November Event B – 24 Nov: Black Friday

Black Friday always falls on the day after Thanksgiving in the US (24th November this year), and it is a hugely anticipated event for consumers looking to find cheaper purchases ahead of Christmas. Last year, in the US, the event broke the online sales record, with $3.34bn worth of sales made before Cyber Monday (CMO, 2016).

US vs. UK activity

The trend started off in the US but Amazon introduced the shopping holiday to the UK in 2010. It is now the biggest retail day of the year in the UK, where the population shops 3 times more than on a regular day (dot, 2017). It is the best day for consumers to purchase toys and electronics at a heavily discounted price.

Compared to the rest of the year, 45.8% Brits spend more time shopping online at Christmas – most likely to avoid queuing at stores (WhatUsersDo, 2016). Therefore, e-tailers improve their advertising strategies around Black Friday to push sales volumes ahead of the festive month.

This year, Black Friday sales in the US are supposed to increase by 4% from last year (the balance, 2017); and online sales are forecasted to increase by 12% (Forrester, 2017). Retailers and e-tailers are also becoming more aware of the sales opportunities that can be grabbed throughout shopping journeys.

Trend is spreading fast, but where?

In Adobe’s Digital Insights report (2016), Black Friday is slowly blooming in the Nordic countries too, where sales have jumped by 187% since 2013, compared to a 66% increase in other European countries. In Germany, shopping patterns continuously fluctuate throughout the year, with Black Friday not being particularly popular or creating any sense of anticipation for shoppers.

Black Friday – the precursor to Christmas?

According to Bobatoo’s UK Christmas Spending Habits Survey, 38% of people start shopping for presents between October and November, and 24% leave it until December – the last-minute shoppers (2016). This illustrates that brands have ample opportunities to optimise advertising strategies; tactics include offering discounted items pre- Black Friday.

For example, this year, Amazon kickstarted their promotions for early-bird shoppers one week prior to Black Friday. Not neglecting store visitors, they are also setting up a pop-up space in Central London, creating an immersive buying experience and blurring the line between online and offline channels.

Shopping can get quite frantic during the sale so consumers prefer to research readily online and in-store before making a purchase. Therefore, brands should account for this pattern of behaviour, to maintain consistency in their message engagement throughout the consumers’ journeys.

Factors to consider for successful engagement and conversion

Over the years at MainAd, our Account Managers have gained long term experience managing Black Friday campaigns for advertisers. We understand how to implement a variety of tailored strategies that answers our advertisers’ requests to boosting their ecommerce visibility, along with their sales volumes during this event.

Our approach includes:

  • Applying tailored traffic buying strategies that allows for increased reach.
  • Ensuring a timely setup and launch of promotional banners to engage accordingly.
  • Working with clients on their creatives to deliver relevant messaging to entice conversion.
  • Re-investing campaign revenue that is planned in advance to drive further opportunities.

In this period, we work closely with each of our partners to deliver maximum performance results. We remain flexible and available for various ad hoc requests that may arise during their Black Friday campaigns.

Advertiser are becoming more inventive in their pursuits to attract their target audience and boost sales but whatever they have devised to promote Black Friday, falls behind its online counterpart, Cyber Monday. We take a deeper look at Cyber Monday, the leading ecommerce event in the US and many other countries, in the next post of our November Bargain series, so stay tuned!


Coming soon…

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