Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) is the biggest sales event of the year in ecommerce. Here are some tips to help you maximize sales during this period, whether you’re running a newly launched online store or an already established one.
But first: think carefully about what you want to achieve with your BFCM campaign. For new online stores, it might make more sense to focus on getting as many orders as possible rather than maximizing profit—essentially just getting your first customers and aiming to break even. For more mature stores, BFCM might be all about driving profit.
Black Friday Tips for Online Stores
- Include Cyber Monday: Make sure your Black Friday campaign includes Cyber Monday. It can be as big of a sales day as Black Friday itself.
- Feature your best products: Include at least some of your most popular products in your Black Friday campaign—I like to call them strawberries—and use them to promote your BFCM campaign.
- Big discounts matter: Some products should have big discounts. These bring people in and allow you to advertise discounts of at least XX% off. You don’t need to make a profit on every product or order. At a minimum, some products should have discounts of at least 20%—the bigger, the better.
- Be everywhere: Rather overdo it than underdo it. For example, Black Friday is one of the few days a year when it’s okay to send two newsletters in one day (e.g., “BF Started” and “BF Ending”) and be also extremly active on social media (schedule posts in advance if needed).
- Increase ad budgets: Raise your ad budgets as high as possible. There’s no point in running a campaign without spending money to bring people in. No one will buy, no matter how good the offer, if they don’t see it. Use Google Ads and Meta’s specific ad formats for discounts (e.g., Promotions in GA). Start promoting the campaign early (e.g., “BFCM is coming tomorrow”).
- Target everyone, not just new customers: Don’t forget your loyal customers—they might buy again for themselves or for Christmas gifts. For example, when setting audiences for remarketing ads, don’t exclude previous buyers.
- Add urgency: In your ads and on your site, emphasize that offers are only available for a limited time (consider using a countdown timer) or that stock is limited.
- Add perks: Free shipping or free returns can provide the final nudge customers need to buy.
- Make deals easy to find: Ensure Black Friday offers are simple to locate on your site. Not everyone will land on your Black Friday page. Use a top bar, main CTA buttons on the homepage, and popups highlighting Black Friday offers.
- Use targeted popups: Targeted popups are great for directing visitors to your Black Friday page. Just make sure the triggers make sense (e.g., those already on the page don’t see the popup)
- Leverage influencers: If you have influencer partners, ask them to share your campaign. Don’t forget to share the campaign on your personal accounts as well.
- Answer questions quickly: Be available to respond to customer inquiries. If you don’t have live chat, consider adding it for Black Friday if you expect high volume.
- Create new urgency: If your BFCM campaign has been running for a few days, add fresh products or extra discounts specifically for Black Friday.
- Extend your campaign: If you expect high interest, let your campaign run past midnight. People might still be in their carts or at checkout—give them time to complete their purchase.
- Consider an anti-Black Friday campaign: If you hate discounts, be bold. Tell customers you don’t have discounts, but prices will rise after Black Friday by X%, so this is their last chance to buy at the current price. Alternatively, you can run a small campaign explaining that your products are fairly priced and you only want customers to buy if they truly need them—like we once did with our shoe store with great success.
May lots of sales be with you! And may your checkout pages convert like a dream!