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Data from marketing platform Billo dated June to December 2025 shows Meta ad competition rose 40% between August and the November peak. Billo, which connects brands with creators to produce social video ads, says the brands that win Black Friday test their creative already in August

New Billo data shows Meta ad competition rising about 40% and the cost to reach 1,000 impressions climbing roughly 18% between August and the November Black Friday peak. Brands that wait until fall to plan their campaigns enter an auction that is already crowded and expensive, with the outcome largely shaped by creative built weeks earlier. Black Friday and Cyber Monday together make up the single largest ecommerce advertising event of the year, and the brands that prepare earliest tend to capture a disproportionate share of that spending.

Billo, which connects brands with creators to produce social video ads for platforms including TikTok, Meta and YouTube, has tracked the same pattern in its own client data. Donatas Smailys, co-founder and CEO of Billo, said brands that enter Black Friday without tested creative end up paying more for weaker results, regardless of how much they spend.

“Everyone treats Black Friday as a fourth-quarter problem, so everyone ends up competing for the same ad space at the same time,” Smailys said. “Brands that create their ads early and test them in August get better results than brands that wait until October or November. By the time November comes, the brands that tested early already know what works, while the brands that waited are launching untested ads during the most expensive weeks of the year.”

Why August Is the Right Time to Start

September and October are when brands learn which ads actually convert, and that testing takes weeks. August gives brands exactly enough time to brief creators, film several options, and get results back before Black Friday begins.

“You don’t need a media budget to find out if an ad works,” Smailys said. “In August, we tell our clients to post a few short variants organically, each with a different hook and a different creator. A small, specific audience responds within days, and that tells you which version actually lands. The trick is picking the right audience for that test: people who already care about the product. Once you know what they respond to, you know exactly what to put the budget behind in November.”

Brands that follow this approach typically produce three to five short variants per product, each testing a different angle: a different opening line, a different creator, or a different pain point. The variants that perform best organically become the ads brands scale with paid budget once Q4 begins.

Methodology

Figures are based on Billo client Meta ad data, tracked monthly from June through December 2025. Comparisons reflect August 2025 against the November 2025 peak, and where noted, December. Cost per 1,000 impressions reached is a derived figure, calculated as total spend divided by total impressions, multiplied by 1,000; it is not a reported column in the underlying data.

The post Smart Brands Prepare for Black Friday in August Before Ad Costs Climb 18% and Competition Jumps 40% appeared first on SiteProNews.

• 90% of AI-using SMEs worry private data entered into their AI tool is being used to train it
• Over a quarter (28%) of SMEs leak company data into AI chatbots at least once a week
• 76% of SMEs would automate more if they had closed-loop AI that guaranteed data would never be used for model training

Startups.co.uk’s latest survey reveals that 90% of AI-using SMEs are worried that their company data is being used to train the AI tool.

This is a sensible apprehension, as company data entered into a public AI model can’t be recalled, deleted, or localized. 

Company security traded for productivity 

According to Startups.co.uk‘s findings, a staggering 50% of SMEs admitted to leaking company data into free public AI chatbots in order to complete work tasks.

Over a quarter of SMEs (28%) are leaking company data into AI chatbots at least once a week, and another 22% are doing so multiple times a month. 

These businesses are effectively trading their long-term corporate security for short-term productivity.

The dangers of leaking company data into AI chatbots:

• Fines & operational disruption

IBM’s 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report shows that a third (32%) of businesses who reported a data breach had to pay a fine and nearly all organisations suffered operational disruption.

Among organisations that reported recovery, most took more than 100 days on average to do so.

• Competitors could access your data

Proprietary workflows, pitch decks, and internal numbers may already be sitting in a competitor’s future AI prompt response.

Despite widespread concern for company security, startups continue to upload data in order to keep up with daily workloads.

Manual AI security checks waste company time

Startups.co.uk found that businesses are manually preparing data before using AI tools, to help mitigate security risks.

Almost a quarter (23%) of businesses say they spend a ‘significant’ amount of time manually preparing data, meaning it often takes longer to clean the data by hand than AI takes to process it. 

Additionally, over half (52%) of leaders who use AI spend a moderate amount of time manually preparing or anonymising data to ensure privacy and security. 

This need for manual preparation and rework is a clear downside of public AI adoption. Those who do not use public AI face far less friction: only 11% report significant manual rework compared to 22% of public AI users. 

Editor of Startups.co.uk, Zohra Huda, comments:

“Our data shows how startups are caught in a tough productivity trap. Half of all SMEs leak data into public chatbots just to keep up with daily workloads, yet 90% are privately terrified of where that data will end up. UK founders know that blindly feeding proprietary data into a public model means their pitch decks or internal numbers could easily end up in a competitor’s future AI prompt but they feel they don’t have a choice. Is the price of innovation gambling with your company’s intellectual property?”

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It’s come full circle… Netflix, the company that crushed live television is now considering adding live television to it’s platform. According to a recent report from The Wall Street Journal, Netflix is having internal discussions about live channels on it’s platform. This would allow users an option to watch scheduled programming based on a live channel or select something from Netflix massive on-demand library.

This strategy is meant to combat “choice fatigue”. Many subscribers feel overwhelmed by the endless library of TV shows and movies to select from. For some subscribers it can take longer to select a movie to watch than the actual length of the movie itself. Offering pre-programmed, 24/7 feeds would create a frictionless viewing experience. Subscribers overwhelmed by choice fatigue could simply tune in and let a channel run, which would ironically mimic traditional cable TV.

This change would also allow Netflix to compete to with free ad-supported services like Tubi, Pluto TV, and The Roku Channel that have exploded in popularity. A 24/7 feed would also boost Netflix growing ad-supported tier with increased advertising. If implemented, this strategy may well keep viewers engaged and prove that the future of streaming looks a whole lot like traditional cable.

The post Netflix Considers Adding Live TV to Increase Engagement appeared first on SiteProNews.