Black Friday campaigns optimization & tips

Preparing your advertising campaigns and marketing strategies for Black Friday is no easy task. It would be great to have a crystal ball that predicts how you should plan your seasonal marketing campaigns to be successful… Right?

While we can’t provide you with “that magic ball”, we can offer you this Black Friday guide. Before learning the most important tips and tricks to apply to your campaigns, let’s check out some key Black Friday facts:

Black Friday key data

During the 2022-2023 period, there were continuing trends in the increase of online shopping, albeit with some variations from previous years. Although the pandemic continued to have some influence on shopping habits, other factors also began to play an important role in the eCommerce landscape.

In 2022, online shopping spending continued to rise, albeit at a more moderate pace compared to the peak seen in 2020. The year-on-year increase was around 15%, indicating that the online shopping trend continued to be strong. Although the pandemic had lost some of its impact on consumer behavior, many people were still opting for online shopping as a convenient and safe way to purchase products.

Black Friday continued to be a major e-commerce event during 2022. Nearly 120 million people chose to shop for Black Friday deals online, which marked an increase compared to the previous year. Total spending during Black Friday in 2022 was around $9.5 billion, which represented a moderate increase from previous years.

For 2022-2023, shopping trends during Black Friday and Cyber Monday continue to evolve in the eCommerce environment.

During 2022, it was observed that both Black Friday and Cyber Monday continued to be important events in terms of attracting online traffic and conversions. However, consumers’ preferences in terms of which day to choose for their shopping remained influenced by the type of products they were looking for. Black Friday remained the preferred choice for higher-value products, while Cyber Monday continued to be popular for cheaper items.

In terms of shopping platforms, the mobile experience remained critical. During Black Friday 2022, an increase was seen in the proportion of shoppers accessing e-commerce sites via their mobile devices. Approximately 75% of online shoppers visited websites from their mobile devices. In addition, more than 60% of conversions occurred on mobile devices, underscoring the importance of an optimized mobile shopping experience. In 2023, these trends are expected to continue to consolidate.

In summary, this year Black Friday and Cyber Monday remain crucial events on any eCommerce calendar. Consumers will continue to make purchasing decisions based on the nature of products, and the mobile shopping experience will remain essential to retailers’ online success. These trends underscore the importance of constant adaptation and optimization of the customer experience in an evolving online shopping environment.  

 

 

Black Friday campaigns optimization – [6 tips]

Start your Black Friday campaigns earlier this year

Black Friday this year (2023) is on November 24, but a lot of people will have already made purchases during mid-month. Launching your Black Friday deals and promotions before that date gives you a chance to start your sales earlier. 

 If you’re launching your Black Friday offers earlier you should also activate your campaigns a few days before than usual. You should prepare your campaigns in advance, have them ready and even launch them before just in case something happens you have time to react and don’t lose potential customers once Black Friday starts.

On top of starting your Black Friday campaigns earlier you should also consider extending them longer, this way you’ll have the chance to attract people that’s still deciding what to do. 

Clever Tip: Don’t mention that you’ll extend your Black Friday offers until the date has passed. It’s important that your sales have an expiration date for generating a sense of urgency. 

 

 

Make sure your products and prices are updated

Make sure there are no errors in your prices and promotions, and that all of them are updated. Once your Black Friday campaigns start it will be more difficult to make these changes.

Preparing your website and ad campaigns is the most tedious part of Black Friday promotions, then once the day arrives, if you have all well configured, you should just sit and relax while making money out of your Black Friday campaigns.

In most advertising platforms, like Google Ads, you’ll be able to even program the starting and finishing date of your Black Friday campaigns, which is recommendable so you don’t miss it.

Include specific Black Friday keywords in your BF campaigns

Add Black Friday related terms for appearing in many more searches. Take into account all these term searches increase massively during November, and you can benefit from it bidding for both Black Friday deals generic keywords and specific keywords that combine Black Friday terms with your products and services.

Consumers tend to also search for inspiration, ideas, new brands (“best presents for…”, “best….brands”…), and not only specific products and services, and Black Friday related. That’s why bidding for more generic keywords (always being careful about the bids so it doesn’t get super expensive) can be really beneficial for your Black Friday campaigns. 

Also searches like “…. close to me” or “… open now” are worthy to bid for if you also have a physical store.

Searching for new ways that people can find you is getting increasingly important. You shouldn’t just look for appearing as a result on the search engines when a consumer has already taken the decision to buy your product, but also to appear while taking the purchasing decision. This way you’ll take full advantage of your online marketing strategy in terms of client acquisition.

Clever tip: Use our keyword planner to easily find new keywords for your Black Friday campaigns.

 

 

Control and raise your Black Friday campaigns bids 

Taking a look at your existing keywords and bids is also important. Competitors and CPCs will get higher for your existing keywords when they increase the number of searches.  Then you should choose them wisely but also raise your bids – if you can, to keep a good CTR in your Black Friday campaigns.

Long-tail keywords are a good solution for keeping a nice and profitable CTR.

Include specific Black Friday keywords in your Black Friday campaigns ad text

Consumer behavior changes depending on the season, and during Black Friday consumers are much open to complete a purchase if it includes a discount or promotion. That’s why you should emphasize it both in your Black Friday campaigns and your website.

If the type of ads you use allows it, like for instance Shopping ads, add tags to your products promoting your offers and extra services (free shipping…).

Personalizing your ad texts for Black Friday is of utmost importance for getting visibility and making the most out of your Black Friday advertising, specially in the ad header.

The Black Friday header formula for success should include:

H1 = Product/Service you offer + discount or promotion + Black Friday

This applies to your banners as well.

Banners should be eye-catching and include that same formula. If you activate your Black Friday campaigns early enough you’ll even have time to do some AB testing with your banners, which adds extra points for success.

Optimize your site and Black Friday campaigns for mobile

More than half of the Black Friday sales happen through smartphones, and even when shopping in-store around half of the sales are influenced online.

Some things you can do to boost your ad mobile performance are:

• Use expanded ad texts for your campaigns so you have more space to talk about your promotions, and also your ad is more visible, hiding at the same time other competitors ads or search results.
• Use Google ad extensions. This will also contribute to making your ad longer and adding more information. The best performing ad extensions for mobile are: sitelink extensions, location extensions and call extensions.
• Segment your campaigns by device for a higher level of optimization, having a specific “mobile-first” campaign.

Apart from having your advertising campaigns optimized for mobile devices, you should also make sure that the website or landing those ads are taking your potential customers are also optimized for mobile. 

Make sure your website loads fast and work on optimizing it if it takes more than three seconds to do so. Also test if it’s easy to move around your website and that completing a purchase is done in the least amount of time and tabs possible. A good strategy is checking your competitors’ processes and making sure you are doing better.