2024 Black Friday eCommerce Tips & Free Checklist

Despite its fading reputation as the official “start” of the holiday shopping season, Black Friday remains a cornerstone of retailers’ profits, especially for those who sell their wares online.

But, with so many brands fighting for consumers’ attention during Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend, it’s easy to get lost in the fray.

The solution: Double down on your Black Friday marketing preparation.

As they say, the early bird gets the worm. Those online stores with fully fleshed-out plans of action will be the victors this holiday sales season.

And, in today’s guide, we’ll help you get started.

Below, we’ll share some of the best Black Friday eCommerce tips and tricks we’ve gleaned from decades of working with retail brands. We’ll also provide a free, downloadable version of our 90-day prep checklist, broken into the highest priorities for each month to come.

Download the complete list for free now, or keep reading to learn more about how to prep your brand for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2024.

What You Can Expect from Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2024

Before we get started, let’s set the scene for Black Friday 2024.

Technically, Black Friday is Nov. 29 of this year, and Cyber Monday is Dec. 2 – but if previous years’ trends are any indication, customers will begin their in-store and online shopping way earlier than that.

Throughout the last two years, more than half of shoppers began their holiday shopping by early November. And, with Thanksgiving falling so late this year, customers are pretty much guaranteed to start reaching into their wallets well before the unofficial “start” of the holiday shopping season.

All of this goes to prove that Black Friday sales and promotions are no longer limited to a single day. They’re now a months-long state of mind.

Graphic: When customers start shopping. Caption: Over the last decade, consumers have been kicking off their holiday shopping early in order to spread out their budget and avoid the stress of holiday shopping. This year, 59% of holiday shoppers started browsing and buying by early November. Percent browsing or buying before November: 2013, 54$; 2014, 54%; 2015, 57%; 2016, 56%; 2017, 56%; 2018, 55%; 2019, 56%; 2020, 59%; 2021, 61%; 2022, 60%; 2023, 59%. Source: N R F and Proper Insights & Analytics November 2023 Consumer Holiday Survey. — *Source:* *National Retail Federation*.

The good news? More shopping days give your brand more time to make an impact, hone in on the right messaging and audience targeting, and convert more customers.

The bad news? Those customers are going to be a lot pickier.

While years of inflation have not deterred past holiday shoppers from spending big, more of them seek out deals and promotions when making their purchase decisions. According to a 2023 study by Boston Consulting Group, 60% of customers prefer “discounts on everything” over short-lived flash deals or bundle deals — which means your specific sales event will make all the difference in your success this year.

In times of crisis, consumers constantly look for good bargains. 41% of consumers bought more often based on deals and promotions during the last three months. 30% is the minimum expected discount for a good Black Friday deal (across categories). 17% of consumers think that there are various promotions and discounts all the time anyway. Source: B C G Black Friday Consumer Sentiment Survey, October 2023. — *Source:* *Boston Consulting Group*.

To take advantage of these ongoing consumer trends, your 2024 Black Friday eCommerce strategy should focus on four main concepts:

Strategic pricing discounts and promos
Brand and product differentiators
Smart audience targeting
Optimized landing pages

Inflow’s eCommerce Black Friday Guide: The Quick Hits

When it comes to planning out your eCommerce Black Friday/Cyber Monday marketing approach, follow the strategic process:

Choose your themes and goals, and then get into the nitty-gritty of the week-by-week planning.

We’ve taken care of the latter for you in our Black Friday & Cyber Monday Digital Marketing Checklist (which you can download at any time below).

But, to make our checklist planner effective for your business, you should view it with these bigger themes in mind.

1. Be strategic with your pricing discounts and promotions.

Shoppers are expecting exceptional Black Friday deals, and your brand needs to deliver.

But that doesn’t mean offering one generic promotion for all customers. Instead, you’ll get the best performance from your Black Friday/Cyber Monday ad campaigns when you’re strategic about your customer discounts and coupons.

Graphic: Consumers' most wanted offers. Share of consumers citing the personalized offers they are most interested in receiving from merchants in the next three months, by annual income. Discounts and promotions: More than $100k, 46.4%; $50k to $100k, 46.8%; less than $50k, 42.1%. Free shipping: More than $100k, 25.6%; $50k to $100k, 30.6%; less than $50k, 37.6%. Birthday or anniversary discounts: More than $100k, 4.3%; $50k to $100k, 5.4%; less than $50k, 4.7%. Exclusive access to new products: More than $100k, 5.4%; $50k to $100k, 4.2%; less than $50k, 2.8%. Location-based offers: More than $100k, 4.4%; $50k to $100k, 3.5%; less than $50k, 3.2%. Product recommendations based on previous purchases: More than $100k, 4.5%; $50k to $100k, 2.9%; less than $50k, 3.5%. Personalized product bundles: More than $100k, 3.7%; $50k to $100k, 2.3%; less than $50k, 2.5%. Shipping upgrades: More than $100k, 3.2%; $50k to $100k, 2.7%; less than $50k, 1.9%. Offers based on lifestyle changes or events: More than $100k, 2.5%; $50k to $100k, 1.7%; less than $50k, 1.6%. Source: P Y M N T S Intelligence. — *Source:* *PYMNTS Intelligence*.

We’re not just talking about your overall product sales strategy (although that’s just as important, and should be discussed at length with your team before launching your ad). We’re talking about targeted special offers, such as a 30% discount for new shoppers versus a $30 discount for returning customers.

Like with all eCommerce sales strategies, you’ll need to think long and hard about which discounts make sense for your target shoppers – and whether your planned Black Friday offers will keep your profit margins high enough to draw in new customers who might buy in the future.

When in doubt, revisit your historical holiday shopping data from last year (and previous years) to see which discounts generated the most profits. This will be the best knowledge base for developing your 2024 pricing strategy.

Read our team’s recommendations for building an effective Black Friday pricing strategy now.

2. Determine your brand and product differentiators.

No matter your vertical, your target audience will be flooded with ads and promotions from competitors this holiday shopping season. To make your eCommerce business stand out from the noise, you’ll need to double down on your differentiators.

Taking price out of the equation, why should your customers choose to purchase from you instead of other online retailers?

The answer will inform your holiday shopping messaging and should be highlighted throughout your campaigns, from the first touchpoints to the final checkout process.

Examples include:

Your brand values and mission
Your sustainability commitment
Your level of customer support/service
Your shipping and return policies
Your product quality and availability

With the proliferation of massive players like Amazon, most midsize retailers simply can’t compete with the low prices being offered (and shouldn’t even attempt it).

Instead, we recommend focusing on your differentiators when building your Black Friday marketing strategy to drive the most online sales from the audiences that really matter.

See an example from our client EarthKind below:

The video below is hosted on YouTube. If you need assistance with viewing the video, please contact info@goinflow.com.

3. Use smart audience targeting (and retargeting).

Just as there will be thousands of brands competing for your sales, there will be millions of potential customers looking for deals this Black Friday. But not all of them will be worth your brand’s valuable marketing focus and money.

For most brands, “sales, sales, sales” is the prime focus during the holiday shopping season.

We’d like to add a caveat: The right sales from the right customers.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday aren’t just important for driving revenue. They’re also key opportunities to grow your target audience and create loyal customers for remarketing efforts in the new year and beyond.

Before you even launch this year’s ads, take a long, hard look at your existing customer demographics. Your most valuable customers? Those are the ones you want to draw more of to your site this holiday season.

You can use data from your CRM, your email lists, your previous ad campaigns, and other sources to develop the perfect targeting strategy for Black Friday & Cyber Monday. (Don’t forget to create retargeting lists for shopping cart abandonment, too!)

The sooner you do this, the better – and the more effective your holiday ad campaigns will be.

Need help creating your retargeting audiences? Reach out to Inflow’s advertising team today.

4. Optimize your landing pages.

Getting customers to your website is only half the battle. Once they’ve arrived, your user and customer experience needs to be as flawless as possible to convert them — or you risk losing major revenue.

With a longer sales cycle, online shoppers have more options than ever. They don’t need to (and won’t want to) suffer through a subpar web experience to purchase desired items. If they’re even slightly frustrated, they’ll simply find another retailer to shop at.

For this reason, conversion rate optimization is a must for your online store. Optimizing your landing pages protects you from wasting ad spend on clicks that don’t convert. And, when done correctly, it can be instrumental in improving your average order value during the holiday shopping season.

We’ve provided an extensive list of holiday CRO tips in our guide, but here are the major ones to start with:

Highlight your biggest discounts and offers with pop-up notifications and highly visible CTAs.
Optimize your web functionality for mobile devices.
Add upsell and cross-sell modules to your product pages.
Add countdown clocks and other tickers to emphasize a sense of urgency.
Consider implementing buy now, pay later purchase options.

Download Our Black Friday eCommerce Checklist Now

With these themes in mind, you’re ready to start your BFCM marketing planning.

This is no time to hold back. Where time and budget allow, your teams should implement a comprehensive, multi-month marketing strategy to generate brand and product awareness, drive customers to your eCommerce site, and get them ready to make a holiday purchase.

But we know that can be overwhelming, even for the most accomplished in-house marketing teams.

Enter our Black Friday & Cyber Monday Digital Marketing Checklist.

In it, you’ll find helpful to-do lists for the months to come, broken down by timeline and by highest priorities. Follow it closely, and you’ll be in great shape come the beginning of November.

Download your copy now:

Download Our Black Friday Digital Marketing Checklist now.

Have more questions about preparing your holiday marketing campaigns? Review any of our helpful resources below, or reach out to our team to see what we can do for your eCommerce store this holiday season: