Setting Yourself up for Success: Our Last Minute BFCM Checklist

Happy Q4! We’re here to share some digital tips & tricks to help you put the finishing touches on your plans for a smooth sailing, brand scaling Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend.

Shoppers are estimated to spend $10 billion on Black Friday in 2024, up from $9.8 billion in 2023, with 42% of consumers planning to shop online. Still though, inflation and interest rates have put many people on a budget in 2024. It is reasonable to expect, especially with crowded markets and platforms, that consumers will be more selective about which brands they shop from.

That makes your BFCM prep even more crucial as consumers want to consider and plan their purchases. Almost 60% of shoppers start their holiday shopping in October or November, and 44% plan their BFCM purchases more than a week in advance.

Here’s what we think you should do about it.

1. Start Early

Ideally, you already have this part of the plan in motion or complete.

Map out your campaign strategy, goals, and budgets so that you can start capturing your buyers’ attention with increased spend on top-of-funnel campaigns throughout October. Lock your promotion in as well so that you’re able to source and design the necessary content in advance.

Depending on the contrast between your BAU and BFCM budgets, it may help to start scaling in increments before the sale starts. For example, one jewelry brand partnering with Lunar Solar Group scales their daily Meta spend by a whopping 7,400% on Black Friday compared to their typical budget. If they tried increasing spend by that amount overnight, not only would the account likely be unable to hit our desired budgets, but the delivery and ROAS would be pretty poor.

Also with Meta ads, wherever it makes sense to do so, have your ads built out in campaigns that are ready to turn on several days before you plan to launch your sale. With the spike in advertising around BFCM, platform review periods can lengthen. You want ads ready to be delivered when your sale launches, not stuck in a review period. In cases where you’re leveraging existing campaigns, consider implementing additional QA checkpoints within your team to avoid setting sale material live sooner than intended.

As far as when to launch the deals themselves, starting early can be very helpful here too as we know the bulk of 2024 sales are set to begin in early November; Walmart’s 2023 sale began on November 8th and Amazon started offering Black Friday deals on November 17, 2023. If margins allow, launching a lower tier “early sale” within the first two weeks of November can help put you on customers’ radars ahead of (or at least alongside) your competitors. However, that’s not feasible, or necessary, for every brand. From a platform perspective, it does certainly help to allow ads to run for several days building social proof before they reach peak efficiency, so being able to launch your offer prior to Black Friday can be an advantage for paid ads.

2. Grow Your Audience Before The Sale Begins

Drive as much traffic and as many email/SMS signups as possible in the months and weeks leading up to BFCM. That way, you’ll have a larger pool of potential customers to retarget when sales kick off. Remember that almost half of shoppers are planning their purchases now, so this is the time to get consumers familiar with your brand, putting them in the consideration phase.

Some examples of this prep work include:

• Optimizing your website pop-ups to increase sign up rates.
• Investing in list building tactics such as lead generation and tools like HiTide that turn social engagement into SMS subscriptions.
• Leveraging influencers to create unique content and generate awareness with their audiences ahead of time.
• Making organic content extra engaging with seasonally relevant material, polls that invoke user responses, interactive contests, etc.
• Tapping into affiliate marketing that can put you on ‘Best Holiday Gifts of 2024’ lists.

3. Optimize Your Site

This should go without saying at this point, but optimize for mobile, and fix any issues creating a slow site speed before the big weekend. To really fine-tune your conversion rates and create a customer experience that encourages brand loyalty, you should also be sure to:

• Set your Buy Boxes to default to a subscription option
• A/B test headlines and CTAs
• Keep your value props clear and prioritized according to customer pain points
• Test your discount functionality in advance
• Bonus points if you can leverage dynamic customization on your site

Keep in mind that during the holiday season especially, consumers care about shipping times and costs, so be sure to emphasize that as well throughout the shopping experience.

4. Creative

Consumers are going to be getting A LOT of ads and emails over BFCM. Come prepared with data-backed decisions.

• Make eye-catching creatives that stick out with the brand identity, the product, and the offer. If you’re having a hard time taking a step back and viewing material with a consumer mindset, consider using tools like Neurons that will scan creative and tell you where attention is being drawn to.
• Create urgency. Language like, “Sold Out 10 Times”, “Limited Edition”, and “First 200 Customers Only”, can drive demand. Countdown clock visuals are also great for this.
• Messaging should feature a balanced mix of brand values and enticing offers. Match the audience’s needs with your USPs.
• Clarity wins. It’s good to be prepared with a variety of asset types, but come prepared with some uncomplicated graphics that clearly show the offer.
• Learn from past campaign performance to understand what worked and what didn’t. Shockingly, we tend to find that leaning into seasonality with gifting visuals goes a long way.
• Refresh evergreen ad creative in November. It’s easy to get caught up in the sale prep and neglect evergreen efforts, but these ads are likely to drive a healthy chunk of your platform revenue over BFCM if you let them.