Black Friday ecommerce success: Reduce stress and boost profits

Black Friday brings intense competition as companies vie for customer attention and online sales. Whether you’re an ecommerce marketer managing a single brand or you’re working with multiple clients at an agency, the pressure during peak season is no joke.

If you have a rough plan for your Black Friday ecommerce marketing strategy but want to refine it with data-driven insights, this article can help you out. 

Navigate this post:

• Take a thoughtful approach to Black Friday 
• How to prepare for Black Friday ecommerce: A marketer’s checklist 
• How to turn customer data into actionable insights
• How to survive Black Friday without exhausting your marketing team 
• Top Black Friday ideas for ecommerce success 

Take a thoughtful approach to Black Friday 

Black Friday can offer tempting short-term gains, but before getting swept away in the rush of the season, consider how participating in Black Friday aligns with your long-term business strategy. Without a thoughtful approach, joining peak season can result in increased price sensitivity, reduced pricing power, and shrinking profit margins. 

Big brands like Patagonia and Asket choose not to participate in Black Friday—some make a statement about it, while others quietly sit back. That’s not to say all companies should skip Black Friday altogether—just approach it with intention. Consider these three questions: 

1) Does Black Friday align with our brand values and target audience? 

Understand your audience and what resonates with them. Are your customers even looking for Black Friday deals in your product category?

Instead of mimicking large retailers like Amazon and Best Buy, you can offer alternatives like free gifts with purchases or donating a portion of sales to charity. 

2) Do we have enough inventory? 

Make sure you have enough stock to support Black Friday sales without compromising profit margins. Before diving into detailed planning, assess which products can be discounted in a way that protects your bottom line.

3) What are competitors doing? 

While your brand should be your main focus, it’s helpful to understand what your competitors are up to. Are they heavily involved in Black Friday, or are they opting out? How are customers responding?

How to prepare for Black Friday: An ecommerce marketer’s checklist

Now that you’ve decided to participate in Black Friday, here’s what to do before, during, and after your campaign. 

3-6 months before the campaign: Preparation

• Set clear goals using the SMART framework (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) to track during the campaign. First, establish what you want to learn and work your way backwards to decide on your goals.
• Identify your target audience and tailor your messaging to resonate with them. Use dynamic or segmented banners to address different audience segments, if possible.
• Develop a strategy and media plan well in advance. Prioritize planning key elements like offline channels and keep other aspects like social media flexible. 
• Optimize your website and purchase path to provide a seamless shopping experience. Preparing well in advance will ease concerns about your website’s ability to handle the surge in traffic on Black Friday.
• Set up data collection and dashboards to effectively monitor performance. 

1-2 weeks before and during the campaign: Execution

• Monitor performance: Use an ecommerce dashboard to track campaign performance in real time. Set up alerts in tools like Google Sheets with Supermetrics to stay up-to-date.  
• Manage inventory: Keep an eye on inventory levels in your dashboard to quickly adjust ads for out-of-stock items. 
• Engage with customers on social media and through customer support. Check feedback and comments during the campaign and make any needed adjustments.
• Stay agile: Prepare contingency plans and be ready to adapt your strategy as you go. 

1-2 weeks after the campaign: Post-campaign  

• Evaluate performance: Review the campaign results against your initial goals to evaluate success and pinpoint areas for improvement.
• Document learnings: Record key takeaways and lessons learned to apply to future peak season campaigns.

How to use data and analytics to drive more Black Friday sales

Collecting and analyzing ecommerce data effectively will help you make a strong case for your marketing strategies and drive success not just for Black Friday but for the entire peak season.

Look at your historical data

Your historical data is key to shaping your Black Friday ecommerce strategies. By analyzing past campaigns, you’ll see which tactics drove the most sales and which fell short. This helps you focus on what works and avoid repeating mistakes. 

Use your historial data to:

• Refine your retargeting strategies: Cross-sell and up-sell to existing customers during Black Friday. Since they already know your brand, they’ll be more inclined to make additional purchases.
• Leverage ecommerce customer segmentation: Analyze past purchase behavior to identify customers who bought during previous sales events. Target these customers specifically, as they’re more likely to buy during Black Friday compared to others. 
• Predict demand spikes: Review your performance data from previous years to anticipate demand spikes. This helps you prepare your inventory and adjust your marketing strategies accordingly.

Leverage trend data

While historical ecommerce data is crucial, don’t stop there. Expand your strategy by monitoring industry trends. What are your customers talking about? What’s trending in your industry? And where do your customers overlap with what’s trending?  

Trend data helps you stay ahead by anticipating shifts in customer behavior and preferences. Sam Lloyd, Director of Global Media at Groupon, points out, “As performance marketers, it’s really important to pull yourself out of your internal data and find out what’s going on with the market and industry.”

Sam suggests getting a pulse on the market by using Google Trends—a free tool that lets you track search trends for different keywords, helping you monitor relevant topics and spot shifts in consumer behavior.

Set up an automated ecommerce dashboard

Unlike year-round evergreen ecommerce campaigns, Black Friday strategies often need swift adjustments. An automated ecommerce dashboard allows you to track campaigns in real time so you can make quick changes as needed. For example, if an ad isn’t performing well, you can adjust your budget or messaging on the fly to improve results.

Automation saves you time and reduces errors by refreshing reports automatically. This lets you focus on analyzing data and refining your strategies rather than getting bogged down in manual reporting.

Swipe our Shopify dashboard template for free. 

Use attribution models 

Use marketing attribution to measure the full impact of your marketing efforts across all touchpoints. With Google Analytics 4, you can more accurately distribute credit for deals along the purchase path. 

If you have a brick-and-mortar store, consider integrating offline conversion tracking to see how online ads affect in-store purchases. Since the customer journey isn’t always linear, you may need advanced methods like marketing mix modeling (MMM) to do so. This approach can give you a clearer picture by analyzing the impact of different ads and media on your sales.

Measure the true impact of your Black Friday campaign

To evaluate whether Black Friday is truly profitable for your ecommerce business, measure incrementality. This will show you the real impact of your promotions by revealing what would have happened without them. You’ll find out if your Black Friday campaigns are genuinely boosting sales or just shifting purchases from other periods.

Timing matters here. Don’t run incrementality tests smack in the middle of peak campaigns. Instead, plan ahead to minimize disruptions. For accurate results, pause your ads for at least a month and avoid any campaign changes during that period.

You can measure incremental impact with methods like MMM and conversion-lift studies. Tools like Supermetrics can help you gather the data, but it’s up to your team to analyze it. 

For more details, check out our articles on marketing mix modeling and incrementality testing.

How to survive Black Friday without exhausting your marketing team

Late work hours and overtime during peak season can take a toll on your team, whether you’re juggling multiple clients’ or handling in-house campaigns. But burnout after Black Friday doesn’t have to be inevitable.

Although it’s a hectic time, there are ways to reduce stress and prevent overwhelm. 

• Streamline tasks with a project management tool. Use Trello, Monday, or whatever tool you’re already using to track all campaign tasks and progress in one place, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.

• Assign clear responsibilities. Define each team member’s role and responsibilities before Black Friday. For example, assign someone to monitor inventory levels and update ads as needed. Clearly documented roles improve response times and prevent confusion. It’s equally important to assign stand-ins, who will cover for whom, in case anyone gets sick.

• Automate everything you can. Use Supermetrics to peak season dashboards to monitor campaign performance and create real-time alerts for underperforming metrics. Use dynamic ads and a consistent naming system for campaigns to simplify data tracking and reduce manual checking.

• Prepare for contingencies. Let’s be real: some issues are bound to arise during peak season. But you can create contingency plans for common problems like ad adjustments or inventory updates and designate team members to address those specific issues ahead of time. 

Black Friday campaign best practices

Finding the right balance during Black Friday can be tricky—you want to offer great discounts without making your products seem too cheap.

Here are our best strategies to help you find that balance.

Align Black Friday with the overall peak season

A McKinsey study shows that 40% of American consumers plan to do most of their Christmas shopping during Black Friday weekend, with some starting as early as October. This highlights the need to see Black Friday as just one part of your peak season strategy—the season can blur together into time-shifted shopping. 

Studies show that many promotional sales aren’t truly incremental and can actually reduce profits. In categories like electronics, for example, consumers often hold off on purchases until they see discounts. So if you run heavy promotions during Black Friday, you can expect lower sales during the Christmas season.

By balancing your promotions across the entire peak season, you can protect your margins and ensure a more sustainable ecommerce sales strategy.

Manage expectations early on 

Agencies and in-house teams often struggle to align on realistic Black Friday goals. Clients and stakeholders may not fully grasp the competitive landscape, making it crucial to set clear, achievable targets.

Start by being upfront about your budget: do you have enough to make a splash amidst the sea of Black Friday ads? You can still run an effective ecommerce campaign with a tighter budget—just set expectations accordingly. Use your own historical data, market benchmarks, and competitor data to guide your planning.

Offer bundles or exclusive products 

Instead of going for huge discounts like 80%, try offering a 20% discount with added perks like free shipping, bundles, or exclusive products. These value-added offers can boost your brand’s appeal more than slashing prices. 

For example, fast and free delivery could win Gen X shoppers over. While they might be enticed by a 30% discount, they could abandon their cart for a €10 delivery fee. So a 25% discount with free delivery could then be more appealing, even if the overall discount is a bit less. 

Give early access to loyal customers 

By rewarding your loyal customers, you not only make them feel valued but also help drive initial traffic and buzz. Plus, happy customers are more likely to spread the word about your discounts.  

Early offers can also help you better manage inventory and ensure that your most engaged shoppers get the best deals before the rush of the general public. 

To find your most loyal customers, look at your customer lifetime value (CLV), which shows how much money they’re expected to spend in your business over their lifetime. You can also target early access offers to those with the highest retention rates, rewarding your longest-standing customers. 

Opt for tiered discounts 

Encourage larger purchases by rewarding your customers with tiered discounts—the more they buy, the bigger the savings. For example, offer 10% off on orders over $50, 15% off on orders over $100, and 20% off on orders over $200 (and so on). 

This approach lets customers get more value as they shop while helping you keep your products’ perceived value high. It also helps manage inventory by reducing excess stock and speeding up product turnover. 

To figure out the best discount rates, go beyond your marketing bubble and chat with people from sales, pricing, and product teams for a well-rounded business perspective. 

Use loss leader products 

A “loss leader” product, or “hero product,” is an item sold at a low margin to attract customers and create buzz. Your loss leader can be a popular holiday product (maybe a stocking stuffer) or an item with excess inventory, for example. The goal is to encourage customers to then purchase other, more profitable products. 

To gauge whether your loss leader is successful, track your customer acquisition cost (CAC) to see what you’re spending to attract each new customer. Also, monitor your average order value (AOV) to check if customers are purchasing higher-value items alongside the loss leader.

Take a waterfall approach 

For paid media, we recommend using the waterfall approach. Start by focusing your budget on the most effective channels to reach your target audience. Aim to cover 50-70% of your audience through social media, for example. 

Next, move to the other effective channels. Remember, while search engine marketing (SEM) can offer a high return on ad spend (ROAS), it also benefits from increased visibility across other media, known as the halo effect.

The key is to avoid spreading your budget too thin across many channels. Focus on one at a time to ensure you get noticed. Of course, if your budget allows, feel free to do more fun, splashy tests on other media channels. 

Attract returning customers 

Use Black Friday to build lasting customer relationships, not just one-off purchases. Offer incentives like exclusive early access, special discounts, or free shipping to encourage sign-ups. 

After Black Friday, tailor your messaging based on your customers’ purchase history. For example, if a customer bought a mobile phone, follow up with ads for phone accessories.

If you haven’t already, consider launching a loyalty program to help turn one-time shoppers into loyal, returning customers. Black Friday is a great time to introduce it, as shoppers are looking for deals. According to a YouGov survey, 71% of Millennial consumers (ages 35-44) are eager to join loyalty programs to save money.

Final thoughts

Choosing the best Black Friday tactics to boost online sales depends on factors like market saturation, your brand’s position, and available resources. However, regardless of your ecommerce business, streamlining your marketing data is key to understanding campaign effectiveness and profitability.

Put these tips into practice to create a customer-focused Black Friday while keeping your marketing team’s sanity in check.