Is it just us, or do Black Friday deals keep showing up earlier each year? According to retail experts, this shopping trend isn’t going anywhere.
In fact, in 2020, we saw some of the earliest Black Friday ads—we’re talking mid-October! And you know how Cyber Monday typically occurs…well, on Monday? Last year, this sale’s event extended throughout the entire week—offering shoppers even more “can’t miss” deals and discounts.
This year, Black Friday deals are already here. In fact, on October 4th, Amazon launched its “Black Friday Worthy Deals,” across its entire site, in conjunction with its Epic Deals for Prime members. These campaigns helped set a new record for the earliest online holiday shopping deals.
So, Why Does All This Matter?
In case you forgot, Black Friday doesn’t actually happen until November 26. But with big retailers like Amazon, Target, and Best Buy already kick starting their holiday sales this month, the only question left now is…will your business do the same?
Shoppers Want Their Deals Now!
It’s estimated that over 83% of shoppers are planning to start their holiday shopping early this year (well before Thanksgiving). Let’s also not forget that, like you, customers are all too aware of the supply challenges, shipping delays, and inventory shortage happening all over the country. This is just another reason why they’re planning to shop deals early in 2021.
So, if you want to get in front of the holiday rush, NOW is the time to start launching your ad campaigns.
2021 Black Friday Checklist
Running a business isn’t for chumps. It takes hard work and careful planning. And aside from the daily operations and routine tasks of owning a company, one major hurdle that can make (or break) its success is knowing how to promote your products online. You might be wondering:
How do I stand out in this highly digital, extremely competitive seller’s market?
The trick to staying competitive this season is not just advertising the best Black Friday deals out there. It’s also knowing how to reach the right audience with the right message at the right moment.
This means your ads need to be targeted, optimized, and trackable—so you can adjust and pivot your strategy, as needed, for better conversions.
To help you get started with launching your Black Friday ads, here are a few tips from our very own Chris Flaten, Digital Marketing Specialist.
Get Your Products on Social
Make sure your products are listed on social platform stores like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. These are actually the first channels most users browse for shopping trends, ideas, and discounts.
-
- These platforms also make it easier to track conversions and sales with their embedded tools.
- Facebook recommends waiting a minimum of 72 hours, however, or the full length of the optimization period before evaluating each ad’s performance for conversion rates.
Analyze Data at Campaign Level
The aftermath of Apple’s IOS 15 update has no doubt caused issues with reporting user data. This has lead Facebook and others to do what they call “predictive conversions.” This involves a bit of guesswork as to whether or not someone has converted, and it’s based on other factors.
-
-
- Note: because this is only reported on the campaign level—vs. the ad set or ad group level—you’ll need to pay close attention to the campaign level of each ad to get a better understanding of its performance, as the ad set level will be slightly less accurate.
-
Connect to Facebook
For Facebook ads, be sure to set up conversions API to create a direct connection between your marketing data and the platform’s systems. This helps optimize ad targeting, improve cost per action, and measure data for accurate reporting.
Check and Track Inventory
Make sure you are properly stocked with the popular items you plan to promote.
Have a Contingency Plan for “Out of Stock” Items
If you sell your products in-store and online, for example, you may provide extra incentives for customers to stop at your location to find these items, where they will be tempted to add other best seller items to their shopping lists.
Test Your eCommerce Site for Speed and Load Capacity
The last thing you want is for your online store to become overloaded and crash. Make sure your web server can handle the surge of traffic this season. This includes mobile, too!
Get Help with Your Ad Campaigns
With Apple’s recent changes to tracking user data, and third-party cookies slowly headed out, you might find it harder to track campaign performance.
-
- If this is the case, reach out to a digital marketing company near you to help you build a digital advertising strategy that aligns with your goals and allows you to optimize and track performance accurately for higher conversion rates.
If you haven’t already started a campaign, don’t wait any longer. Do it now! We recommend beginning with a high-level campaign strategy to help generate some brand awareness. This way, you’ll already have an engaged audience you can start retargeting.
Being able to retarget is an effective way to gain traffic, and conversions, but you have to start with brand awareness first; otherwise, your conversion rates will stay low, and you might miss out on potential customers—or worse, lose them to your competitors.
Need Help with Your Paid Advertising?
Whether you’re advertising Black Friday or Small Business Saturday deals this year, trust Brandography to help you build, launch, and track each campaign’s performance! Our team will work with you to build a strategy that reaches more audiences and converts new users into returning customers.
To learn how we can help, contact us for a consultation today!
