Get your online store ready for Black Friday

Pick the winning products

Don’t just try and promote all your products at once. Focus on those that already are popular among your customers (check your Google Analytics reports to get that data) and consider those with the highest profit margin. Don’t forget about upselling – ‘frequently bought together’ suggestions. Considering which of your products could go together, it could be also helpful to analyse your customers’ shopping carts at this stage. This way you will create irresistible offers and effective product recommendations – and sell more!

And what if you’re not sure which products are currently trending? Helium 10 or DSer are two great tools to help you find them! If you’re looking for a more advanced e-commerce platform altogether - consider Omnia Retail. It will help you create pricing strategies from scratch. Last but not least, think of the products you want to order before Black Friday and your stock levels. Do it ahead of time, and your inventory will be locked and loaded for lots of BF conversions.

Set measurable goals – and measure them

When working on a brand-new campaign, you should know what your goals are and what you expect from it. You must first define the goals to be able to assess the quality and effectiveness of the campaign.

Your goal is to sell more and get more customers. However, there are other important metrics, too. For instance, you should know your campaign’s overall ROI (return on investment), to verify how much profit you’ve made after all the expenses. AOV (average order value) is another important metric telling you a lot about your store’s condition and customers’ habits. Remember ‘frequently bought together’ from the previous point – that's how you increase the AOV. If you need a specific point of reference, compare data from similar campaigns conducted in the past. These do not necessarily have to be campaigns related to Black Friday but any other marketing or sales campaigns that involved large discounts.

Don’t neglect the long-term goals. Black Friday can be a fantastic opportunity to win new customers. Make sure their overall experience in your store is outstanding. Not sure how to? This is what our e-commerce and UX/UI experts deal with daily, and one of the major tools we use in our work is Google Analytics 4. If you want to know more, read this article on our blog: E-commerce + GA4: key metrics for marketing, pricing, and store success.

Design a perfect landing page

Make sure your Black Friday offer catches the eye. You can create a separate BF landing page or a whole section on your website - and link all your ads to that section. Don't forget high quality product pictures – the right setting and packaging will make your buyers click the ‘buy’ button much faster than bland pictures of even the best of the products. And now for the key element – the DISCOUNTS. No discount banner is too flashy on a Black Friday, so make sure to communicate the best deals ever!

The truth is, for many sellers, Black Friday has become an opportunity to manipulate prices, which resulted in reduced confidence of an increasing number of customers in the attractiveness of the offered "deals". Instead, it would be best if you chose straightforward and transparent communication. Showcase specifics and promote products whose prices have been significantly reduced.

During Black Friday, ordinary customers become professional bargain hunters. They refresh the pages every minute, hoping their dream offer will appear. And since they have to work at the same time, they often do it on mobile phones. Moreover, they tend to make purchasing decisions quickly, fearing that someone will beat them to it. Therefore, your landing pages (as well as the entire website) have to be fully mobile-friendly.

Lastly, make the most of the A/B tests. With them, you can verify which version of your ads, landing pages and product tabs resonate best with your target audience. There are multiple tools out there, and you can use them to design and execute diverse A/B tests. And we are happy to help you with it! We talk a lot more about different e-commerce best practices on our blog – once again, this text is a must-read for you!

Take care of internal advertising

A good landing page is not enough. After all, many users will not go to it directly. Check what subpages on your website are the most popular ones and use them to showcase your BF campaign ads.

It's also a good idea to mark products on the website that are part of the Black Friday promotion. You can also send a newsletter to your marketing database, add a post on social media and even create a blog article (e.g., with TOP10 ideas for Black Friday purchases).

Do you want to know more? Go to our blog and read how to use banners in your online store in an attractive and effective way.

Optimise the customer journey for a frictionless experience

Your customers should be able to do their shopping quickly and conveniently. Allow placing an order without creating an account (they loved the experience – they will be back!). Don’t ask about too many details in the order form (this will only discourage your customers – abandoned carts). Provide lots of payment and delivery options. The time from entering the landing page to placing an order should be as short as possible. If you want to spot potential roadblocks that can discourage your customers and cost you precious conversions - use Hotjar and their heat maps (or – ask us!).

We discuss this question further in our article about e-commerce accessibility.

Monitor the results – and act

Track your web data and react accordingly. An interactive analytics dashboard in Looker Studio can help you quickly spot trends (e.g., which products are popular, which channels are most effective, and which stage of the purchasing process is the most troublesome). Remember to tag the links to your landing page; you can even mark the ads the user came from. This will help you get invaluable insights and, in turn, continuously improve your store.

For best results - work with e-commerce experts!

If you’d like to make sure this Black Friday is a stellar success – we can help you make it happen. We have seasoned e-commerce experts in each of the areas mentioned above. Whether you just need to tweak certain areas - like your analytics, user experience, accessibility, or page performance or would need the whole store set up or revamped – we have the right skills and experience, gained internationally, working with the likes of The Royal Mint, NA-KD, and Coop, and many, many more.

If you want to know more about growing sales during Black Friday, we’ve got you covered! On our blog, you will find tons of valuable information on how to organise and implement BF strategies. Take a look, for instance, at these two articles:

Black Friday Marketing Strategies

Black Friday: Increase your ROI with funnel vision