It’s that time again — time to plan your Black Friday marketing campaigns in time for the biggest shopping week of the year.
Total holiday season sales are expected to reach $1.3 trillion (!) in 2024, with Black Friday shopping alone accounting for almost $10 billion.
Want a slice of the 3.1416? Stew over these Black Friday marketing ideas, bake up an offer your audience can’t refuse, then sit back in your stretchy pants and click “Launch” on your most successful Black Friday marketing campaign ever.
Bonus: Download a free social media campaign template to help you plan your next goal-crushing campaign of any size or budget. Assign responsibilities, set timelines, list deliverables, and more!
Black Friday marketing stats
Everyone knows Black Friday = shopping. If you sell anything, here are 13 reasons why you need to get into the Black Friday campaign spirit:
- Black Friday sales were $9.8 billion in the U.S. in 2023.
- Often considered part of Black Friday marketing campaigns, Cyber Monday 2023 sales in the U.S. were even bigger at $12.4 billion.
Source: Black Friday, Cyber Monday sales 2023, Emarketer
- Black Friday 2024 and total holiday season sales are expected to grow 4.8% to $1.353 trillion in the United States alone this year vs. 2023.
- Cyber Week (including Black Friday and Cyber Monday) ecommerce only sales were $298 billion globally in 2023, up 6% vs. 2022.
- Black Friday 2024 ecommerce sales are expected to rise 9.5% compared to in-person sales at 3.7%.
Source: US Holiday Shopping 2024, Emarketer
- A record 200.4 million people in the U.S. shopped during the five day Black Friday/Cyber Monday period in 2023.
Source: Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend Shoppers, National Retail Federation
- Black Friday marketing goes beyond the United States: Chile’s three day Cyber Monday sales were $426 million USD in 2023, while Cyber Monday sales grew 10% year-over-year in Europe in 2023, compared to 3% in the U.S.
- Mobile rules: Shopping on mobile devices was up 10.4% on Black Friday 2023 vs. 2022, which is likely to increase even more in 2024.
- The average online conversion rate in 2023 was 6.5% on Black Friday and 6.9% on Cyber Monday on desktop, and 3.2% and 3.5% respectively on mobile devices.
- 54% of online orders were completed on mobile devices on Black Friday 2023, and 59% on Thanksgiving Day. That equated to $5.3 billion on Black Friday alone.
- “Buy now, pay later” orders rose 72% during the week of Black Friday 2023 shopping compared to the previous week, a trend expected to continue in 2024.
- People earning between $50,000-$99,000 increased holiday spending by an average of 26% in 2023, while those earning $200,000+ increased by 22%.
- 27% of shoppers, dubbed “high spenders,” are responsible for 68% of total holiday season spending.
18 Black Friday marketing ideas that will drive sales
1. Prepare your marketing lists
Black Friday marketing starts well before Black Friday. Leading up to the big campaign, get your email marketing lists and custom ad targeting audiences in tip-top shape.
Check to ensure things like your Meta Pixel is tracking accurately, and that analytics and other customer data sources are accurate and syncing everything they need to be.
Plus, encourage people to subscribe well before Black Friday to beef up your lists and build anticipation with sneak peeks of upcoming deals.
2. Start early
There’s a reason it seems like you see more “pre-Black Friday” flash sales every year: they work.
As expert ecommerce email marketer Emiel Dingemans advises, “In the week leading up to Black Friday, focus on stress-free shopping and that everything is still in stock. If you combine that with a buy one, get one free offer or special bundle deal, you’ll already generate a ton of revenue before Black Friday actually hits.”
Source: Emiel Dingemans on X
Your early Black Friday marketing can start the week before, or even a month before. Amazon offers deeply discounted Prime Days every October and this year, Target is offering its members-only exclusive sale, called Circle Week, from October 6-12, 2024.
3. Drop hints leading up to your Black Friday campaign
Build up your email list and anticipation for your upcoming Black Friday promotions by teasing what’s to come.
You can hint at what your discounts will be, or use it as an opportunity to make your campaign even more successful by asking your audience what they’d most like to see on sale this year.
Source: ASOS on Instagram
4. Align online and offline Black Friday marketing campaigns
Connect the dots between your ecommerce campaigns and in-store offers to maximize sales from in-store shoppers. Over half of U.S. Black Friday shoppers who went to a store looked up product reviews or information online first.
Glossier is known for including real customer messages and feedback into their social feed. This carousel post rounds up employees’ favorite products, keeping the same community feel to their Black Friday marketing posts, while still promoting the sale.
Source: Glossier on Instagram
5. Automate customer service with a chatbot
It goes without saying the busiest online shopping week of the year will deliver, most likely, the highest web traffic of the year. Instant, helpful customer service can prepare for the influx and capture lost opportunities.
Using an AI chatbot for customer service on your website can be the difference between someone getting the answer they need and checking out, or bouncing off to a competitor—especially during the frantic pace of Black Friday shopping.
Wow customers with an AI chatbot that can:
- Automatically answer common FAQs, like your shipping info or business hours.
- Recommend products.
- Answer queries like, “Where’s my order?” by looking up tracking or account information.
- Intelligently reply to complex questions using natural language processing.
Source: Hootsuite Inbox
Continue the quick service by automating your social media inbox replies, too. With Hootsuite Inbox, you can assign and answer DMs and comments across all your platforms right inside your Hootsuite dashboard, as well as save time with automations. Set up auto-responses and one-click saved replies and smart collaboration tools to ensure your team doesn’t miss any replies, or reply to the same message.
Check out how connecting your social media to customer service delights your customers:
6. Create gift guides
Of the 200 million people in the U.S. who shopped during the Black Friday period last year, most were looking for gifts for others. Make their jobs easier—and the likelihood they’ll shop with you higher—by creating curated gift guides.
You can do this with social media content or by adding them to your website navigation.
Source: Macy’s
A few ideas for gift guides could be:
- Gifts for moms, dads, brothers, sisters, etc
- Gifts under $25, $50, $100
- Host/hostess gifts
- Stocking stuffers
Plus additional guides tailored to your products. For example, bookstores could curate lists by interest, such as “Gifts for home cooks,” or, “Gifts for history buffs.”
7. Work with influencers
Influencer campaigns can be a powerful addition to your Black Friday marketing strategy to get you in front of new audiences.
ASOS partnered with social media creators to share their “hauls” ahead of Black Friday to build momentum for the sale. The creators also listed each item in their descriptions so people could copy/paste them into the ASOS website quickly on Black Friday.
Source: @im.5ft on TikTok
Most Black Friday campaigns are price-focused. If you can’t (or don’t want to) compete on price, compete on values instead. Remind your customers why they should choose you vs. “the big guys” in all your Black Friday marketing efforts.
If your products are handmade, show your process. You don’t need to bad-mouth mass-produced brands, but top quality always justifies a top price for buyers interested in supporting artisans.
For example, sustainable clothing brand Tentree allows customers to sell pre-loved clothing via their website for cash back. Focusing on this unique program, and the values behind it, is enough to lure eco-conscious customers away from other brands.
Source: Tentree on Instagram
9. Plan ads strategically
There are a lot of things that go into creating a successful Black Friday ads strategy, including budgeting. While costs vary widely by platform, format, and business category, one thing is a given: ads cost more in Q4.
Source: Skai
Part of why costs are higher in Q4 has to do with competition and intent. More advertisers are running ads during the last quarter, so it costs more to compete with them.
As for intention, we know 200 million people in the U.S. alone plan to shop Black Friday sales. Chances are if they see an ad for a deal they can’t refuse, they’ll click it.
Just because ad costs are higher shouldn’t dissuade you from trying them. Black Friday ads can be extremely powerful with the right strategy, creative assets, and audience targeting. Before jumping in, make sure you’ve dialed in those three factors first.
New to ads? Start with the tips in our guide to social media advertising.
10. Offer long-time customers a special deal
Offer your loyal customers and long-time subscribers something extra for Black Friday. Make them feel valued by offering an attractive loyalty program, an additional discount, or early access to shop your deals, like this email sent by PRESS Foods.
Source: PRESS Foods
11. Optimize for mobile
Yes, in the year 2024 A.D. (After DOS), we are still saying “optimize your website for mobile.” It still gets overlooked.
54% of online orders happened on mobile devices on Black Friday 2023 and Adobe is predicting the same for this year. But crucially, even though the split between mobile and desktop is fairly even, sales volume isn’t: mobile shoppers spend more. Adobe predicts mobile ecommerce will outperform desktop by 13.6%, a difference of $15.4 billion.
Source: Adobe
With the quick pace of Black Friday deals, a buggy or difficult checkout process is enough to turn your customer toward a competitor instead, or at the very least cause frustration.
And before you think, “Couldn’t be me!”… Yes, it could. Website glitches happen to everyone and while they’re never ideal, you especially don’t want anything that could slow down sales on the busiest shopping day of the year.
The first rule of Black Friday marketing club is, “You do not forget to test your website and checkout process on mobile.”
The second rule of Black Friday marketing club is, “You do NOT forget to test.”
12. Offer “buy now, pay later”
Buy Now, Pay Later options continue to be popular with consumers, who used providers like Klarna, Afterpay, and others 14% more during the 2023 holiday season.
But the most important reason you should offer these types of payment options? Customers using BNPL services spend more. The average BNPL customer spent 48% more on Black Friday compared to customers paying cash or credit.
Even more pressing is that 22% of consumers say they’d shop elsewhere if a retailer doesn’t offer Buy Now, Pay Later options.
If you offer BNPL, let customers know well before they reach checkout by showing the provider’s logo on your website. Common areas are the footer, or even right in the product description so people know right away they have the option, which could entice them to shop with you this holiday season.
Source: Vistek
13. Use SMS marketing
If you already text your customers (known as SMS marketing) then great, work your Black Friday deals into the mix.
If not, it’s time to get on board with this high reach, high engagement channel. Black Friday is a great opportunity for this as deals and shoppers are both moving quickly, with bags in one hand and their smartphone likely clutched in the other.
Consider offering your SMS subscribers a super special discount or gift for Black Friday, or switch your abandoned cart emails to text messages instead to capitalize on quick action.
The key with SMS marketing is to keep it “in the moment.” Don’t send a promo the week before Black Friday. Send it either the morning of Black Friday, or the day before at most.
14. Target abandoned carts
Obviously you always want to be recovering abandoned carts, but planning your Black Friday campaign is a great time to retest and make sure abandoned cart emails (or texts) are going out properly, and say what you want them to.
Try experimenting with personalization options, like showing the actual products the user left behind, to increase conversions. Or offer a special Black Friday “come back” bonus deal.
Source: Vistek
15. Create special bundles
If you offer a Black Friday deal similar to sales you already run throughout the year, people will be less likely to take you up on it since there’s so much more competition.
Create something totally new that’s only available on Black Friday: a bundle of several products at a discount, your lowest price of the year on popular items, or even a value-add: buy X, get Y for free.
Be sure to communicate the exclusive nature of the deal and how it’s only available on Black Friday… and stick to it! That sense of urgency drives a “fear of missing out,” also known as FOMO.
Research has shown people experiencing FOMO have “a high level of irrationality” which translates into impulsive spending. The term “fomsumerism” was coined to describe all the ways urgency and wanting to fit in drive customer behavior:
Source: FOMO related consumer behavior in marketing context: A systematic literature review.
16. Offer time-limited deals
Try offering a different promotion for each hour of Black Friday, or each day of the five day “Cyber Weekend,” which starts on Thanksgiving and ends with Cyber Monday.
B&H Photo’s DealZone offers deeply discounted products for one day only sales, making a purchase a no-brainer for someone interested in that item.
Source: B&H Photo
If you’re not discounting prices, or in addition to doing that, consider offering a value-add like a free gift with purchase or extra loyalty rewards points.
You can also offer a gift card to use for a future order. Set a specific time customers can use the gift card, such as in January when sales tend to be slow.
This strategy encourages customers to spend more and doesn’t cost you anything extra right now. Chances are it may not cost you anything at all: studies have found about half of consumers lose a gift card before they have a chance to spend it.
Source: Kohl’s
18. Follow up
Black Friday marketing doesn’t end at midnight, Cinderella.
Use the influx of new customers as a chance to nurture both new and old relationships, both immediately after an order and in the weeks post-Black Friday/Cyber Monday.
A few follow up ideas:
- Send order confirmations immediately, then follow up with shipping/tracking information.
- Send an email to those who didn’t purchase with a special offer, or extended Black Friday deal.
- For new subscribers, send a welcome email thanking them for subscribing and introduce your brand.
- Ask for a product review to build up social proof.
Glossier’s only sale of the year
Source: Glossier on Instagram
Cosmetics brand Glossier famously doesn’t offer sales very often, except for Black Friday. This helps build momentum for it and encourage customers to shop since getting a deal is so rare. Since Glossier typically features customer comments as social media posts, their Black Friday Sale announcement is both unusual for a brand and perfectly on-brand for them.
Steal this idea:
Home Depot’s Black Friday slideshows
Source: Home Depot on Facebook
Don’t have the budget or time to make live action Reels to promote your Black Friday sale? Make a product “slideshow” video of your best Black Friday deals like this example from Home Depot—totally possible to put together and schedule while still in your pajamas.
Steal this idea:
- To make videos like this even faster, save a “promotion video” template with your logo, brand colors, and fonts, then just edit the product photos and information.
Simple sale reminder from Dick’s Sporting Goods
Source: Dick’s Sporting Goods on Instagram
Just like the above example, making social media videos doesn’t need to be complicated or even include a human being. This few second long Reel can be shot and edited in minutes right from your desk.
Steal this idea:
- Simple can be effective. Have a clear point to the video and make it relatable. This one works as it’s showing someone ready to shop with their gift budget list pulled up alongside the Dick’s website.
- Use bold text to get the point across quickly. Bonus: this can be the cover photo for your Instagram feed too.
Need more Black Friday marketing campaign inspiration? Check out 20+ fresh social media post ideas for 2024.
Build excitement for your Black Friday marketing campaign with Hootsuite. Schedule and measure the ROI of organic and paid social media together, manage ads, reply to DMs and comments, and spy on your competitors—everything you need for Black Friday social media in one easy-to-use tool. Try Hootsuite free today.
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