Black Friday Ads: The 2 Types You Need on Meta (2026 Examples)

A Black Friday ad is an offer ad. Warm-audience ads need two things, the offer and urgency. Cold-audience ads need a third, a reason to choose your brand.

Radi Huq · Co-Founder of StaticAds.ai

October 11, 2026 · 5 min read

BFCM weekend is no longer a weekend. It's a whole month, with 2 peaks, which means you need two different types of ads.

Historically Black Friday promotions ran over the course of Thanksgiving weekend. However, as the years have passed, marketers have consistently started pulling the start of their sale forward to get ahead of competitors. Now in 2026, it's not really Black Friday weekend; rather it's Black Friday month.

When do Black Friday sales peak?

So if the Black Friday promotion starts at the beginning of the month, here's what you can expect sales to look like:

On launch, there is Peak 1 that lasts a couple of days
Then there is a trough where sales slow down for an extended period of time
Then on Black Friday weekend starting Thursday, you have Peak 2 that lasts over the course of the weekend

These peaks are driven by separate audiences. Peak 1 is driven by customers already in your funnel. These might be prospecting customers that you added to your email lists via some sort of activation like a giveaway; these might be natural customers still in the middle of the buying journey; or they might be existing customers who have bought from you before. Either way, Peak 1 is going to come from activating a warm audience - in other words, people who already know you exist.

Peak 2 is driven by new customers who are in the mood to buy. These customers don't necessarily know that you exist, but they're adding items to carts and buying products over the course of the Black Friday weekend. They're engaged and excited about shopping, so they're open to trying out new brands like yours.

These are 2 different audiences. So although fundamentally Black Friday ads are offer ads, the ads for each audience need to be shaped differently. What are those different shapes?

What makes a good Black Friday ad?

	Warm audience	Cold audience
Who they are	People who already know you exist	New customers who are in the mood to buy
When sales peak	Peak 1, on launch	Peak 2, Black Friday weekend
What the ad needs	The offer and urgency	The offer, urgency, and Why You

Black Friday ads for a warm audience

The shape is just regular offer ads. As a recap on offer ads:

Offer ads speak to a "Most Aware" audience
Most aware audiences know that your product exists, and believe it's the best solution to their problem. But they need a reason to act (ie. purchase) now

So the goal of the offer ad is to:

Clearly and obviously articulate the incentive (ie. the offer)
Clearly and obviously articulate the urgency (ie. why now)

In the case of Black Friday, the incentive is usually whatever offer you're running during the promotion, and the urgency is usually that it's only available during the Black Friday promotional period.

Since Black Friday is such a cultural phenomenon, it is implied that the Black Friday sale will end at the end of the weekend. Therefore you can get away with the urgency language being more simple like "Black Friday Sale", rather than calling out a specific end date.

Black Friday ad examples for warm audiences

So what are some examples of good Black Friday ads for a warm audience? Here are 3 examples:

True Classic Black Friday ad: 'Up To 70% Off' in large type over a close-up of red knit fabric, with a 'Shop Deals' button — This is a simple ad from True Classic that focuses on a warm audience already familiar with the brand. They don't highlight any specific products, so they're likely sending traffic to the homepage or a Black Friday Collection page.

Fresh Clean Threads Black Friday ad: 'This is it. Up to 50% off' above five t-shirts on a rail, a 'Black Friday Sale' badge, and 'From now until Cyber Monday' along the bottom — This ad from Fresh Clean Threads does a great job of creating a sense of urgency with their ending-date callout. Since they're showcasing a product (the shirts), they are probably sending traffic to their Shirts' Product page, or a Shirts Collection page.

Vuori Black Friday ad: 'Free Gift For Black Friday + Cyber Monday' on a red background, offering a free canvas pouch this weekend only with a purchase of $150 or more — This ad from Vuori does a very good job of clearly articulating the offer. It's hard to miss the offer, which is what you want for offer ads. Since it's just a generic gift-with-purchase offer, this ad probably sends the traffic to their homepage or a Black Friday Collection page.

Black Friday ads for a cold audience

Black Friday is special because over the course of the weekend, customers have a heightened sense of shopping intent so they're willing to spend more than usual, including on new brands. So you actually have an incredible opportunity over the weekend to acquire new customers, even though the CPMs are a lot higher than usual.

But if you're going to acquire new customers during this period, we need to add one more parameter to the Offer Ad shape: Why You.

Clearly and obviously articulating the "Why You" gives customers a reason to check you out versus every other brand competing for the customer's attention this weekend. The "Why You" might come in the form of social proof, or comparisons to competitors. We're essentially merging Offer Ads with core elements borrowed from "Product Aware" ads (eg. "Us vs Them", customer testimonials, publications' showcase, etc).

Black Friday ad examples for cold audiences

Here are 3 examples of good Black Friday ads for a cold audience:

Fabletics Black Friday ad: side-by-side leggings comparing 'Other Brands $100+' with Fabletics' '2 for $24 Leggings', labeled 'Fabletics Limited Run Black Friday Deal' — This ad from Fabletics uses an "us vs them" format to showcase how their product stacks up against inferior competitor brands. This gives a clear "why Fabletics" to a customer interested in finding leggings to purchase.

CUTS Black Friday ad: 'Up to 60% off, Black Friday Sale' over a man in a navy jacket, with GQ, WIRED, Forbes, and Uncrate logos along the bottom — This ad from CUTS calls out the notable, recognizable publications that the brand was featured in. For a customer scrolling through social media open to exploring new brands, this social proof is enough to warrant interest and get the click if the publications align with the customer's identity.

CUTS Black Friday ad: 'Up To 60% Off Sitewide' with a five-star review from Craig and a '1 Million+ Customers' badge over a man in an olive jacket — This ad from CUTS has incredible social proof highlighted (1 million+ customers) that derisks the brand in the eyes of a potential customer. Even if you haven't heard of this brand before, that social proof clearly showcases that they're a legitimate brand people trust. Pair that with a testimonial that may speak to the customer, it earns the click for someone interested in jackets & other menswear.

Written by

Radi Huq

Co-Founder of StaticAds.ai

Radi Huq is the co-founder of StaticAds.ai and a fractional Head of Growth for apparel brands.

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