Maximizing Sales and Protecting Margins: How to Prepare for Black Friday 2024

As we approach the end of 2024, Black Friday and Cyber Monday remain the most significant sales events of the year. These events are eagerly anticipated by millions of shoppers worldwide, with retailers using every opportunity to engage customers. Notably, brands like Apple often time product releases to coincide with this major shopping event.

With shifting consumer preferences, the dynamics of these shopping days have evolved, focusing more on personalization, sustainability, and seamless omnichannel experiences. In 2023, U.S. Black Friday spending surged to $9.8 billion, marking a 7.5% year-over-year increase​ (Forbes). However, this growth wasn’t just driven by discounts but by more personalized, tech-driven shopping experiences, like AI-powered recommendations and faster checkout options.

While the trends signal opportunity, the challenge for businesses lies in maintaining profitability amid competitive pricing and consumer demand for better value. So, how can you uphold your business's profitability while executing sales that actually bring in profit and keep your margins stable? That’s exactly what we’ll explore in this article.

What can we expect during BFCM 2024?

To better prepare, we can draw insights from past experiences and evolving trends. Several notable behaviors from Black Friday 2023 can inform marketing strategies for 2024:

• 'Buy Now, Pay Later' grows in popularity: According to Adobe, $79 million in sales came from consumers using the flexible 'Buy Now, Pay Later' (BNPL) option, marking a 47% increase from the previous year. This payment method is helping consumers stretch their wallets and make purchases they might otherwise have postponed.
• Mobile shopping fuels impulse buying: Impulse purchases were a major driver of Black Friday’s growth, with $5.3 billion in sales coming from mobile shopping. Adobe suggests that easy access to deals via smartphones made it simpler for consumers to make quick buying decisions.
• Pop-up promotions gain traction: Retailers like Target and Ulta Beauty have introduced 24-hour flash sales and pop-up promotions, offering limited-time discounts on specific brands and products, creating a sense of urgency that draws in shoppers.
• Online sales outpace in-store growth: Mastercard's analysis of Black Friday 2023 sales revealed a stark contrast between online and in-store performance. While in-store sales saw a modest 1% growth, online sales surged by over 8%, showcasing the ongoing shift toward e-commerce.

What does this mean for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2024?

For the 2024 holiday season, spending during Black Friday and Cyber Monday is expected to grow modestly compared to 2023. According to the Boston Consulting Group, just over a quarter (28%) of consumers plan to spend more than they did last year, while 27% plan to spend less, and 45% expect to spend about the same. This indicates a cautious but stable outlook for holiday spending, with factors such as steady job and income growth supporting consumer confidence (Boston Consulting Group). 

This cautious but stable outlook is driven by several key factors:

• Inflation’s lingering impact – price sensitivity remains: While inflation has cooled from its 2021-2022 peak, it hasn’t completely disappeared. Shoppers are still mindful of their budgets, making them laser-focused on finding the best deals. This price-conscious behavior has driven even more consumers online, where they can easily compare prices and search for discounts.
• Digital shopping will take center stage: The shift toward digital shopping is undeniable. Consumers feel empowered online, where side-by-side price comparisons are just a click away. The convenience of securing better deals and the ease of browsing from home are solidifying e-commerce’s dominance during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
• The rise of influencer marketing: Influencers and social media ads are playing a growing role in how consumers shop. According to Adobe’s analyst, Vivek Pandya, the comfort level of spending via mobile devices has increased, largely due to influencer marketing. Social media campaigns are encouraging shoppers to make faster, more informed decisions directly from their phones.
• Cautious optimism amidst global uncertainty: Although real consumption has grown post-pandemic, and American incomes and job growth are strong, consumer sentiment remains shaky. Ongoing geopolitical tensions and global conflicts are causing mixed feelings, with many consumers approaching holiday spending cautiously. This split attention could impact how much and where they decide to spend (Boston Consulting Group).

How to prepare for Black Friday 2024?

With customer wallets getting slimmer, you might be wondering about tested promotions that can be more effective for price-conscious consumers. Here are some of my favorite marketing strategies for Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions. 

With customer wallets getting slimmer, you might be wondering about tested promotions that can be more effective for price-conscious consumers. Here are some of my favorite marketing strategies for Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions. 

1. Make sure your promotions are digitalized

In 2024, digitizing your promotions isn’t just a nice-to-have – it's essential. With the continued rise of online shopping and consumers preferring to compare prices digitally, ensuring that your promotions are fully integrated with digital platforms is key to capturing attention and driving conversions. 

Here’s how you can make sure your promotions are ready for the digital-first shopper:

• Leverage social media and influencers: Use platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook to tease upcoming deals. Influencers can play a crucial role in building excitement and trust, making shoppers more inclined to visit your site once promotions go live. Influencer marketing is growing in power, with studies showing that nearly 90% of marketers find ROI from influencer marketing comparable or better than other marketing channels (BigCommerce).
• Use personalized messaging across channels: Leverage data from your CRM to send highly personalized communications, whether through email, SMS, or app notifications. Tailoring content to customer interests boosts engagement, open rates, and conversions. Tools like Klaviyo or Braze can automate these personalized messages, ensuring your audience gets relevant updates on their preferred channels during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
• Prepare for mobile-first shoppers: With mobile devices driving a huge percentage of Black Friday sales, optimizing for mobile should be a top priority. Ensure your website and checkout process are mobile-friendly, and consider using SMS marketing for time-sensitive promotions. Since impulse buying is higher on mobile devices, having a smooth mobile shopping experience can significantly boost your sales​.
• Utilize retargeting ads: With many consumers abandoning their carts or browsing multiple websites, retargeting ads can help re-engage them and bring them back to complete the purchase. Facebook and Google offer powerful retargeting tools that can show your ads to shoppers who’ve already shown interest, making your promotions even more effective.

Learn more: 8 Cart Abandonment Promotions Examples That Work in 2024

2. Optimize CX before Black Friday

Inflation or not, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday around the corner, you still need to ensure that your e-commerce site and sales processes are optimized beforehand. In addition, you need to take a closer look at every step of the user journey – from SEO and SEM to the checkout page and transparent return policies. Even a minor mistake could cost your brand a fortune. 

3. Carefully plan promotions for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

You should plan your promotions way ahead of time. Prepare some pre-launch promotional assets – even if your Black Friday discounts are only revealed that day, you can tease your customers earlier to get their attention and inform them that you are planning something big. You should also test all your placements to ensure everything will run smoothly on the big day. 

There are various promotion tactics you can use. From discount coupons, automatically applied discounts, gift cards, product bundles, free shipping, to extra products or services. If you use discounts, it can be a percentage or dollar off discount, or even a new, fixed price for a product or a bundle. You should choose what works best for your audience while maximizing your ROI. If you are not sure, you can launch a couple of different promotions and A/B test them before Black Friday to learn which promotions perform best. 

What should you A/B test before Black Friday?

You should begin with standard tests verifying which incentives and program rules work best, for example:

• Incentive type – you should check what brings you the most interest and profit, whether it’s a promotion granting amount, percentage, credits, loyalty points, free items, or free shipping.
• Inventory – you should test discounting different strategic products or product categories (for example, best-sellers, products with the highest margins, or excess stock) to see how the purchases of these specific goods increase when they are on promotion.
• Redemption limits – for instance, the minimum order value. You could launch several promotions with different minimum order values and see which performed best.
• Inflation considerations – given the impact of inflation, assess how pricing changes may affect customer behavior. A/B-test different pricing strategies to balance maintaining profitability and offering attractive discounts during Black Friday promotions.
• Communication channels - test various communication channels for promoting your Black Friday deals. Explore the effectiveness of email marketing, social media, influencer partnerships, and other channels to identify where your target audience is most responsive.

4. Choose what products you will discount on Black Friday

While many shops launch site-wide discounts on Black Friday (discounting virtually everything), you do not have to follow the herd. Instead, you can launch more narrowly targeted discounts, for example, only discounting a specific product category or a particular product. 

Some companies launch a Black Friday sale on their flagship item, discounting it heavily (think 50% off or more) as a doorbuster deal to bring buzz and more visitors into their stores and to boost the sales of that particular product. Launching a site-wide discount can be a marketing budget burner as it will generate sales that would happen anyways, even without the discount. You could target your promotions more by discounting the slow-moving products or product categories or targeting specific customer segments (for example, new customers only) that would not buy from you without the discount.

5. Define your promotion limits 

While most businesses do a simple site-wide promotion without limitations, it is wise to add some limits to your Black Friday discounts to protect your budget. For example, you could discount only orders above a specific value or limit the number of promotional products/bundles per customer. You could also allow only one code use per customer if you launch a unique code campaign. There are plenty of options, and you should choose what will meet your sales goal without overspending your budget. 

With an advanced Promotion Engine, like Voucherify, you can quickly set complex combinations of redemption limits.

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6. Choose the discount level you want to offer

You may be asking yourself what the average discount on Black Friday is. Most companies offer discounts that are higher than 20%. The ideal discount level, however, depends on your general pricing strategy. For example, if you never offer discounts, offering even as little as free shipping on Black Friday is a bargain. On the other hand, if you often offer 20-30% promotions, prepare to discount even further on Black Friday. The baseline is to provide more than you do throughout the year to get your customers' hearts pounding faster.

7. Leverage Black Friday data to improve your performance in Q1 of 2024

After the Black Friday rush, analyze the data generated during the event. Gain insights into promotion analytics, customer behavior, popular products, and the effectiveness of different promotions. Utilize Customer Data Platforms such as Bloomreach and Contentful to efficiently collect, organize, and leverage this data. These platforms can provide a comprehensive view of customer interactions across various touchpoints, allowing you to adjust your inventory planning or customer engagement strategy based on the lessons learned from Black Friday.

Moreover, capitalize on the collected data to implement targeted strategies to turn new Black Friday shoppers into loyal customers. Incentivize participation in loyalty programs by crafting personalized campaigns and exclusive offers based on the preferences identified during Black Friday. 

By encouraging shoppers to join loyalty programs, you can boost customer acquisition and foster long-term loyalty – according to Crealytics, CLV for shoppers who become members of loyalty programs during Black Friday sales is 9 times higher than those who opt out of joining clubs.

8. Implement AI recommendations

AI recommendation engines can transform the customer experience by analyzing real-time data such as browsing habits, past purchases, and even product interactions. This allows you to offer hyper-personalized product suggestions that feel tailor-made for each shopper, increasing both engagement and conversions. Beyond suggesting complementary products, AI can also dynamically adjust offers based on individual preferences, creating a more customized and satisfying shopping journey. This level of personalization is especially crucial during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when customer attention is fragmented and competition is fierce.

What promotion types will work best for Black Friday/Cyber Monday 2024?

Inflation forces businesses to run campaigns that keep the brand afloat (despite rising operational costs) and let customers feel taken care of, not taken advantage of. Here are some promotion ideas that might do the trick on BFCM in 2024. 

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Learn more: 24 Inspirations for Black Friday Promotions

1. Personalized promotions and promo codes

Many brands default to broad, site-wide promotions that lack targeting, often applying generic discounts across the board. While this approach captures price-sensitive shoppers, it misses an opportunity for deeper engagement. Launching personalized promotions for Black Friday and Cyber Monday remains relatively rare, making it a potential game-changer for 2024.

Personalized promotions go beyond just offering unique promo codes. By leveraging customer data – such as shopping habits, previous purchases, and browsing behavior – you can create highly targeted offers that resonate with specific customer segments. For example, offer exclusive discounts on favorite products to repeat buyers, or create tiered discounts based on a customer’s loyalty status. This level of customization can increase conversions, as customers feel the offers are tailored specifically for them.

By personalizing not just the promo codes but the entire promotional experience, you can foster stronger relationships with your loyal customers while reducing reliance on broad, one-size-fits-all discounts. This also allows you to run more efficient campaigns, avoiding the costly "spray-and-pray" approach that focuses solely on price-driven shoppers.

2. CSR-based campaigns

In recent years, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and charity-oriented campaigns have gained serious traction during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This trend is particularly important for Gen Z and other self-conscious consumers, who prioritize brands that align with their values. According to FirstInsight, 62% of Gen Z shoppers prefer to buy from sustainable brands, and a staggering 73% are willing to pay more for sustainable products, making CSR-based campaigns a smart strategy for BFCM 2024.

Some companies refuse to do Black Friday whatsoever because they claim (rightly so) that the BFCM shopping craze is unsustainable. For instance, Deciem even closed its stores (including website) that day. They have, however, launched big sales one month leading up to Black Friday, bringing sales when competitors were not heavily discounting and getting even more media attention and coverage on Black Friday itself.

Remember that you can launch creative campaigns 365 days a year and should consider what is most profitable for your business. The same mindset has led to companies launching recurring Black Fridays in other months. 

3. Loyalty programs

To fight increasing costs, customers focus on loyalty programs, especially those concentrated on savings and everyday purchases. Loyalty programs are a fantastic way to show customers that your brand cares about their needs in difficult times. Such programs are also easy to modify, so your company can rapidly change program rules and rewards to react to market changes and new customer preferences.

Undoubtedly, consumers are more inclined to return to a brand during the BFCM season if they are already enrolled in a loyalty program. Consider launching a dedicated Black Friday promotion for existing loyalty program members. This not only strengthens your relationship with these customers but also optimizes your marketing budget, as loyal members tend to spend more per purchase. 

Another effective strategy is to initiate a special promotion to motivate new sign-ups on Black Friday. For instance, offering an extra 100 loyalty points to everyone joining the program that day, which can be redeemed within the next month on their purchases. You can also promote your loyalty program subscriptions ahead of Black Friday by hinting at a special, mysterious promo reserved solely for loyalty program members, then launch communications exclusively through emails to maintain a sense of exclusivity. 

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These measures not only boost Black Friday sales but also foster engagement with your brand and lay the groundwork for personalized promotions in the future, leveraging first-party data collected from logged-in customers.

4. Product bundles

Product bundling is a promotion type where businesses offer several products or services as a package sold at a lower price. It’s a perfect strategy for quickly solving supply chain problems or eliminating surplus stock. Strapped for cash customers are more likely to be attracted by product-based promotions that offer products seemingly for free or at a meager cost.

To move this strategy to the next level, you can run personalized bundles where customers can choose what they want in their promo package from a defined product list or their wishlist, running promotions such as “Choose three X, pay for two”.

5. Buy more, save more

With customers more aware of prices than ever, running “buy more, save more” campaigns is a no-brainer. By offering this deal, you not only play to customers’ need to save money, but also increase your AOVs by offering a bigger discount for larger orders – a must-have for alleviating logistical problems. 

6. Time-sensitive deals

In the fast-paced environment of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, time-sensitive deals are a proven way to create urgency and trigger impulse purchases. Limited-time offers, such as flash sales with countdown timers, can captivate consumers, especially when paired with influencer marketing. Influencers can amplify these deals by showcasing them in real time, encouraging followers to act fast before the offer disappears.

This strategy not only engages cost-conscious consumers seeking immediate value but also taps into the psychology of impulse buying, which is particularly effective during high-pressure shopping events.

7. Free shipping

Given the current landscape where shipping costs are rising in 2023, free shipping has become an even more significant perk than just a few years ago. This makes leveraging the power of free shipping a particularly compelling promotion during BFCM season.

Everybody knows Black Friday shopping most likely means extended delivery dates due to the large order volume. Recognizing this tendency, offering expedited shipping for free can be an additional enticing perk. Emphasize the value of not only cost savings but also quicker delivery, addressing the common concern of waiting for products to arrive during peak season.

Summary

As consumer behavior evolves, meeting your customers where they are becomes crucial. In response to inflation, shoppers may choose cheaper alternatives, reduce consumption, or completely shift their buying habits. Understanding these behaviors allows you to tailor your Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions more effectively.

To thrive in 2024, it’s important to rethink your customer segmentation. Move beyond traditional filters and consider factors like product preferences, behavior patterns, and price sensitivity. Your strategy should also involve actively listening to customer feedback, carefully weighing any price increases, and adjusting your pricing strategy to strike the right balance between maintaining profitability and delivering value. By staying attuned to your audience’s changing needs, you can keep both your brand and your customers satisfied during these key sales events.

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