Klaviyo research reveals Black Friday/Cyber Monday delivered something new this year. Shoppers leaning into AI, smarter brands pulling back on blanket discounting, and loyalty programs doing the heavy lifting are the key trends that emerged in 2025.

Klaviyo’s wrap-up of the peak sales period shows the biggest weekend in the platform’s history, but the real story is how it happened.

Let’s start with the numbers. Klaviyo brands sent a monster 22.7 billion messages across BFCM 2025, up 25 per cent year on year. More than $3.8 billion in revenue was attributed directly to Klaviyo activity (a 27% lift on 2024)..

Black Friday alone generated over $1 billion, the first time the platform has passed that milestone in a single day.

The most interesting fact from the weekend’s sales: discounts actually dropped. Average markdowns fell from 29.1 per cent last year to 26.2 per cent this year. And guess what? Shoppers didn’t blink. Kids, take note: you don’t always need to go harder on discounts to win the sale.

“BFCM isn’t just about flipping on discounts and hoping for volume… we strike the balance between driving revenue and reinforcing what our brand stands for,” remarked Zach Solomon, Director of Ecommerce & CRM at Filson.

AI becomes the MVP

AI was the engine behind the best-performing campaigns. Klaviyo reported a 45 per cent jump in brands using AI-driven product recommendations, a 68 per cent jump in AI-powered messages, and a whopping 71 per cent lift in revenue from those recommendation-powered sends.

Brands using Klaviyo’s Customer Hub effectively turned their websites into personalised storefronts. Shoppers who engaged with these personalised pages viewed 2.4 more pages per visit, signalling deeper engagement and clearer buying intent.

AI-powered customer service also made a splash. Apparel, swimwear and active brands used AI to tackle fit questions, explain product details and guide gifting. In other words: AI stepped in with the reassurance that normally requires a real human on standby.

Shoppers waited… then pounced on Sunday and Monday

One of the more surprising shifts this year: the shopping surge arrived a bit later.

Black Friday was still king, but Cyber Sunday posted the biggest growth, with a 14 per cent jump in total revenue and a 15 per cent lift in spending from repeat buyers. Cyber Monday held strong too.

This suggests shoppers are waiting, browsing, comparing, and only hitting ‘buy’ when the pressure’s on (or when that “extended through Tuesday” email drops into their inbox… we’ve all been there).

Brands that recognised this shift did better by treating Sunday as a full-throttle conversion day, not a quiet lull between promotions.

Email and text: the sales powerhouses

Paid ads continue to wobble, but email and text messaging are absolutely booming. Across Klaviyo’s ecosystem, CRM channels (email + text) were responsible for 42 per cent of all BFCM revenue, and that peaked at 43.3 per cent on Black Friday

With AI now determining the best timing, channel and content for each shopper, these owned channels became highly personalised revenue machines.

Email revenue climbed 15 per cent, while text messaging surged 25 per cent, even as send volume climbed 34 per cent.

Consumers didn’t seem overwhelmed either. Text revenue per recipient barely dipped, despite the flood of messages.

Cross-channel shoppers spend big

The report also confirmed something many marketers have long suspected: the more channels you reach customers on, the more they spend.

Shoppers who received both email and text messages from a brand: Placed 11 per cent more orders; added 34 per cent more items to cart and viewed 71 per cent more products

That’s massive. And it shows just how much coordinated messaging matters.

“Email gives you room to tell the story. Texting creates urgency and immediacy. Together, they reinforce intent and accelerate purchase decisions,” Klaviyo reports.

Loyalty hits centrestage

While the headlines screamed “record sales,” Klaviyo says the real driver was loyalty not new buyers chasing bargains.

Revenue from repeat buyers grew 13.6 per cent year on year, outpacing the 9 per cent growth from new buyers. On Cyber Sunday, repeat customer spending jumped 15.5 per cent.

Brina Skof, Marketing Automation Lead at Loop Earplugs, said,

“By better understanding our customers’ needs and behaviour… we can personalise every touchpoint to build trust, strengthen relationships, and drive authentic engagement that lasts long after the deals end.”

This insight is gold for small Aussie retailers competing against big-box giants: loyalty beats big discounts every time.

The upshot is the biggest theme running through this year’s BFCM story is connection over promotion. Shoppers responded better to relevance than to steep markdowns. Brands that used AI to personalise the journey and loyalty perks to reward their best customers came up trumps.

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