The most exciting—and let’s be honest, one of the most intense—shopping seasons of the year is almost here. Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) 2024 promises to bring in record-breaking sales and opportunities, but with that comes the pressure to be prepared. Last year, Shopify merchants generated an astounding $9.2 billion USD in sales during BFCM, with the average cart value in the US at $105.
For ecommerce stores, this is the most crucial time of the year, and with just under two months left, the race is on to get ready. While many businesses start preparing as early as Q2, it’s never too late to make meaningful changes. Even if you’re just starting now, you’ve still got time to map out a strategy, streamline your operations, and position yourself for a successful BFCM.
6 BFCM Mistakes You Need To Steer Clear From
1. Not Warming Up Your Email Lists
Jumping straight into aggressive promotions without nurturing your audience is a recipe for lackluster results. If you haven’t been engaging your email/SMS subscribers consistently, they’re not going to respond well to your BFCM offers. You need to warm them up first by sending value-driven, content-based messages before hitting them with promotions.
2. Not Forecasting Your Demand
Failing to accurately forecast demand can lead to two scenarios—either you’ll run out of stock and miss out on sales, or you’ll overstock and hurt your margins. Use data from last year’s BFCM to identify your top-performing products, as well as other key factors such as seasonality and market trends to adjust your inventory levels.
3. Offering Basic Discounts
During BFCM, every brand is throwing discounts left and right. But in this competitive time, simple discounts are not enough to sway customers. When it comes to Black Friday, don’t be afraid to go BIG. Instead of just slashing prices, you can also focus on value-add offers such as product bundles, free gifts, or double loyalty points. Remember, your customers are looking for the best deal, but they’re also drawn to unique, creative offers.
4. Not Leveraging Enough Channels
Relying solely on email marketing isn’t enough anymore. To stand out, you need to diversify your marketing channels. Integrate push notifications, SMS marketing, and even social ads into your BFCM strategy. For example, you can encourage your email subscribers to sign up for SMS by offering them early access to your BFCM sale or exclusive VIP discounts. This adds an additional touchpoint to nurture conversions.
5. Not Following Up After BFCM
Many brands make the mistake of not nurturing customers once the BFCM frenzy is over. Remember, acquiring new customers is just the start; your goal should be to build long-term relationships. Engage your post-BFCM customers with trust-building, content-based emails that provide value beyond the sale. This is the time to nurture these new customers into loyal, repeat buyers.
6. Not Knowing Your Numbers
Many businesses dive into BFCM without a clear understanding of their profit margins or KPIs. You need to know how much revenue you’re aiming for, your cost per acquisition (CPA), updated product margins, and profitability after discounts. Without a clear grasp of your numbers, you risk spending more on ads and promotions than you’re making in sales.
BFCM Wins to Ensure Success
1. Build Your List: Grow Your Customer Pipeline Before BFCM
BFCM isn’t just about converting existing customers—it’s a golden opportunity to bring new potential buyers into your funnel. Leading up to BFCM, focus on growing your email and SMS lists by running targeted lead generation campaigns.
According to data from Omnisend, brands that built early bird BFCM lists saw 5-10% higher conversion rates during the BFCM weekend compared to those that didn’t. The idea is to get potential customers in your pipeline early, so you can nurture them with pre-BFCM offers and early access incentives.
👉Set up a BFCM-specific landing page or use Facebook lead ads to collect email subscribers and offer an incentive for signing up, like early access to your Black Friday sale.
👉Use paid social ads to target lookalike audiences similar to your existing high-value customers.
👉Run lead generation ads throughout October and the first half of November to build your pipeline.
Take a glance at our Early-Bird BFCM List Building Strategy Below:
2. Run Pre-BFCM Tests and Optimize
A critical aspect of ensuring your campaigns perform well is to test early. Instead of launching untested strategies during the high-stakes BFCM weekend, use September and October to run A/B tests on ads, email sequences, landing pages, and offers.
For instance, experiment with different ad creatives, email subject lines, and landing page formats. This will give you valuable insights into what resonates with your audience and allows you to refine your approach before the rush begins.
3. Audit and Optimize Your Website for Mobile-First Shoppers
Mobile traffic continues to dominate during BFCM, with 70% of sales in 2023 coming from mobile shoppers. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile, you’ll miss out on a significant chunk of your potential sales.
Mobile optimization isn’t just about responsive design; it’s about reducing friction at every step. From loading speed to a seamless checkout experience, every detail matters.
3 Ways to Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile Friendly:
👉Conduct a mobile audit using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and Mobile-Friendly Test.
👉Ensure your mobile site loads in under 3 seconds.
👉Simplify your checkout process to no more than 3 steps to reduce abandonment rate
4. Create a Month-Long BFCM Campaign Calendar
One of the most impactful ways to drive maximum results during Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) is to extend your campaign beyond just the weekend. While many brands focus on a narrow four-day window from Black Friday to Cyber Monday, a month-long BFCM campaign allows for better segmentation, testing, and customer engagement.
Shoppers today are bombarded with deals, and four days isn’t enough to fully capture the attention of all your audience segments. Stretching your campaign across the entire month of November allows you to build excitement, stagger offers, and engage different customer types at their preferred pace. Take a look at the BFCM campaign calendar we created for one of our clients down below: The BFCM Playbook: What You Should and Shouldn't Do to Prepare for BFCM 2024
5. Ensure Your Abandonment Flows Are in Place
One of the most overlooked aspects of BFCM success is making sure all your automated flows are in place, especially high-impact ones like cart abandonment, browse abandonment, and site abandonment flows. These flows act as safety nets, bringing back customers who were interested but didn’t complete a purchase.
During the high-traffic BFCM period, many customers may get distracted or hesitate before making a purchase, which makes these triggered flows critical. Studies show that cart abandonment emails have an average conversion rate of 18%, making them a crucial tool for recovering lost revenue.
Duplicate your pre-existing SMS, email, and push-notification flows, and then edit them to personalize or tailor the messaging specifically for Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Show dynamic product recommendations based on what customers viewed or added to their cart, and emphasize BFCM-specific urgency to drive quicker conversions.
6. Run Targeted Ads with a Balanced Budget
Ad spend skyrockets during BFCM, and competition can drive up costs. That said, this is one of the most important times of the year to run paid ads effectively. A strong strategy is to balance your ad budget between prospecting ads (to reach new customers) and retargeting ads (to bring back those who visited your site but didn’t convert).
The key is to allocate a larger portion of your ad budget toward retargeting to capture higher-intent shoppers while still investing in bringing new customers to your site.
👉Begin prospecting ads early (in October) to build awareness and target new customers.
👉Use retargeting ads heavily during BFCM, focusing on visitors who abandoned carts or showed interest but didn’t convert.
👉Monitor your ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) closely and adjust budgets in real time to ensure you’re driving profitable conversions.
Wrapping Up
From ensuring your shipping logistics are seamless to growing your customer pipeline and leveraging ads effectively, preparation is key. Remember, BFCM is about more than just the weekend itself—it’s about building long-term customer relationships and creating a smooth, engaging shopping experience. Start early, plan ahead, and execute with precision to make BFCM 2024 your best one yet. Want to take a closer look at our BFCM strategies for 2024? Check out this video for our full BFCM guide.
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