Buy now, pay later brands turned checkout into a marketing channel, and holiday shoppers followed. Adobe Analytics recorded a record $1.03 billion in online BNPL spending on Cyber Monday 2025, up 4.2% year over year. The 25 moves below cover Klarna's brand and distribution plays, Affirm's no-late-fee positioning, rival holiday campaigns and the data behind them.
Figures are attributed to the source that reported them. Several come from the companies themselves and from SEC filings. This article describes marketing, not financial advice.
How did Klarna build its brand and distribution?
1. "Get Smoooth" with Snoop Dogg
In January 2019 Klarna made Snoop Dogg the face of its "Get Smoooth" campaign, with the rapper billed as "Smoooth Dogg" and also becoming a minor shareholder, according to FinTech Futures. The campaign ran three TV ads and framed Klarna's promise as removing friction from pay-later payments.
2. The exclusive Walmart deal
In March 2025 Klarna became the exclusive US buy now, pay later provider for Walmart through its OnePay wallet, replacing Affirm, according to Retail Brew. Walmart-integrated payments had accounted for 5% of Affirm's gross merchandise volume in the second half of 2024, an Affirm spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.
3. The September 2025 IPO
Klarna began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on September 10, 2025 under the ticker KLAR, with shares priced at $40, according to its closing announcement. At the time it served about 111 million active consumers and 790,000 merchants in 26 countries.
4. The interest-free pitch
Klarna told investors that 98% of the transactions it facilitated in the 12 months ended June 30, 2025 were interest-free, according to Renaissance Capital's IPO coverage. The same filing data put its gross merchandise volume at $112 billion.
5. From pay later to a card and bank
Klarna has widened its pitch beyond installments to the Klarna Card, savings accounts and banking. A Fintool summary of its fourth-quarter 2025 results reports active Klarna Card users rose 288% year over year to 4.2 million and banking customers reached 15.8 million.
6. Black Friday 2023 order growth
Klarna said it saw a 29% increase in orders placed by US shoppers on Black Friday 2023, with personal electronics, televisions and kitchen appliances among the popular items, according to Reuters.
How did Affirm position itself against credit cards?
7. "No late fees" as the core claim
Affirm's annual filing says consumers are not charged deferred or compounding interest or late fees, so the company is "not incentivized to profit from our consumers' mistakes or misfortunes." Affirm facilitated $36.7 billion in gross merchandise volume in its fiscal year ended June 30, 2025.
8. The inaugural 0% Days promotion
Affirm ran its first 0% Days promotion from October 22 to 24, 2025, with thousands of 0% APR offers from retailers for shoppers using the Affirm app or Affirm Card, according to its October 9, 2025 announcement. The company's own example said a $1,200 purchase over 12 months at 0% APR costs exactly $1,200, against about $120 in interest on a typical credit card.
9. Merchant-funded 0% offers
Affirm's first-quarter fiscal 2026 shareholder letter says the number of merchants funding 0% APR offers more than tripled to over 40,000. Roughly 95% of GMV from 0% APR monthly installments at integrated merchants was funded by the merchant, and 0% APR products including Pay in X grew 64%.
10. The Affirm Card
Affirm Card gross merchandise volume grew 135% year over year to $1.4 billion in the same quarter, and active cardholders reached 2.8 million, according to the shareholder letter. In-store use of the card grew 170%.
11. Shopify and Shop Pay Instalments
Affirm and Shopify expanded their partnership with the UK launch of Shop Pay Instalments, per the same letter. Benzinga, citing a Goldman Sachs analyst, reports Affirm extended its exclusive Shopify partnership through 2028.
12. Apple chooses Affirm
Apple shut down its in-house Apple Pay Later and selected Affirm to manage installment loans, according to PaymentsJournal.
13. Affirm's response to the Walmart loss
After Klarna's Walmart announcement, Affirm said it remained integrated with Walmart through the Affirm app and Affirm Card, according to Barchart. Barchart's analysis adds that Amazon contributed 25% and 24% of Affirm's GMV in the periods it cites, and that the Apple Pay and Shopify integrations support growth.
How did Afterpay, PayPal and Zip market for the holidays?
14. Afterpay's 2023 Cyber weekend
Afterpay said its BNPL transactions rose 19% year over year over the 2023 Cyber weekend, with in-app usage up 16%, according to eMarketer. An Afterpay survey found 40% of users use the method primarily to budget.
15. PayPal's Pay Later lift
PayPal reported its BNPL transactions increased 23% year over year in the days leading up to Black Friday 2025, according to the Daily Herald.
16. Zip's holiday weekend volume
Zip reported 1.6 million transactions across 280,000 locations over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend, according to Fortune.
17. Block's millennial skew
Block, Afterpay's parent, reported a 10% increase in BNPL transactions during the 2024 holiday period, with millennials accounting for 44% of BNPL transactions across Cash App, Square and Afterpay, according to PaymentsJournal.
What does the holiday data show about BNPL demand?
18. Cyber Monday 2025
BNPL generated $1.03 billion in online spending on Cyber Monday 2025, up 4.2%, and 79.4% of those transactions happened on mobile, according to Adobe. Fortune puts that at more than 7.2% of the $14.25 billion spent online that day.
19. The full 2025 season
BNPL-backed purchases totaled $20 billion across the 2025 holiday season, up 9.8% from 2024, according to Digital Transactions citing Adobe. Adobe's October forecast had projected $20.2 billion.
20. BNPL across income levels
David Tinsley, a senior economist at the Bank of America Institute, said BNPL services such as Klarna, Affirm, Afterpay and PayPal Pay Later are increasingly popular among consumers of all income levels, according to the Daily Herald.
21. Bigger baskets
In 2023, US BNPL users spent 48% more on Black Friday than shoppers using other payment methods, $598 on average against $452, according to PYMNTS Intelligence as reported by eMarketer.
22. What shoppers use it for
In an Adobe survey of more than 1,000 US consumers in November 2025, respondents were most likely to use BNPL for electronics, apparel, toys and furniture.
What do the financial results show about scale and risk?
23. Klarna's first public quarter
Klarna reported third-quarter 2025 revenue of $903 million, up 26%, with GMV of $32.7 billion, up 23%, and 114 million active customers, up 32%, according to Sacra.
24. Revenue per customer under pressure
In the second quarter of 2025 Klarna's active consumers grew 31% to 111 million while average revenue per active customer fell about 11%, according to Nasdaq's coverage of the IPO.
25. A heavier mix of 0% products
Affirm's third-quarter fiscal 2025 letter says the mix of 0% APR GMV, including Pay in X, rose from 27% to 28% and lowered its average interest yield. Revenue as a percentage of GMV stayed at 9.2%.
What do these BNPL campaigns have in common?
Each brand treated the payment moment as a marketing asset. Klarna built recognition with celebrity advertising and then bought distribution through deals like Walmart's. Affirm made "no late fees" the claim and funded 0% offers through merchants. The holiday data shows why: BNPL now accounts for a measurable share of peak online sales. For other fintech brand work, see EPR's Chime campaign playbook and the Best Fintech PR Agencies index.
