For most B2C businesses, the holiday season represents the most critical period of the year for sales. Each year, consumer demand spikes in November and December in anticipation of giving gifts and hosting celebrations. Naturally, those sales peak each year on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when many brands offer their most competitive discounts of the season to win over purchase-ready consumers. According to Deloitte, the average American plans to spend about $500 between Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.

However, even with enticing offers, it can be incredibly difficult to attract customers in a sea of deals on the most crowded shopping days of the year. To capture consumers’ attention and sales, a strategic marketing plan is one of the best tools at your disposal. We’ve compiled a list of some of the most effective and actionable tactics your brand can use to get the most out of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Promote Early & Often

Just because your special deal doesn’t start until Black Friday or Cyber Monday doesn’t mean you should wait to promote it until then. Many consumers start organizing and prioritizing their shopping plans days or even weeks in advance. To catch these Type A shoppers, your brand must reach them in the week leading up to Black Friday while they’re still finalizing their plans.

We’ve seen many businesses successfully promote their holiday sales via social media with sales previews, countdowns, and other content that communicates your planned deals. You can also use social media comments to respond to followers’ questions they may have about your promotion. In addition, consider sending out an email or text message to subscribers so your most engaged audience can stay informed about the upcoming sale. (We’ll revisit how to best target this key consumer group later.)

Address Individual Buying Needs

While all Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers are on the hunt for a good deal, it would be a mistake to engage every consumer in the same way. Some will be shopping for their family members’ holiday gifts; others will be restocking on their favorite everyday products; and many also take advantage of discounts to purchase long-awaited high-ticket items for less. Taking only one messaging approach to these different groups may cause you to lose some valuable sales.

Instead, we recommend using different messaging to address these different buying priorities. For your paid ad strategy, try crafting several variations of graphics and deploy them to different target audiences on each platform. For example, one might focus on the variety of gifts you offer, and another might highlight some of your most in-demand, higher-cost products. To coordinate with your ads, you might also create unique landing pages to direct each consumer group to or add various slider images to your homepage so each consumer can find a relevant message.

Focus on Former Customers

Black Friday and Cyber Monday can be great for exposing your brand to new audiences, but you’re doing a brand a disservice if you’re not working to recapture former customers as well. Consumers who have previously purchased from your brand are often easier to reach and more likely to make their second (or third, or fourth) repeat purchase.

Retargeting ads are one of the most effective ways to reach past customers. According to a 2019 study, consumers who see retargeted ads are up to 70 percent more likely to convert into customers. Nearly every digital ad platform will allow you to serve messages directly to consumers who previously visited your website or made a purchase, making retargeting a simple strategy to implement. On Black Friday and Cyber Monday, retargeted ads are a great opportunity to promote deals on items your previous customers have viewed but never purchased, or products they may be likely to repurchase again, particularly with a special offer.

Target Abandoned Carts

According to a SaleCycle report from 2021, more than 80 percent of all website shopping carts are abandoned on Cyber Monday. Those abandoned carts could represent thousands of dollars of missed sales for your business, so keeping your abandoned cart rate low should be a major objective on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

Similar to retargeting ads, pop-ups or reminder emails can be a very effective way to re-engage shoppers who left your site with a full shopping cart. This message can be as simple as a short reminder of the products they left in your cart, or a suggestion of another, similar item they might also like. If you really want to keep your abandoned cart rate low, you could also offer an additional discount or free gift to entice them to complete their order. To make your life simpler, we recommend using a smart email provider to set up automated emails for abandoned carts or working with a digital marketing agency like Radius who can manage more complex email campaigns for you. If you’re interested in learning more about how a digital marketing agency can seamlessly manage your promotions and campaigns, find out more here or shoot us a short message.