Black Friday 2023: Top Tips For Brands

Black Friday 2023 is almost here, and despite the current cost-of-living crisis and the financial impact it’s having on consumers, there’s no doubt that it will still be one of the biggest shopping days of the year.

As a specialist PPC agency, we’ve experienced our fair share of Black Fridays and seen some fantastic results for the clients we’ve worked with. Ultimately, preparation is key, and there’s plenty that advertisers and brands can be doing to ensure that this years sale is their most successful to date.

Preparing For Black Friday 2023

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to Black Friday planning. However, there are some things that can definitely help you to prepare for a successful day. Here are some of our best PPC agency pointers:

Data

What is your audience doing?

Whether you’re targeting a vast, or more niche, audience, driving quality leads and high conversion rates is what every business wants to see. Research and refer to your target audience’s behaviour when planning account activity.

What do previous years look like?

For those with historical data – use it! Ask yourself:

• When were people researching?
• When were conversions taking place?
• Are your deals more or less competitive?
• What performance was achieved?
• Are this year’s goals different/have they increased?

Budgets

Have budgets been confirmed?

One of the most important things to confirm before Black Friday is, of course, budgets.

If budgets aren’t currently uncapped and you aren’t the decision-maker, make sure you have a conversation about additional budget as early as possible. When deciding budget caps – make sure they are set high enough on big sale days, as some users shop earlier and Google might limit showing ads to users if it thinks that budget needs to stretch throughout the day.

Do you have a backup payment method?

If you don’t already have a backup payment method in place, try your best to make this happen. Many businesses count on Black Friday for a successful day of revenue, so the last thing you want is for a payment method to fail whilst a client is uncontactable or without any other means of payment.

Targeting

Are you targeting the right audience?

Have you set up remarketing lists for this period? Some examples of these could be all visitors, all converters, or cart abandoners – depending on your goals.

Consider using in-market audiences to connect with potential customers who are ‘actively researching of comparing products across Google Display Network, partner sites, and YouTube.’

Have you adjusted activity to reflect seasonality?

During Black Friday, consumers are actively searching for the best possible deals, so adjusting your activity to match buyer intent can really help you to stand out against competitors. Consider:

• If you’re using text or video assets in your Performance Max campaigns, adjust these to temporarily reflect your Black Friday promotions.
• Create sitelinks to drop users onto relevant pages that are associated with your campaigns.
• Use a countdown timer to countdown to the end your promotional period and create a sense of urgency with consumers.
• If you’re expecting a significant uplift in performance during the Black Friday period, it might be worth applying a seasonal adjustment that accounts for estimated changes during an upcoming event.
• Make sure promos have been added to all vendors e.g. Google and Bing.
• Set rules to switch temporary ads on and off, and do the same for your regular ad campaigns.
• Create ad groups with keywords related to seasonality, which could be regular keywords with ‘Black Friday’ or ‘Cyber Monday’ added to them e.g. ‘washing machines black friday,’ or ‘(brand name) black friday.’

We recently created a PPC expert-approved Black Friday Checklist that covers what you should be doing to make sure that you’re ready to drive performance on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Download our PPC expert-approved Black Friday Checklist here.

Some Final Tips For Black Friday 2023

There will always be some external factors that are out of your control, and being aware of these can help for any unexpected issues that might creep up on you:

Setting Expectations

The ongoing cost-of-living crisis means that consumers are more cautious than ever when it comes to spending, and businesses should be aware that lower consumer spends could affect performance YOY. If you are considering a promotion, now is the time to do so in order to appear stronger against competitors and provide consumers with best possible prices for a product.

Website Preparation

Clear, up-to-date and correct information on your website is one thing, but equally important is ensuring that your website can actually handle the potential surge in traffic on Black Friday. In the past, clients of ours have seen a 10x increase in YOY Black Friday performance, so being prepared for this kind of demand is essential. Competition with fellow retailers is going to be even higher than usual, so reducing anything that might cause customers to shop elsewhere – such as struggling site speed, search functionality, or page errors – will help you to drive and maintain CVR. Finally, when it comes to website management, ensuring that both desktop and mobile sites are performing well is important to reach your intended audiences, wherever they are.

Channel Alignment

Do your ads line up with everything else going on across your marketing channels? Aligning campaigns and messaging is important to ensure that your brand is being represented canonically, allowing both existing and potential customers to develop trust in your brand. Contrasting messaging can be confusing and frustrating, especially if someone has the intent to buy and aren’t provided with a clear message relating to sales offers and pricing. It’s all about making the buyer journey as seamless as possible.

Most importantly, communicate with your colleagues and/or clients to ensure that no stone is left unturned. From budgets to tracking, and website management to keywords – remaining on the same page and working towards the same goal will better set you up for success as you navigate Black Friday 2023.

Black Friday 2023: What Next?

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Download The PPC Expert Approved Black Friday Checklist

Prepare for a successful Black Friday with our PPC expert-approved checklist. Download a copy for yourself through the link below!