#211 Black Friday Is Lying To You (What the Data Actually Says + What It Doesn’t)

Everyone loves Cyber Week numbers. Big charts. Big screenshots. Big claims.

But Cyber Week data lies….

When demand is compressed into five days, behavior gets distorted. And if you build your next 90-day strategy on distorted data, you scale the wrong lesson.

In this Week in Review, Neil breaks down what the post–Cyber Week data actually reveals, why traffic and revenue spikes mislead sellers every December, and how real operators read the scoreboard differently heading into January and 2026.

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TL;DR

✅ Cyber Week spikes distort behavior. Post-event data tells the truth.

✅ Traffic growth does not equal buyer intent. Clicks fooled many sellers.

✅ BNPL inflated AOV but increased refund and cash-flow risk.

✅ Conversion quality flattened even as sessions rose.

✅ Operators wait for normalization data before making scaling decisions.

✅ December rewards control. January exposes poor interpretation.

📍 Chapters

00:00 Why Cyber Week data is structurally misleading

01:35 What Adobe and Salesforce data actually shows

02:14 Traffic growth versus real buyer intent

02:52 AOV, Buy Now Pay Later, and hidden cash-flow risk

03:51 Why traffic was cheap but conversion quality was not

04:29 What smart brands are watching heading into mid-December

05:08 Why stabilization beats noise at year-end

05:29 The operator advantage going into 2026

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