It’s the most competitive (and if done right, rewarding) time of the year…
Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) are fast approaching.
It’s the time where competition is the highest, consumers have the highest buying intent, and their inboxes and feeds are overflowing with offers.
With the sheer amount of competition, consumers expect smooth experiences, clear offers and real value. If your promotion is cluttered, confusing or inconsistent, you’re missing out on both short term revenue gains, and long term growth potential.
So if you’re serious about having your most successful BFCM promotion yet, here are five promotion strategies every eCommerce brand should know and implement. And if you want to dive deeper, don’t miss out on our free BFCM Guide at the end of this blog.
Tip 1: Keep It Simple
Consumers want to get good deals and make purchases, the last thing they want is to be delayed by promotions that make them think and decode puzzles.
In other words, the brands that are the most successful are the ones that keeps
their promotions simple, and remove any ounce of friction.
What Not To Do:
- Tiered Discounts: While promotions like “Spend $100, get 10%; $200, get 15%; $300, get 20%” sounds clever, in the heat of BFCM, no consumer wants to stop and calculate what their discount will actually be.
- Complicated Gifting: Gifts With Purchase (GWP) are an excellent way of increasing average order value and increasing perceived value, when done right, however adding tiers and levels to your gifting can just confuse consumers and cause them to overlook your offer.
- Gimmicks: Okay, we get that spin-to-win wheels, hidden mystery discounts or multi-step unlocks seem fun and clever, these gimmicks really do just slow consumers down and add more friction.
Any added friction just prevents conversion.
What Works Best:
- Clear, bold discounts such as “25% Off Storewide” or “Buy One, Get One Free”
- Obvious savings displayed with strikethrough pricing
- Simple landing pages where the offer is clear and unmistakable
Remember, Black Friday isn’t the time to be clever or creative; save this for the slower months. During BFCM, clarity and simplicity beats complexity every time.
Tip 2: Be Consistent Across The Board
The fastest way to lose trust with consumers and create confusion is through misaligned messaging and promotions; if your Meta Ads say something different to your emails, which are different to your website, consumers won’t be as inclined to purchase from you.
Consumers ultimately want to purchase from a brand they trust, and know what they’re getting.
Consistency across your platforms builds trust, which is a prerequisite to conversion.
Our Tips To Getting It Right:
- One Message, Many Channels: Reinforce the same offer across every channel to build trust and make it effortless for consumers to convert. Even your abandoned cart emails should reinforce the exact same offer.
- Visual Alignment: Utilise the same discount badge, colour palette, and tone across all of your assets.
- Customer Journey Audit: If you were to walk through the experience as a customer, from seeing your first ad to the checkout; does the journey feel seamless or disjointed?
When every touchpoint is aligned, consumers feel more confident and supported in their journey, which makes conversion more natural and likely. However, even small inconsistencies create doubt, which is the fastest way to lose a customer.
Tip 3: Budget Bigger (and Smarter)
The unfortunate truth of BFCM promotions is that you’ll need to allocate more advertising budget; CPCs skyrocket during this time with all the increased competition.
The brands that don’t plan accordingly and allocate additional budget will generally get drowned out in the noise.
Smart Spending Tactics:
- Front-Load Spend: Ensure you allocate the most ad spend during the initial 24-48 hours of BFCM, when consumer intent and urgency is at its highest.
- Invest More On Your High-ROI Channels: Prioritise spending on the channels where you perform the best, rather than spreading spend thin across every possible channel.
- Refresh Creatives: During this season, ad fatigue tends to set it fast, so ensure you have backup variations to swap in fresh creatives mid-campaign without pausing momentum.
Treat this time of year as an investment window. Yes, you’re paying more per-click, however you’re also competing in the highest intent buying season of the year.
Tip 4: Target the Right Consumers
As discussed in tip 3, Black Friday ads are expensive, so if your ads are targeting the wrong people, you’re ultimately wasting your budget.
Where Brands Generally Go Wrong:
- One-Size-Fits All Targeting: People seeing your brand for the first time won’t think or act like a loyal customer does. Therefore, it’s important to tailor your creatives and messaging to where the individual is in their journey.
- Overlooking Intent: A first time browser will require a different nudge to a loyal customer. However, it’s essential you lean into this prior to black friday sales, to move your potential customers through the funnel to maximise conversions in time for your seasonal promotions.
- Overly Broad Audiences: While casting the net too wide may bring in traffic, it’s usually at a poor ROAS.
Smarter Targeting Moves
- Segment Your Audience: Speak differently to each group. While you may frame the sale to your loyal customers as a VIP thank-you, for new audiences lead with your most proven acquisition product; the one that consistently brings customers into your brand, and back it up with strong social proof.
- Intent Signalling: Retarget abandoned carts, site visitors, and email subscribers with tailored creative, as these leads are likely to convert both faster and cheaper.
Remember, BFCM isn’t about reaching everyone, it’s about reaching the right consumers; we want our budget to be pulling in consumers who are more likely to convert.
Tip 5: Think Beyond Just The Sale
Yes, our goal during this season is to generate sales and revenue, however you shouldn’t neglect the post-sale opportunities!
Ask yourself: What happens after the sale?
The post-sale win is when you manage to turn those consumers who first purchased from you during the holiday season into loyal, repeat customers.
Where Brands Fall Short:
- Short term mindset: Running BFCM promotions, without any follow-up plan.
- Not having a post-purchase plan: If you don’t have a nurture process in place, your consumers won’t come back after the sale season.
- Racing to the bottom: Competing solely on discounts
Turn BFCM Promotions into Long-Term Wins:
- Transform discount consumers into loyalty, repeat customers: Build out a post-puchase email journey that expresses gratitude, shares your brand story, and encourages the next steps. The goal here is to nurture long-term relationships.
- Add Value: A gift with purchase (GWP) is one of the most effective ways to increase average order value, as it adds perceived value without adding more discounting. Doing so further leaves the customer with a memorable and pleasant experience with your brand.
- Create Lasting Exclusivity: Utilising limited-edition collections, member-only products, or early access for loyal customers builds a sense of exclusivity which extends beyond the seasonal campaign.
We understand how in the lead up to BFCM, all activities revolve around those promotions, however, we encourage you to think about the holiday season as simply the starting point.
Maybe the sale gets customers through the door, but an intentional follow-up will keep them coming back to you.
Final Thoughts
BFCM is the biggest pressure test for any eCommerce brand. But if you keep things simple, consistent, targeted, and strategic, you won’t just boost sales, you’ll set your brand up for long-term growth.
Want the step-by-step playbook for running high-converting seasonal promotions and how to turn this into long-term growth?
Download our free guide: The Golden Recipe for Black Friday Cyber Monday Promotions and get actionable strategies you can use right now to win BFCM.
