The biggest party in the e-commerce country is over again! All our customers participated, and this year, too, that required a unique approach with timely preparation as the main ingredient. In this blog, we give you a glimpse into Yellowgrape's Black Friday strategy and how this has once again led to record performances.
Cliché but true: success all depends on the attractiveness of the action. About five years ago, when Black Friday was just picked up in the Netherlands, few players were active and an offer was quickly sharp and attractive. Now that almost all web shops participate, it is important that your action is sharp enough compared to that of your competitors. We are not saying that you should put your entire range on sale, but that you should make the promotion interesting enough to convince consumers to score the deal with you.
You can choose to discount products from a different category each day or offer specific deals with selected products. This is more noticeable than a fixed discount percentage and also fosters a stronger “now or never” feeling. Another way to attract the attention of your target group is to give away attractive incentives when purchasing promotional items. In any case, make sure you are distinctive and that you can outperform the competition.
After five years of Black Friday experience, the holiday has long since ceased to be limited to one day and retailers seem to be starting earlier and earlier. However, a longer period of action does not guarantee greater success. In fact, our experience shows that the effect of an action decreases sharply as it is spread over a longer period of time. In addition, it is important to generate traffic early and not to jump on board until the major web shops have given the go-ahead. We still see the biggest peaks in turnover on Friday and Monday (Cyber Monday). However, you can easily influence the impact on the days in between with display ads, email campaigns or on-site nudging techniques.
As soon as the month of November has arrived, many consumers already start orienting and drawing up a wish list. So, as a retailer, you want to attract consumers' attention from the early stages. Therefore, ensure optimal visibility of your most important product categories in the orientation and comparison phases. This allows you to build audiences in Google, Microsoft and a Customer Data Platform (CDP) such as Squeezely, so that you can target these target groups superbly at the moment. It's best to tickle them a little bit to get their interest!
As mentioned, creating visibility alone is not enough. To stay focused until the start of the campaign and keep consumers engaged, you'll need to tease the target group in the run-up to Black Friday. You can do this by focusing on omnichannel lead campaigns via Social and Google Ads. For example, within Social, you can create a lead gen campaign using a form on the platform itself. If you also give the regular newsletter subscription form on your website a Black Friday look, you can further motivate visitors to sign up. Especially during this period, as a consumer, you naturally want to be the first to receive the best deals.
The advantage of a lead campaign is that you can bring in a whole new batch of hot leads in a fairly short time that will most likely convert during Black Friday. By binding them to you well in advance, you have an advantage over your competitor. In your CDP, you can create a separate target group from these new leads, so that you can approach them in a different way than, for example, your regular customers.
By using Google Display and Google Discovery Ads, you can ensure that your ads are shown to warm groups within Google Maps, Gmail and YouTube, among others. This is how you create an omnichannel approach with maximum visibility among the most relevant groups.
To really give the recruited leads a sense of exclusivity, you can also choose to hold a “VIP sale”. This preferably takes place on the eve of Black Friday, so you can benefit some of your customers first. This is also a strong USP that you can mention in your ad and strengthen the customer relationship.
The preparations are not limited to collecting and segmenting exploratory visitors, attracting new leads and adjusting your webshop. Each channel requires a specific approach to create maximum visibility.
Make sure your search, shopping and display campaigns are increased in bids and budgets well in advance. In addition, it is important to also be present on generic traffic, such as in prospecting campaigns. This way, you maintain a sufficient audience and stay top of mind with the relevant target group. Countdown ads in Google Search also respond to the nudging principle of “urgency”. These ads not only stand out among the competition, but also ensure that consumers do not wait too long to order.
Due to the huge volumes during Black Friday, budgets are going faster than usual in all channels. The last thing you want is to have your campaigns limited by budget during these important days. By using budget scripts, you prevent campaigns from running into budgets. Thanks to our short lines of communication with Google, Microsoft and Criteo, among others, we ensure that our customers' campaigns continue to pay off optimally.
When it comes to affiliate, you will have to do your homework on time. For maximum visibility, you should reserve mailings and Black Friday positions well in advance with publishers who can actually contribute and generate a lot of (relevant) initial traffic. Be really critical in your selection and make sure they match your webshop, target group and campaign. Then differentiate between the different types of publishers and adjust your strategy accordingly. In our 2019 Black Friday recap read more tips to prepare your affiliate channel for this.
Marketplaces are becoming increasingly important in the Dutch e-commerce landscape. During Black Friday, it is more important than ever that the right deals are passed, the bids are set correctly and the correct product descriptions are provided. A data management tool like Channable is indispensable for this, especially with a wide range of products.
Once the consumer has reached your website, you want to communicate the action clearly and in different places. Since visitors enter your website via various entrances, simply customizing your homepage is not enough. With a CDP, you can set up on-site pop-ups, content takeovers or other widgets so that the same (or modified) message is communicated everywhere, regardless of which page the visitor lands on. This also ensures optimal visibility of the action on-site.
Prior to and during the Black Friday weekend, consumers' inboxes are flooded with announcement emails and newsletters. How do you make sure your mail stands out? In addition to a provocative subject line, for example by using emojis, it's also smart to adjust your pre-header (or snippet). To really stand out, you will also have to pay extra attention to the content of the mail. Wrap up your regular newsletter in a custom design and pack it with animated GIFs, Kinetic elements, and countdown timers. This increases the level of engagement with the recipient and by counting down live to the action, you awaken a sense of urgency. Place the most important information above the fold so that the recipient doesn't have to scroll down.
It ain't over till it's over. The end of the campaign does not mean the end of the peak - provided you do it in the right way. If you want to benefit from the Black Friday violence in the long term, reactivate customers afterwards through a remarketing campaign. Focus on stimulating repeat purchases or create cross- and upsell opportunities based on the previously purchased product.
When you work with a CDP, you can relatively easily retarget (potential) customers after Black Friday. To do this, you create target groups from the relevant traffic that visited your website or made a purchase during Black Friday. You can easily transfer these target groups to Google Ads, Social and your ESP, among others, and then use them for a remarketing or retargeting campaign. After all, these customers could probably use an accessory or additional item to complete the picture, right?
