Six Ways to Advertise for Black Friday 2019
Set new records on Black Friday – Get your marketing strategy for Black Friday ready
This article guides you through a number of marketing strategies and activities that will boost your sales, on and around Black Friday. We'll look at 6 brilliant strategies. Skip to the sections that are of particular interest to you - you'll find plenty of great ideas here.
- Landing page
- Google Ads (Adwords)
- E-mail marketing
- Technology - get ready for peak loads
- Create your own Black Friday marketing plan
We'll help you get the best results and your marketing strategy ready when the world goes shopping crazy this Black Friday 2019.
1. On Page - landing page
A Black Friday landing page generates value - all year round
A very common marketing strategy for Black Friday is optimising the landing page. We recommend you set up a landing page for Black Friday. Obviously, you can't reveal your Black Friday offers on this page all year round, but you can get the basics in place. This page should be activated and optimised throughout the year.
Make sure you create an inspiring landing page that explains the concept of Black Friday, and especially the concept in your store. A good example is POWER's Black Friday page which displays a large graphic with a countdown to Black Friday, their competitions and local events in the company's national stores. We can all learn from this.
Such a page will attract many organic visitors from search engines. Not only on Black Friday itself, but also in the weeks leading up to Black Friday. For example, POWER's landing page ranks 5th in the search for 'Black Friday electronics.'
As well as attracting traffic to your website and informing your customers about your campaigns, a landing page also gives you the chance to set up some interesting target groups. You can use these in your Retargeting efforts alongside both Adwords ads and Facebook advertising. More about this later.
In the weeks leading up to Black Friday, you can start updating the site in line with completing your campaign plan. It's not a good idea to reveal your actual offers before Black Friday, but you could unveil other interesting items, such as competitions and events.
2. Facebook
Another marketing strategy for Black Friday is using Facebook, because when it comes to Black Friday, you can't avoid Facebook as it’s one of the most important marketing channels. Facebook is the UK's preferred social media with over 30 million active users, where 45% use Facebook several times a day.
Facebook ads
Facebook advertising is the perfect marketing strategy for Black Friday as it allows you to target several interesting target groups. User-defined target groups based on e.g.
- traffic to website
- email conduct
- activities on your Facebook and/or Instagram page
If you haven't already implemented a Facebook Pixel on your website, then stop here. Get this in place quick! It's via pixel that you can target people who have already shown interest in your store.
Retargeting is particularly interesting for advertising around Black Friday and opens up many opportunities.
Targeting previous visitors
It's worth focusing your remarketing efforts on bigger target groups. For example, all visitors to your website within the last 30, 90 or 180 days. We recommend that you set up the following target groups and split the budget according to what makes sense for your business. Obviously, the longer the period you choose, the bigger your target group and corresponding budget.
Which target groups perform best can vary - although it tends to be the ones with really short periods. Such as "all visitors (7 days)". But you should of course test for yourself which timeframe gives the best results in relation to your customers.
Create user-defined target groups - Website visits
You can set up a target group of visitors to your Black Friday landing page with your Facebook Pixel. This means you can target Black Friday ads to a target group that has already shown interest in your business in connection with Black Friday.
Create user-defined target groups - Specific website visits
Facebook user-defined target groups
It's also worthwhile setting up user-defined target groups based on email. The following target groups are interesting:
Newsletter recipients
You probably have an email campaign plan ready for Black Friday (before, during and after). But it can be effective to target Facebook ads to your newsletter recipients and thus expose them to offers from both places. It's normal for your customers to see the same message several times (on several media) before acting.
Upload your email list to Facebook and use the list to match your customers with people on Facebook. If you use MailChimp as your email marketing platform, you can integrate your MailChimp account with Facebook so that your list/target groups are automatically updated. It's a smart idea.
Previous customers
Are you allowed to market your products to previous customers? If so, then these are often the easiest leads to convert. They already know your store, products, service etc. Create a user-defined target group with your previous customers' emails. Upload the list to match your customers to people on Facebook. Try also testing lookalike target groups based on these. This means profiles that are similar to your current customers.
Creating user-defined target groups - Target groups with customer file
Interaction with Facebook page (or posts)
It's also worthwhile targeting people who have interacted (shown interest) in your Facebook page or interacted with the content on the page (clicked, liked, commented etc.) in the period leading up to Black Friday.
Once again you can choose to split target groups into several sizes. Such as 'All interaction with Facebook page (30 days)'. In the period leading up to Black Friday you've probably already carried out plenty of organic activities. Several related to Black Friday itself. It's probably worthwhile targeting your offer ads to this target group on Black Friday. You can build up this target group 365 days back in time.
Creating user-defined target groups - Target groups with interaction
Lookalike target groups
We also recommend you test lookalike target groups (copy target groups). With copy target groups you can match your existing target groups (newsletter recipients, customer lists, Facebook followers etc.) with new people on Facebook.
The following copy target groups are interesting and worth considering:
- Lookalikes of your newsletter recipients
- Lookalikes of your existing customer list
- Lookalikes of people who like your Facebook page
Here is an example of lookalike target groups based on your previous customers. Here we define the conditions for the lookalike group's size to 1% of the population (Denmark), which most resembles existing customers.
Creating lookalike target groups - Resembling existing customer list
Facebook Leads Ads
With Facebook Lead Ads, you have the option to collect permissions for your newsletter in the period leading up to Black Friday. Offering a discount code or competition tends to be an effective way to get people to give you their email address. Such as 'Win 1000 kroner for Black Friday'. Or maybe your business could offer an attractive service? If you run a furniture shop you could e.g. offer a 'Win a visit from our interior designer - Join the prize draw here.'
Novicell has extensive experience of Facebook Leads Ads. We tend to achieve results down to 0.5-1. Pounds per lead. Leads Ads are set up via Facebook Advert Administrator.
As well as collecting permissions for your email marketing, Facebook Advert Administrator can also target your advertising on Facebook/Instagram towards a user-defined target group that has interacted with your Lead form.
Creating user-defined target groups - LeadAds
Remember that with Leads Ads you can also 'buy' new interesting Leads, which you can then sell again - such as during the Christmas sales. This can prove a really good investment. Facebook Dynamic Product Ads Here's a dummy ad we've set up for inspiration. With Facebook dynamic product ads you can add a product feed to Facebook and, based on the feed, set up a product catalogue for dynamic remarketing - to people who have already visited your website and/or specific products.
With Facebook Dynamic Product Ads you can target specific messages to users based on how far down the buying funnel they are. Remind users that they looked at a product, or target messages to users who have placed a product in the basket without buying. You also have a chance to sell low cross-sales with related products.
This campaign type is extremely valuable and is one of the most effective campaign targeting types. We experience a significantly improved CPA here. How effective a dynamic product ad is depends on the feed used. Take particular care with the image format in your product feed; it should match Facebook's image format.
Example of Facebook Dynamic Product Ad
Facebook event
Are you aware of the opportunities a Facebook event can bring? We see many companies failing to take full advantage of an event. When people click 'take part', you can share offers, competitions and various updates from Black Friday throughout the day.
You can also use a Facebook Event in the period leading up to Black Friday. Once you have signed up to an event, as a default you usually get a push message (notification) when a post is made to the event. One company who does this really well is the experience portal duglemmerdetaldrig.dk.
Example of a Facebook Event
Push notifications for posts on the Event
Duglemmerdetaldrig.dk uses their Black Friday event to tell subscribers and those interested in their activities. And they also highlight offers and competitions in the run up to Black Friday. Facebook events give you an extra organic reach on Facebook in line with users showing interest and subscribing to your event. But it's important to use the event as an active media channel with relevant and engaging content.
3. Google Ads
Search Ads
Perhaps you've already begun to advertise on search words around Black Friday? If not, then it's about time. Electronic chain Komplett is already there. With this ad, they ensure they rank at the top of the search results for 'Black Friday electronics' and thereby present their message and USPs according to Black Friday.
Visitors to the landing page for this campaign can then be used for Retargeting activities, such as via Facebook ads.
If you don't have a dedicated budget for running Black Friday ads, you can use ad extensions instead and put a sub-page link to promote your Black Friday landing page. Link this sub-page link to several campaigns/ad groups.
RLSA (Remarketing List for Search Ads)
By setting up a list with emails (customer list or newsletter recipients) and uploading this to AdWords, you have a chance to bid higher for people who know you. This tends to result in better average ranking and higher click rates (although for a slightly higher click price). But in our experience, the price per conversion is better for RLSA as it's closer to your business, products, service etc. and therefore easier to convert.
Remember also to use this strategy for your Google Shopping campaigns!
Google Shopping
With over 40,000,000 searches in the Black Friday week in 2016, then what can we/online marketing/online advertising/Google Adwords/ is a must for any retail company. Novicell has extensive experience of Google Shopping, which is the best conversion AdWords campaign type for several of our large retail customers.
Performance depends on your product feed and how you handle and optimise it. We tend to optimise our customers' product feed with the tool Datafeedwatch. The most important parameters are:
- Product title
- Missing fields in the feed (such as colour)
- Adding specific categories
- Product images
Remember to check for any errors on products in your Merchant Center - in plenty of time! Then your Black Friday products won't be rejected by Google. Consider making Custom Labels for all your Black Friday products and create a special campaign for them, and allocate an extra large budget.
Remarketing
Like Facebook Remarketing, via Adwords you can target your ads towards a target group that has already shown a certain interest in your business via Google's Display network. The typical advertising form is image ads, i.e. banners. Here you can (re) gain your visitors' interest through banner ad exposure with your store's Black Friday offer.
4. E-mail
It's better to send too many newsletters than too few
This may sound drastic to some and perhaps you feel that excessive newsletters to the target group can come across as spam-like. But if you want a share of the many conversions on Black Friday, then you need to start your email campaign in the weeks leading up to it.
We recommend you prepare and send out more newsletters during the day. In fact, we recommend you start in the days leading up to Black Friday. Tell your recipients what they can expect, talk about competitions, events (such as in store events), unveil special queue offers and product categories with special discounts etc. Start planning your email marketing now.
Your list of newsletter recipients is only valuable to your business when you actively send out newsletters. An extraordinary amount of newsletters are sent out during Black Friday and the period around it. If you only send out one (which would be normal during a campaign period), it will just get lost in the sheer volume of newsletters out there. People take Black Friday off work to surf around their favourite stores and follow the many different offers in search for their perfect buy.
Build up your email list with a slide-in or Exit Intent
In the weeks leading up to Black Friday, you gather more permissions for your email list with a slide-in or the more aggressive Exit Intent. Don't just be active around Black Friday.You also need to market your Black Friday concept and generate interest. New email signups can be valuable conversions to win ahead of Black Friday.
You can talk specifically about Black Friday competitions or challenge your visitors to sign up to unique offers. Think about whether this should be a specific Black Friday list.
5. The technology - ready for peak load?
Are you in control of your marketing and are you counting on a decent amount of traffic?
Then remember to check whether the website can pull the estimated amount of visitors on Black Friday. With heavy demand and volume in searches and traffic to your website, your server can easily become overloaded. And it will cost you if your website goes down for all or even a small part of Black Friday. Ask your developer - and don't leave it too long. They probably have several customers with the same need.
Check also who you share servers with. Your website could be affected by another company's performance on that day if you are both on the same server.
We therefore recommend that you contact your web supplier or your IT department and ask them about a contingency plan if your server should become overloaded and go down. For example, do you have an "Apologies -this site is overloaded' page ready, which collects customers' emails so you can notify them once you're up and running again? And who looks after your SoMe channels in case of breakdown?
6. Planning Black Friday
Is your head now full of jobs and marketing strategies for Black Friday that need to be launched for your company?
Fear not! We have a team of experts ready to give you advice and guidance. But hurry - some of those jobs need doing NOW if you want to make the most of Black Friday.
