News Australia has launched its 2026 Black Friday and Cyber Monday retail campaign, rolling out a month-long initiative led by news.com.au Checkout to guide Australians through the year’s busiest shopping period.

Anchored by the new brand tagline, ‘Checkout before you check out’, it positions news.com.au as the essential guide for shoppers looking to verify genuine deals before they buy.

The campaign comes as Australian shopping habits undergo a fundamental shift, with YouGov research showing 60% of surveyed Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers will use AI to guide their buying decisions. To capture this shift in the shopping journey, News Australia has built its shopping content for discoverability across AI platforms, where it ranks as the most-cited commercial Australian publisher on ChatGPT (Semrush September 2026 AI Visibility Overview). 

“This year marks Australia’s first truly AI-shaped Black Friday and we have evolved our approach to meet shoppers wherever they research, whether on social feeds or through generative AI tools,” says News Australia General Manager eCommerce Sophie Miura.  

“By shifting our focus to trusted, expert curation with our ‘Checkout before you check out’ campaign, we’re helping consumers cut through the sales noise while delivering measurable results for our retail partners.”

Across the company’s digital ecosystem, new shopping tools will roll out that are hoped to make transactions seamless. These include automated digital catalogues that update merchant prices four times a day, one-tap mobile wallet reminders and editor-led shoppable videos across social media platforms. 

To complement the digital rollout, print editions across 11 state and community mastheads – including The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, The Courier-Mail and The Advertiser – will run 10 consecutive days of “high-impact” wraps helping readers navigate the best deals as Australia goes on sale. 

The retail push will link directly into the company’s recently announced Travel Tuesday initiative on 1 December, sustaining commercial momentum as consumer spending shifts from retail goods into holiday bookings.