The most expensive peak yet. Plan like it.

Media costs have been running above last year all through 2026. Across a large sample of Meta ad accounts, average CPMs this year sit consistently above where they sat in 2025. Carry that line into late November and this is on track to be the most expensive Black Friday and Cyber Monday yet.

That is not a reason to sit out peak. It is a reason to stop running last year's plan.

What higher CPMs actually change

The same budget buys fewer impressions. Every impression has to work harder, and the three things that make it work harder are the offer, the creative and the calendar. None of them is a media lever. All of them get decided weeks before the media runs.

The offer

"Same as last year" is a decision to pay more for the same result. If the promotion was 20% off last year and it is 20% off again this year, the only variable that moved is the cost of reaching people, and it moved against you. Push for a promotion a customer would actually repeat to someone else: a bundle, an exclusive, a gift threshold, a reason behind the number.

The creative

When reach is cheap, average creative is survivable. When reach is expensive, the creative is the margin. That means a real concept, built for the placement it runs in, with enough variants in market early enough to know which one works before the expensive weekend arrives.

The calendar

Delay is the line item nobody prices. An asset that slips a week does not just arrive late — it arrives into a more expensive auction, and it takes its testing window with it. Lock approvals now, not in the third week of November.

Five questions to settle this week

1. What is the offer, and why would a customer choose it over the same discount everywhere else?
2. Which creative has already proven it can hold attention, and what are we testing against it?
3. What is the last possible date for final assets, and who signs off?
4. What is our floor — the return below which we stop scaling rather than push through?
5. What else is going out to these same customers that week, by email, at retail, through affiliates?

Expensive media punishes vagueness. Decide early and the cost is survivable.