Black Friday and Cyber Monday Digital Marketing Strategies

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are both shopping events with growing relevance, making them two events worth building a seasonal marketing strategy for. Black Friday historically has been known for brick and mortar sales, whereas Cyber Monday is the day businesses promote their e-commerce sales. Black Friday and Cyber Monday originated in the US, but the shopping event is becoming increasingly popular worldwide.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Trends

Looking at historical data is beneficial to planning any programmatic campaign that will perform, but this is especially true for seasonal campaigns, such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Below, we’re sharing some of the biggest takeaways from Black Friday and Cyber Monday of 2023. According to the National Retail Federation, despite the pressure of rising inflation, people still participated in Black Friday and Cyber Monday in a big way. The insights below can help predict what the 2024 season might look like and the consumer mindset around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 

• The holiday total for  online and other non-store sales, was up 8.2% at $276.8 billion USD.
• US Census Bureau data shows that core retail sales during the 2023 holiday season grew 3.8% over 2022 to a record $964.4 billion USD.
• In 2023, sales for the full year grew 3.6% over 2022 to a record $5.13 trillion USD.
• In 2023, all but two of nine retail categories increased, with electronics and personal care categories leading the way, growing by 9% or more this past year.    

6 Black Friday and Cyber Monday Digital Marketing Strategies

Ready to start planning your Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns? Here are 6 strategies to get you started. 

1. Plan Your Black Friday and Cyber Monday Strategy in Advance

Seasonal marketing events can sneak up on you! To make the most of your marketing efforts around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, start planning your campaigns well in advance. 

An important part of planning for these shopping events is understanding when your campaigns should launch. Holiday campaigns typically start weeks before key dates. Understanding when consumers are in the buying mindset, or starting to think about upcoming sales, allows you to get your campaigns ready in time for those receptive moments. 

Other key aspects of planning your Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing strategy are building customer profiles for your ideal audience. Your shoppers can span across various demographics, so understanding who they are in detail will benefit your seasonal campaigns. 

Customer profiles describe everything you need to know about a specified group of customers. You can leverage that information to create a seasonal marketing strategy that aligns with the wants and needs of your audience. A customer profile will help you make informed decisions about campaign messaging, creative ads, channels, and which targeting tactics to use. 

2. Leverage Historical Data to Inform Your Strategy

Another important aspect of planning Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns is looking at historical data to uncover patterns. 

Reviewing your prior Black Friday and Cyber Monday ad campaigns can give you insights into current trends, and what products or services to focus your new campaign around. For the most relevant insights, look at data from the previous two years. 

Another great source of data is referencing general consumer trends. These insights can help you understand what products or services will best perform during a specific seasonal event, and also provide insight into how consumers are shopping. 

For example, the National Retail Federation recorded year-over-year gains in all but two of nine holiday season categories. 

3. Leverage Storytelling in Your Marketing

Seasonal campaigns often revolve around events that are meaningful to consumers. For example, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day celebrate parental figures. Black Friday and Cyber Monday tap into the holiday spirit. Because these shopping events occur at the start of the holiday season, many consumers view them as an opportunity to kick off their holiday shopping for loved ones. 

Knowing this, it is effective to use the power of storytelling to spur emotion from consumers who are interested in your product. One way you can spark emotion with your Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns is to leverage video advertising. By combining audio and visual elements, you can create video ads that not only spur emotion, but are memorable to viewers.

Whether your campaign tells a story that touches the heart or makes someone laugh, the ultimate goal is to establish a connection with your audience. By building that connection, the consumer is more likely to reference your brand when those big shopping holidays arrive.  

4. Build Anticipation For Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sales 

Leveraging interactive, creative ad formats for your Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing will help you capture attention from your target audience and build awareness for your brand. 

Interactive ads invite users to perform an action in order to have something revealed within the ad itself, or to navigate towards a specific landing page. 

The action could be to hover over the ad, or it could be to click on something. This interactive viewer experience is the perfect way to uplift and complement your larger holiday marketing strategy, but it can also be used to alert consumers about your best Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. 

Shoppable video is another notable ad format for Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns. It showcases products while allowing users to browse right in the banner. With this ad format, you can reduce the steps a user has to take between awareness and conversion. 

Dynamic countdown ads are particularly useful during Black Friday and Cyber Monday because they can be leveraged to inform or remind users about your sales. A dynamic countdown ad will help create a sense of urgency for your audience to purchase. If your Black Friday sales last only 24 hours, a dynamic countdown ad can ensure your audience doesn’t miss out. 

5. Leverage Contextual Targeting to Reach the Right Audience

Contextual advertising is a cookieless targeting methodology that leverages content rather than user data to reach the right audience at the right time. By using this tactic, targeting is based on content, enabling you to connect with consumers who are more receptive to your ad’s messaging. 

Aligning ads with relevant content leads to a more personalized experience for your audience. For example, with contextual targeting, a person browsing a blog about the best holiday gifts for their mom might be served an ad for a Cyber Monday flash deal for a gift that mom would love. 

6. Dynamically Retarget Users Who Have Shown Interest 

In today’s programmatic advertising landscape, most users need to encounter your ads several times before they are likely to convert. 

Retargeting campaigns are a useful strategy for re-engaging consumers who have demonstrated an interest in a product based on the message that resonated with them. Reaching a user repeatedly requires less effort than reaching consumers who haven’t engaged with you.

Dynamic retargeting is a prominent tool used for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. You can serve an ad that a user has previously seen, but this time with a price tag. This personalized ad reminds the user about that product or service, encouraging further engagement and brand recall. 

To leverage retargeting for Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing, it’s important to start your campaign early to build up a retargeting pool. Then, retarget those users closer to Black Friday and Cyber Monday (or on those exact dates) to entice them to take advantage of a sale. 

Reach Your Black Friday and Cyber Monday Goals

Measuring the performance of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns is crucial for understanding which touch points in your marketing funnel are generating the most value. 

Programmatic campaign reporting will be your map to success! It provides users with access to data that will help them make proper adjustments to Black Friday and Cyber Monday and use the same data for future campaigns.

Want to create exceptional Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns? Request a demo to learn more about StackAdapt.

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