to research products, it’s no longer just about who has the best discount, but what real, relevant content is breaking through - powered by creators that communities trust.
“At the same time, large language models like ChatGPT are playing an increasingly important role in reshaping the customer journey, now driving over 85% of chatbot-to-website referrals - signalling a shift from SEO to ‘Generative Engine Optimisation’ (GEO).
“As we head into 2026, brands must implement deeper intelligence across their strategy - not just to optimise campaign performance, but to strategically adapt to this emerging phase of discovery, where AI and social influence converge to shape how, where and why consumers engage.”
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