Last year, we recorded our best-ever Black Friday *humble brag*. As an agency well-versed in the dreaded BFCM period, we knew that we had to take it up a notch for Black Friday 2020 with the world’s attention turned to online shopping.
With this in mind, we’ve learnt a LOT about how to prep for BFCM. From client communication to the best time to upload campaigns and how to maintain your sanity, we’ve tried and tested our approach to the sales period to reach this point. We want to share our tips with you so that your brand can attain that holy grail of Black Friday success.
With most of the world’s population forced to do their shopping online thanks to Ms Corona and lockdown after lockdown, eCommerce figures went through the roof, so it was clear early on that this year was going to be a biggie.
DMT Celebrate Their Best-Ever Black Friday
Our clients spent a massive £2,656,598.37 in total, which is a huge increase year on year. Managing a large number of high-spending eCommerce clients across a range of digital services is no mean feat – luckily, we had a solid team in place to tackle the workload. With extended teams across each of our core services – paid social, PPC, design and content, plus the addition of our project manager Josh (and his trusty good-boy sidekick, Bailey), we were primed and ready for a record-breaking Black Friday period.
We weren’t disappointed. We generated an incredible £18,961,375.92 across a total of 330 client accounts, seeing huge successes across Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Google, Amazon and email marketing. That’s an average ROAS of £7, and in terms of purchases, that’s a mind-blowing 388,812.
There were a lot of learnings from the data. Industry-wise, jewellery was the highest performing (is Christmas 2020 set the be record-breaking in terms of engagements?), hitting an average ROAS of £54.04. Food and drink saw the best click-through-rates, hitting a hefty 10.5%. Fashion continued to lead the way in terms of revenue, with the highest revenue recorded figure a huge £1,262,612.28. Our newest service – email marketing – was the best-performing channel, with clients pocketing an average of £14,581.68 in revenue per email.
We’re not gonna lie, there were some stresses over the month of November. However, the ride was a hell of a lot smoother than previous years, and thanks to meticulous planning and incredible cohesion from staff and clients alike, we made it.
Here are some of our learnings from our best-ever Black Friday. Whether you’re a business owner looking to ramp up your own revenue, or a marketer looking for tips on how best to prepare for Black Friday, we got you.
Record your Best-Ever Black Friday with these Expert Tips
Digital Media Team’s staff are well-versed in Black Friday proceedings. We asked the team to share some of their tips, strategies and coping methods (bevs), so that you can gain some insider insight on how to prepare your own Black Friday marketing. Let’s get to it.
1. Preparation is KEY
“If you don’t prep, you’re gonna regret it. The vast difference between this year and last year for us is immense. This year we prepped so much that Black Friday was dare I say… okay. Whereas last year I think I cried before lunchtime.” – Ruby, Content Writer.
2. Sign off your budgets and promotions in advance
“The accounts that were able to scale efficiently over Black Friday were the ones where budgets and offers were signed off in advance. This meant we could ramp up activity in line with offers launching early, increase traffic in the run-up and capitalise on this over the weekend.” – Lauren, PPC Manager
3. Start early
“We set a Black Friday request deadline of October 21st, which may seem early, but it helped us to manage the huge feat of designing and uploading hundreds of client campaigns. Hard work and careful prep really pays off.” – Kirsty, Operations Manager
4. The 6 P’s
“This was my first eCommerce Black Friday and it was an amazing experience to undergo it with the ever growing DMT team. Before anything else, the 6 P’s – Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. The accounts that had a solid plan in place that wasn’t too complicated excelled this Black Friday.” – Rhyse, PPC Executive
5. Push through in the face of adversity
“The accounts who kept pushing through the ongoing pandemic were the ones that reaped the rewards further down the line. This really showed that consumer behaviour hasn’t actually changed a great deal. People love a bargain and they love to treat themselves, this year even more so as it was a record year for DMT.” – Rhyse
6. Stand out from the crowd
“My Black Friday tip would be to make sure your ads are original. Try to stray away from the generic sale style and try to stand out in the feed and you’ll be more likely to get that conversion.” – Regan, Designer
7. Communication is key
“Communication with clients is key, you need to make sure you are updating clients with how their accounts are going, in order to effectively scale and optimise accounts.
“All that’s required after that; is a full working weekend, continuous eyes on the accounts and a few glasses of wine in the evenings. Next, simply enjoy watching the ROAS pour in!” – Lewis, Paid Social Executive
8. Gather client assets ahead of time
“It was my first Black Friday. I think what I learnt most was organisation and planning is KEY! Making sure clients have sent in their promos, assets and budgets in good time was definitely helpful.” – Sam, PPC Executive
9. Be brave
“My tips for business owners would be: Be willing to adapt but be confident with your offer; be prepared with your content – spend time in the months leading up gathering strong content that will stand out; and look at the overall picture and decide the roles of the channels and how they help your overall marketing funnel, don’t just throw money at them.
My tip for marketers: Good luck.” – Cam, Paid Social Manager
10. Project management tools are a game-changer
“My lesson for BFCM is ORGANISATION. Anyone who works with me knows how much I preach about breaking down your days into a nice list, but I can’t stress it enough over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday madness.
“Monday.com kept me sane (shameless plug) and quite honestly, there’s nothing more satisfying in life than checking ‘complete’. It’s a great way to keep on top of everything – and also make sure you’re not stretching yourself too thin either.” – Aimee, Head of Content
11. Be meticulous with your notes
“Considering this was my first Black Friday it was pretty daunting, but the thing that kept it all in order for me was noting everything down in table form. I had a table for each step in the process – requesting copy/creative, uploading everything, scheduling the ads, checking everything was live, updating Smart Shopping – and checked off each account when it was done. This approach helped make sure I didn’t miss anything out or get too flustered.” – Jamie, PPC Executive
12. Think ahead
“My tip is definitely don’t forget that Black Friday isn’t the end of the madness – there’s still Advent/Christmas/Boxing Day/January Sales waiting around the corner and preparing early for that helps too!” – Joe, Content Writer
13. Don’t make any site updates during BFCM
“During black Friday any maintenance work on the website is a bad idea! A website can throw errors or even break during the busiest shopping time of the year, making the business lose huge amounts of potential profit. With any eCommerce website you should save the maintenance for the quiet period.” – Martyna, Web Developer
14. Look after yourself
“My other tip? Make sure you’ve got some sort of stress relief on standby. Be it a crate of wine, some plates to smash, or some chocolates in a hidden drawer. Trust me, you’re gonna need it.” – Aimee
And there you have it – our top tips on how to have your best-ever Black Friday. BFCM shows no signs of slowing down, and with eCommerce on the rise, competition is fierce. We absolutely can’t stress enough the importance of careful planning – last minute plans will get you nowhere, whereas time and effort will see you exceed your KPIs.
If you need an extra hand with your digital marketing, holla at us. We’ve refined our services to offer the ultimate eCommerce toolkit, helping brands smash it year-round.
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