Welcome back to Funnel Vision, the weekly newsletter that puts performance creative & growth marketing in focus. Brought to you by the crew at Ready Set.

This year, 29% of Black Friday shoppers will wait more than an hour in line, and 20% will show up so early they beat the employees. That means millions of people will voluntarily set 4 a.m. alarms just to stand in the cold and fight over appliances they didn’t plan to buy. If that’s not commitment, nothing is.

Here’s what’s inside today’s edition:

• Meta’s new “super brain” rewriting the rules of targeting

• Survival tactics for the BFCM ad-pocolypse

• An ad that proves ASMR + BFCM = irresistible

Reading time: 7 minutes

THE BRIEF 💼 

What happened this week in DTC performance marketing.

Meta released a detailed report on GEM, the new “super brain” powering its ad engine. The Generative Ads Model is a foundation model for recommendation systems, or in plain English, a massive AI model trained at LLM scale that learns from tons of user and creative signals to better match ads to the right audience. Since rolling out across Facebook and Instagram earlier this year, Meta says GEM has driven 5% more ad conversions on IG and 3% on FB Feed. Why does this matter? First, it's another major infrastructure upgrade that gives Meta advertisers a built-in performance bump. Second, GEM now knows more about the ideal audience than any human advertiser ever will. Third, it treats creative and format as first-class inputs. Meaning brands that constantly feed it high-quality, diversified creative are the ones most likely to squeeze outsized gains from Meta’s new super brain.

Snap's Q3 earnings blowout sent a clear message to performance marketers: Don't sleep on Snapchat. $SNAP rocketed 25% as revenue beat expectations. The market loved the report for a bunch of reasons, namely: revenue up 10% YoY to $1.51B driven by increased demand from SMB advertisers and improved DR ad performance, a $400M partnership with Perplexity AI, $500M in stock buy-backs, and strong Q4 guidance. But here’s the number that stood out to us: 477M daily active users. Sure, it’s a fraction of larger platforms, but that DAU number gets larger every quarter. Raises the question: Is Snapchat worthy of a place in your 2026 media mix?

CLICKABLE LINKS 👆️ 

📺 Amazon Ads rolled out a suite of new tools at their flagship conference, unBoxed 2025. Updates include location-based interactive video ads on Prime Video and an AI agent that helps manage campaigns.

🤖 It’s been a big week for AI progress, for mixed reasons. OpenAI released GPT-5.1 while also calling for responsible and safe development of superintelligence. Also, Meta’s chief AI scientist Yann LeCun says “I’m out”, and Claude Code was allegedly used in a state-sponsored cyber attack.

🛍️ In more cheerful news (if you’re a retailer) retail holiday sales are expected to surpass $1 trillion for the first time, according to the National Retail Federation.

🎙️ AI voice generator ElevenLabs launched Iconic Marketplace, allowing brands to license the use of AI-replicated celebrity voices including Sir Michael Caine, Judy Garland, and Dr. Maya Angelou.

🎄 Lastly, Coca-Cola's AI-generated holiday ad is getting roasted online.

MEDIA STRATEGY

How To Survive Black Friday if You Don’t Run a Promotion

The cost of attention is about to skyrocket.

Black Friday is retail's Super Bowl. For everyone else, it's an overpriced ad auction where CPMs spike 25-60%, CTR drops 10-20%, and conversion rates swing wildly.

If you're in finance, telehealth, insurance, or SaaS—categories where Q5 - Q1 is your real money maker—this week isn't about competing. It's about surviving the chaos profitably and setting yourself up to dominate while retail brands nurse their ad hangovers.

Because sometimes, the smartest move during BFCM if you’re not running a promotion… is sitting it out.

To break down exactly how to play it, we tapped Nacho Manchi—our resident director of media buying who’s seen enough Black Fridays to know when to lean in, when to pull back, and what not to do. Here are his five go-to strategies.

1. Shift Spend, Don’t Stop It

The instinct to pause everything from Nov 20–Dec 2 is understandable… but dangerous.

When you cut spend completely, campaigns will reset and re-enter the learning phase once you turn them back on.

Instead, keep campaigns active with a minimum spend baseline and adjust your pacing strategically. The exact timing will vary by category, especially as more advertisers start pushing promos earlier or extending them deeper into the holidays, so use this as a framework, not a fixed calendar.

Here’s the play:

• Ramp up early (Nov 10–20): Cheaper CPMs, lower competition. Build audiences now.

• Pull back (Nov 20–Dec 2): Focus on branded search, retargeting, and CRM.

• Re-accelerate (Dec 3–10): CPMs drop when retail brands exit the auction. That’s your entry point.

To refine these windows, dig into your own historical data: category trends, CPM patterns, and last year’s performance. The goal isn’t to compete when everyone’s shouting. It’s to be perfectly positioned when the noise fades and efficiency returns.

2. Double Down on Intent

When efficiency nosedives, prioritize the people closest to conversion.

• Search: Defend branded keywords.

• Retargeting: Re-engage site visitors and CRM lists.

• Email + SMS: Use owned channels while ad inventory is expensive.

• Prospecting: Keep a small baseline to preserve delivery history. Just don't test new audiences or creative concepts.

3. Reframe the Message

You don’t need a discount to stay relevant. You just need a reason to talk.

✅ Lean into seasonal energy, not sales energy:

• “The smartest move this season.”

• “Get 2026 peace of mind—now, not later.”

✅ If you’re in telehealth, insurance, or finance, tie messaging to year-end behavior: benefits renewal, financial planning, or “new year readiness/new year new me.”

Meet your audience in the same mindset. They’re thinking about savings, so talk about smarter spending, not deeper discounts.

4. Build for the Bounce-Back

When the dust settles after Cyber Monday, retail advertisers exhale, CPMs quietly drop 30–40%, and audiences—finally free from discount overload—start scrolling again.

Think of the week after BFCM (Dec 3–10) as your launch pad into Q5, the unofficial “gray week” where efficiency returns and competition thins out.

Here’s how to turn that calm into a head start:

✅ Re-activate prospecting campaigns immediately after Cyber Monday to capitalize on lower CPMs and re-engage high-intent users who just tuned out the noise.

✅ Test Q5 creative early. If your big season is Q5 or Q1, this is when you start warming audiences for it. Launch "new year" or "get ahead" messaging now, when attention costs are low, and carry those learnings into January.

By the time competitors are rebuilding in mid-December, you’ll already be optimized for the Q5 surge.

5. Redefine Success

During BFCM, awareness is performance.

If your ads are maintaining visibility, your CRM is active, and you’re setting up strong retargeting pools for Q5, you’re doing it right.

Make sure to review historical BFCM performance to understand user behavior patterns and set realistic expectations.This helps you benchmark what success should actually look like during distorted market weeks.

Don’t force performance when the economics don’t make sense. If your message is about credibility or trust, lean into organic and owned content. Save your paid budget for when conditions normalize.

The Bottom Line

You don’t need a sale to have a BFCM strategy.

Play defense when everyone else plays offense. Protect efficiency, preserve learnings, and use December’s quiet to slingshot into your true high season.

Sometimes the smartest move during Black Friday is knowing when not to play the game.

AD OF THE WEEK ✨ 

If your stomach growls after this one, don’t blame us. This Goodfood ad is proof you can stand out during BFCM without shouting at all.

Brand: Goodfood
Length: 20 seconds
Platform: Meta

WHY IT WORKS 🧠

🍽️ Smart BFCM framing: Instead of cutting prices, Goodfood repackage and upgrades an existing offer as a BFCM deal, meeting shoppers where their mindset already is.

🎧 ASMR that does the selling: The sound design does 80% of the work. Every chop, sizzle, and crunch triggers instant food cravings… and clicks.

🧩 Simple story, clear value: In just a few seconds, you know exactly what you get and why it’s worth trying—that’s peak BFCM efficiency.

A reminder that you don’t always need a deeper discount—sometimes all you need is the right angle and some extremely tasty sound effects.

Thanks for reading!

That’s all for this week. Seeya next time 🫶