Black Friday presents an incredible chance for ecommerce advertisers to significantly boost product sales and gain a multitude of new customers. In 2022 alone, US shoppers splurged an astounding $9.2B on online purchases during Black Friday weekend, all in search of incredible deals and substantial price reductions.
However, it’s important to remember that as lucrative as Black Friday can be, it’s equally chaotic.
As a Facebook marketer, be ready to tackle fierce competition as rival companies invest heavily in their campaigns, all aiming to capture the same audience’s attention.
Don’t assume you can handle Black Friday like your typical Facebook ad campaigns.
However, don’t feel overwhelmed!
To help you navigate Black Friday effectively and capitalize on the shopping frenzy, I’ve compiled a series of expert strategies that will allow you to connect with valuable audiences, optimize your spending, and achieve high-value conversions:
- Establish a strong foundation before Black Friday even starts
- Utilize intelligent audience segmentation
- Deploy visually captivating creative assets
- Explore various ad formats for optimal outcomes
- Embrace action-oriented, sales-driven copywriting methods
- Don’t hesitate to expand on winning strategies
- Fine-tune your ad delivery to maintain a competitive edge
- Refrain from making last-minute alterations to your Facebook Ads campaign
Effective strategies for Black Friday Facebook ads for ecommerce businesses
Adhering to these best practices can help you transform the Black Friday frenzy into a highly profitable period for your business.
1. Establish a strong foundation before Black Friday even starts
As a Facebook advertiser, a significant portion of your work happens before the sales even begin. Waiting until Black Friday to start attracting website traffic will put you far behind your competitors. Instead, prioritize building responsive, high-quality retargeting audiences in the weeks leading up to Black Friday weekend. It all starts with the Facebook Pixel. With the Facebook Pixel implemented, you can create retargeting audiences based on individuals who have engaged with your ads, visited your website, or bought your products. These are known as Custom Audiences, and they are more likely to convert because they are already familiar with your brand and products. (A large email list can also be leveraged to build a new Custom Audience on Facebook using customer email addresses.)
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Custom Audiences remain active for up to 180 days, so by starting driving traffic to your website beforehand, you can launch your Black Friday campaigns seamlessly. You can directly target warm prospect audiences familiar with your business, maximizing conversions quickly instead of starting from scratch.
Expand your Custom Audience targeting further with Lookalike Audiences to broaden your campaign’s reach while staying focused on relevant potential customers.
Black Friday is incredibly competitive, so advertisers who can immediately target cost-efficient audiences have a distinct advantage.
Free guide » The 16 Most Effective Strategies for Facebook Ads Success
2. Utilize intelligent audience segmentation
I’ve stressed the importance of building re-engagement and retargeting audiences before Black Friday.
Segmenting these audiences strategically is equally vital.
For example, customers who have made multiple purchases on your website in the past 60 days should be prioritized. These existing customers demonstrate a clear interest in your offerings and present a substantial revenue opportunity during Black Friday.
Conversely, users who have only watched one of your videos might be interested in your products but aren’t ready to purchase.
Avoid treating all audiences equally. Carefully consider your approach to each segment during Black Friday. High-value customers might just need a simple discount message, while ad engagers might require more convincing to make a purchase.
Consider how to distribute your marketing budget across these retargeting audiences.
During Black Friday, there is no margin for inefficient spending. Identify your most promising audiences–your hot prospects and loyal customers–and allocate enough budget to maximize conversions from these segments.
Need targeting help? Get the guide » 10 Facebook Ad Targeting Strategies That Work In a Privacy-First World
3. Deploy visually captivating creative assets
High-quality creative assets are crucial during the Black Friday frenzy. Capturing your audience’s attention is half the battle. Ensure both your products and Black Friday promotions are prominent and easily understood in your visuals. Users will be bombarded with discount offers, so they must quickly grasp your value proposition. Analyze past competitor Black Friday campaigns using the Facebook Ad Library to gain insights. How did they present their products and discounts? Use this information to differentiate your brand this year. Whether you utilize static images or videos, ensure your creative assets are attention-grabbing. Leverage motion and color effectively – don’t be afraid to think creatively and stand out. Remember: successful Black Friday advertisers prioritize effective communication over artistic masterpieces. They use high-quality product images and bold visuals to convey their promotions and drive sales.
4. Explore various ad formats for optimal outcomes
Black Friday is unpredictable for Facebook advertisers. Strategies that work in your regular campaigns might not perform as well, and vice versa. Explore a variety of different ad formats during Black Friday to discover new creative opportunities and effective placements. Using a diverse range of ad formats not only keeps your messaging fresh but also provides more opportunities to engage your audience and showcase your promotions. Testing new ideas, combined with quick optimization, significantly increases your chances of driving sales. For instance, Facebook data shows show that video assets are incredibly popular during Black Friday, with 30% of mobile shoppers finding video the most effective format for discovering new products.
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Advantage+ Carousel ads are another great option for Black Friday as they let you present a selection of tailored product recommendations.
Stepping outside your comfort zone is crucial during Black Friday, as many traditional Facebook advertising rules change. If you usually stick to one or two ad types, experiment and try something new–the results may surprise you.
Get more helpful Facebook advertising data in our updated benchmarks!
5. Embrace action-oriented, sales-driven copywriting methods
The heightened competition during Black Friday necessitates that every element of your Facebook ads is designed to generate clicks and conversions. Ad copy plays a crucial role in this. While creativity is essential, incentivizing action is paramount. Focus on communicating clear discounts and compelling product benefits in your Black Friday ad copy–irrelevant information has no place here. Functional ad copy, while not necessarily witty or imaginative, is effective if it leads to sales. Utilize your primary text to highlight your key selling points (e.g., 30% off this collection) and utilize additional copy to emphasize added benefits like free shipping or returns. Employ sales-driven copywriting techniques to maximize your ads’ persuasiveness. Scarcity (e.g., limited quantities) and urgency (e.g., sale ends in X hours) are strong motivators for shoppers. Highlighting large, clear percentage discounts (e.g., 70% off) also makes an immediate impact. The more value your ad copy communicates, the higher the likelihood of conversion.
6. Don’t hesitate to expand on winning strategies
The Black Friday sales period is short. To maximize results through Facebook ads, you need to be decisive. Scaling up successful tactics and audiences allows you to make the most of the sales period and maximize conversions. However, you won’t have much time – scaling your budget needs to be done quickly and efficiently. So how can you prepare for rapid and effective budget scaling during Black Friday? Begin your campaign with a diverse mix of broad audiences to maximize your scaling opportunities. Allocate a significant budget to your high-performing retargeting segments, but balance this with larger audiences to ensure sufficient scale. Once you’ve identified creatives or audiences generating a high volume of conversions, start scaling. This can be vertical (increasing ad set budgets) or horizontal (replicating or adapting successful strategies). Remember that Facebook’s advertising landscape is highly competitive during Black Friday, meaning higher costs for impressions and conversions. However, effectively scaling your campaigns can compensate for the increased costs through significantly higher sales.
7. Fine-tune your ad delivery to maintain a competitive edge
Launching Facebook ads during Black Friday can be hectic. To maximize returns, stay focused on ad delivery. As mentioned, the competition during Black Friday is fierce, potentially leading to restricted delivery and escalating campaign costs. However, a few key adjustments, made proactively, can help overcome these challenges and ensure consistent ad delivery. Firstly, accelerate your Facebook ad delivery. Accelerating delivery at the ad set level allows Facebook’s algorithm to spend your budget as quickly as possible while still respecting your bid cap. This means Facebook will show your ads as frequently as possible, which is ideal for time-sensitive periods like Black Friday.
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However, this doesn’t mean sacrificing efficient spending. Implement smart Automated Rules to automatically pause underperforming ads, protecting your budget.
For example, create a rule that pauses ads with low clicks or a poor ROAS, maintaining campaign effectiveness while accelerating delivery for a set time.
Since your Black Friday campaign spending will likely be higher, consider increasing the adjust the spend limit on your Facebook Ads account. Advertising costs tend to rise rapidly during Black Friday. Giving yourself more budget flexibility can help avoid ad delivery issues.
8. Refrain from making last-minute alterations to your Facebook Ads campaign
Avoid making last-minute changes to your campaigns, despite the chaotic nature of Black Friday. Why? Because launching new Facebook ads triggers the algorithm’s Learning Phase**. ** During this period, the platform experiments with audience segments, gathers performance data, and optimizes your campaign. Performance fluctuations during this learning phase are normal. Resist the urge to intervene and trust the algorithm. The Learning Phase generally requires about 50 conversion events to stabilize performance. Interfering with your campaign resets this process, putting you back at square one. (Time equals money during Black Friday, and optimization delays are costly!) Triple-check everything from target audiences to ad copy headlines to avoid last-minute changes. You can pause underperforming audiences and increase budgets for successful tactics after gathering data. Avoid making minor tweaks during the Learning Phase.
Craft compelling ecommerce Black Friday Facebook ads
Black Friday might seem daunting, but there’s no reason why you can’t turn this e-commerce goldmine into a massive success. While the competition will be fierce, the right Facebook ad strategies will help you cut through the noise, reaching and converting high-value audiences. Embrace the chaos of Black Friday and achieve exceptional results with impactful ad creatives, data-driven optimization, effective budget scaling, and laser-focused targeting.