In a pivotal moment for the customer engagement and retail marketing ecosystem, Iterable has released its annual Black Friday Insights Report, offering a detailed view into the trends shaping consumer behavior and marketing execution during the year’s most competitive shopping period. The findings reflect a dramatic surge in AI powered campaign orchestration and multichannel communication, signaling a significant shift in how brands engage customers at scale.
The AI native customer engagement platform reported unprecedented activity across its system during the 2025 holiday kickoff. Marketing teams leaned heavily into cross channel strategy, pairing traditional email with mobile touchpoints including SMS, Embedded Messaging, Push, and WhatsApp. This combination drove an all time high in coordinated messaging volume, enabling brands to build connected and personalized journeys throughout the shopping cycle.
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As consumer expectations evolve and AI expands its influence on buying behaviors, marketers are rethinking how to deliver relevance during moments of peak competition. Iterable revealed that more than 90 percent of marketers relied on AI agents within its platform throughout the Black Friday period, marking one of the largest year over year increases in operational automation. The Black Friday Insights Report reflects this acceleration as brands push for smarter decisioning, stronger personalization, and tighter campaign coordination.
“Black Friday has always been a leading indicator of the marketing trends that shape the year ahead and this year AI and coordinated multi channel engagement are clearly central to next year’s customer engagement strategies,” said Priya Gill, Chief Marketing Officer at Iterable. “Over the holiday weekend, we saw more customers than ever leverage our AI agents to make smarter decisions earlier in the season, sharpen personalization, and coordinate mobile first journeys with incredible precision. It’s an early look at how new technology and shifting consumer behavior will reshape engagement in the year ahead, and why AI will become a baseline capability for every high performing customer first marketing team.”
The Black Friday Insights Report highlights that early season campaign activity reached record levels. With more than half of US consumers beginning holiday shopping in early October, Iterable saw a 30 percent rise in campaign launches across its platform as brands moved to capture intent earlier than ever. Messaging momentum intensified leading into Black Friday, reinforcing the role of data driven timing in high stakes retail competition.
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The report also shows a strong rise in 360 degree engagement strategies as Embedded Campaigns increased 294 percent year over year. Triggered messaging through Iterable Journeys also grew by 10 percent, marking a continued shift away from batch and blast approaches toward real time personalization based on behavioral signals.
Mobile continued to gain ground as a performance driver, with SMS volume climbing nearly 60 percent year over year. WhatsApp crossed six figure volume usage, illustrating the rapid adoption of conversational channels as global customer touchpoints.
The release of the Black Friday Insights Report underscores a fundamental transition toward AI empowered multichannel execution. As Chief Marketing Officers seek measurable revenue impact and operational efficiency, platforms capable of unifying data and orchestrating customer journeys in real time are becoming central to marketing strategy.
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