18 Smart Black Friday Marketing Ideas to Boost Your Sales

Shoppers across the globe have begun counting down. Yes, the Black Friday sale is fast approaching. Year after year, this shopping festival only gets bigger (and better). Last year’s Black Friday sale was one of the grandest events ever seen in eCommerce. A record $9.8 billion was achieved in online sales! We’re expecting a similar scale this year. 

However, with competition peaking in the eCommerce industry, standing out from the millions of online retailers is not easy. In other words, tapping into the opportunities provided by Black Friday 2024 will get even tougher. 

But we’re with you, sellers! To help you surge ahead, we have come up with this ultimate guide, which covers 18 battle-tested marketing ideas focused on the Shopify ecosystem. Use these strategies to boost your sales when it matters the most. But first, some basics.

What is Black Friday for eCommerce?

To the unversed, Black Friday falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Initially, a term used to describe a positive boost in retail sales after a slump till Thanksgiving, today it has become a key event for retailers worldwide. It is known for its door-busting deals and signifies the onset of the holiday shopping season. For eCommerce stores, it presents a unique opportunity to capitalize on increased consumer spending with exclusive deals and new product launches. 

Extend Your Sale from Black Friday to Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday is celebrated on the Monday following Thanksgiving. Originally, Black Friday focused on in-store sales, while Cyber Monday targeted eCommerce sales. But today, thanks to the unprecedented growth of eCommerce, Black Friday has evolved into a four-day online shopping event culminating with Cyber Monday, giving retailers more opportunities to drive sales. This period is often referred to as “BFCM” (Black Friday Cyber Monday) and offers a critical window for retailers to bolster their sales. This year, BFCM takes place from November 29 to December 2.

Preparing for Black Friday Marketing

Now, before we get into the actual strategies, there are two prerequisites that you need to fulfill to get the most out of your ideas. Here are they: 

Dissect Your Q4 Into Phases

Truth be told, Black Friday is not a one-day event. It involves planning your entire Q4, starting with dividing it into four phases, with each phase warranting a different approach. The four phases are as follows:

Analysis

This phase occurs before any promotions are set in motion. In this, you analyze your last year’s BFCM performance to identify best-selling products and traffic sources. You also segment customers based on behavior and preferences and review competitor strategies. Put simply, this is the phase where you identify your shortcomings and course-correct them before the grand event. This phase typically consumes your entire September. 

Pre-BFCM

This is the phase where you build anticipation with teaser campaigns. You can send emails to your loyal customers, create social media buzz, and even offer early-bird deals closer to the sale day. More importantly, you need to ensure that your inventory is well-stocked and your website can handle the surge in traffic. This phase typically starts in October and goes all the way till the sale weekend. 

Sale Weekend

The D-Day has finally arrived. If you think your only job in this phase is to sit and watch, you cannot be more wrong. You need to track the performance of your Black Friday sale and constantly engage with your customers in real time. You also need to ensure fast customer support response and adjust campaigns to boost high-demand products. And don’t forget to monitor your website traffic to prevent outages. 

Post-Sale Retention

This is the phase where most sellers will get into a relaxed mode after a successful sale. It is a blunder if you want to play the long game. You need to focus on customer retention and ensure adequate post-purchase support. Keep engaging your customers via email follow-ups or loyalty programs so that they will consider you even on regular days. 

Build Your Black Friday Marketing Email List

This is another key step you should accomplish before the onset of the Black Friday event. Create an exhaustive email list targeting both loyal and new customers. Segment them into groups based on their buying behaviors and engagement levels. This step is very important to ensure that your Black Friday marketing emails sent are highly personalized and relevant. It will automatically improve the chances of them purchasing from you during the sale.

For loyal customers, leverage their purchase history and send early access offers via email. This will make them feel valued. New customers, on the other hand, can be drawn with enticing welcome offers.

It is also important to create a well-planned email cadence. It should encompass the following emails:

• A teaser email to build excitement
• Countdown emails to keep your brand fresh in their minds 
• Reminders just before the BFCM event
• Time-sensitive offers on the day of Black Friday. 

This gradual buildup maintains customer interest and drives action when it matters most.

It is also important to send post-purchase emails with personalized recommendations or loyalty rewards. This will help in retaining customers even after Black Friday.

18 Black Friday Marketing Ideas

Now that you have fulfilled the prerequisites, it is time for some action. Here are 18 unique Black Friday marketing ideas that you can implement during this upcoming sale event to boost your conversions:

1. Unlock Excitement with “Deal of the Hour” Promotions

Usually implemented on all days of the sale, this marketing idea involves offering a different product discount every hour to keep customers engaged throughout the day. In simple words, you offer limited-time discounts or exclusive offers that change every hour throughout the Black Friday weekend. The goal of this strategy is twofold – to create a sense of urgency and encourage customers to check back on your website regularly during the BFCM weekend. 

Shopify Apps: Apps like Disco: Flash Sales & Discounts and Price and Daily Deals let you create Black Friday promotions like Deal of the Hour and other types of Flash Sales to drive urgency among customers. 

💡 Pro Tip: Use push notifications to keep all your customers in the loop regarding the deal of the hour offer.

2. Create Buzz with Countdown Clocks

This Black Friday strategy taps into the psychology of FOMO. There are two ways to implement this strategy. 

One, you could create buzz for the entire sale event by placing a timer clock on the homepage of your website. Ideally, it should be on the first fold of your home page. The clock should display the number of days and time remaining for the Black Friday sale to kick off. Place this at least 2 weeks before the event to get the maximum benefits.

You can also use the countdown clocks to highlight limited-time deals for an individual product or an entire category like this brand below: 

Shopify Apps: Use built-in countdown timer apps like TicTac or Essential Countdown Timer Bar to help you set up a countdown clock in a few steps. 

💡 Pro Tip: The countdown clocks can also be included in your email campaigns and social media ads to cater to those customers who do not visit your website often. 

3. Supercharge Your Store with Shopify Tools

The Shopify ecosystem is inundated with tools that are tailored for the Black Friday sale. Chatbot apps are particularly popular during the Black Friday period as they can answer customers’ basic queries and reduce any friction that is preventing them from proceeding with the order. Similarly, analytics apps are well-sought out by retailers owing to the ease and clarity in which these tools provide data related to their ‘sale KPIs’. Lastly, loyalty apps are also in high demand during BFCM as retailers want to establish long-term relationships with the customers even after the sale ends. 

Shopify Apps: Willdesk is a popular live chat & AI chatbot app with robust support features. When it comes to managing loyalty programs, Loloyal is the default choice for most retailers. 

💡 Pro Tip: Install all the necessary apps at least a month in advance. This will give you enough time to get accustomed to the features of the tool.

4. Optimize Your Website for a Flawless Experience

It doesn’t matter how big your discounts are; your potential customers are going to click that close button the minute they encounter a slow or glitchy website. So, ensure that your website is always optimized for speed. The easiest way to optimize your website is by compressing images and enabling browser caching to reduce load times. Additionally, you could also minimize HTTP requests. When in doubt, use tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights to pinpoint areas to improve the performance of your website. 

And with shopping shifting to mobile devices for most people, adopting a mobile-responsive design is no longer optional for online sellers. It is also important to make your navigation and checkout process seamless. The last thing you want to experience on the day of sale is high cart abandonment rates due to a laggy user interface. 

Shopify Apps: You can use tools like SEOAnt to optimize your website for speed and SEO score. 

💡 Pro Tip: Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to enhance performance across different locations.

5. Personalize the Shopping Journey with Custom Discounts

In this Black Friday tactic, you first segment your customers based on their past purchases, browsing behavior, and demographic data. Then, you offer tailored discounts to fit individual preferences. For example, you could offer a higher discount to a repeat customer and offer free shipping to first-time buyers. Such personalization creates a more meaningful experience for your buyers.

Shopify Apps: Create and manage customer segments using Shopify apps like ECPower Segment Management and Angular View. 

💡 Pro Tip: Use A/B testing to see which discount type resonates best with different customer segments. This will improve the success rate of this strategy.

6. Entice Shoppers with Minimum Purchase Offers

As a customer, we would have often encountered offers like “Spend $50, Get $10 Off.” “Purchase for $100 to get free shipping”. This has been a tried and tested marketing strategy in both offline and online channels. It is also highly successful during a sale event like Black Friday, where your consumers are already looking for deals. This strategy has also been a hit among retailers because of its ability to improve average order value (AOV), a key indicator of Black Friday’s success. 

Here’s Home Depot encouraging customers to buy multiple products for a particular value to enjoy better discounts and free shipping during the Black Friday 2023 sale:

Shopify Apps: Use apps like Ultimate Special Offers, and Pumper Bundles Volume Discount to create minimum purchase offers for your online store. 

💡 Pro Tip:  Ensure that the minimum purchase offers are clearly displayed in bold across your site, in your email campaigns, and on social media. You can create dedicated banners for the same.

7. Spin the Wheel for Instant Rewards!

This strategy is all about amplifying the shopping experience of the customers. Typically, you draw customers into a playful interaction that can lead to instant rewards for them and a possibility of sale for you. 

There are two popular ways to implement this. One is via email pop-ups, where you send the digital spin wheel to subscribers, inviting them to participate and win discounts that they can redeem during the Black Friday sale. The other is through exit intent pop-ups on your website, which activate when a user is about to leave. Again, you offer a final opportunity to spin the wheel for the visitor and claim a discount. 

Popular rewards include discount codes, free shipping, buy-one-get-one-free offers, or even exclusive merchandise. Here is a sample Spin the Wheel tool:

Shopify Apps: EcomSend is a popular choice for adding Spin the Wheel as an exit-intent and email popups. 

💡 Pro Tip:  Keep updating the discount types in the wheel every hour. This will ensure that repeat customers do not encounter the same discount types every time. 

8. Delight Customers with Surprise Checkout Discounts

Checkout is often the last touchpoint between you and your customers. So, if you want to leave a lasting positive impression in their minds, this is the real estate you need to capitalize on. The easiest way to attract them is to offer surprise discounts at a time when they least expect it. You could offer a discount percentage or a gift based on the order value. This tactic works extremely well to reduce cart abandonment. 

Shopify Apps: Use Checkout Buddy to customize your checkout sections, including the option to add a surprise discount based on pre-set rules. Also, Loloyal allows you to provide discounts based on points customers accumulate on Shopify Plus.

💡 Pro Tip:  Highlight checkout offers subtly. You do not want to interrupt the customer’s normal checkout flow. 

9. Introduce Must-Have BFCM Exclusive Products

The idea behind this strategy is simple – create a limited selection of items that are only available during the Black Friday sale. This sense of exclusivity makes the customers eager to snag unique deals. It is a good opportunity for you to introduce new products, as they will experience maximum visibility and garner the highest interest. Remember, any product that’s been marketed as a “once-a-year” deal is going to be highly desirable. 

Shopify Apps: Use Zepto Product Personalizer to create exclusive products for BFCM. It lets you use conditional logic to show and hide products based on different parameters. 

💡 Pro Tip:  In case you do not have an exclusive product, simply create unique bundles of your existing products. 

10. Go Big with Bold Sitewide Discounts

This strategy involves offering significant savings—such as 20%, 30%, or even 50% off everything on your site. This way, you create a compelling reason for shoppers to explore your entire catalog. Another reason to offer sitewide discounts is the simplicity of the process. While you can enjoy the ease of setting up a single discount rule, your customer need not scratch their head or perform complex calculations to determine discounts for different products. 

For instance, here is GAP, the apparel brand offering site-wide discounts during the previous Black Friday sale:

Shopify Apps: You could use discount and bulk price editor apps like Unlimited Bundles & Discounts and NA Bulk Price Editor to create and manage site-wide discounts. 

💡 Pro Tip:  Promote the discounts everywhere, from the first fold of your home page to your pinned social media posts. 

11. Double the Joy with BOGO Deals

If you want to improve your sales volume and clear out your long-standing inventory, Buy One, Get One (BOGO) promotions are the way to go. Your shoppers love the perceived value they get from doubling their purchase. The usual strategy is to combine a fast-moving item with a slow-moving item in your inventory. Here’s Wallgreens offering a BOGO offer on one of their products:

Shopify Apps: Use Shopify apps like AOV or BOGO+ to create BOGO offers effortlessly during the Black Friday weekend. 

💡 Pro Tip:  To stand out, use bold graphics and countdown timers to emphasize the scale of your BOGO discounts. 

12. Spark Referrals with Exciting Rewards

Despite the advent of several modern marketing methods, word-of-mouth marketing is still the most effective method to amplify your brand reach. Black Friday is a great time to launch or promote your referral program. Your customers are eager to find the best offers, and referral programs sweeten the pot by offering rewards not only for themselves but also for their friends. You could offer rewards such as discount codes or free gifts for referring each friend to your store. 

Shopify Apps: Use tools like RecomSale to set up and launch your referral program.

💡 Pro Tip: Provide referral bonuses that stack with your Black Friday deals to incentivize more participation. 

13. Engage Customers with a Live-Stream Shopping Spectacle

This is an innovative Black Friday marketing strategy that combines entertainment with sales in real time. Live-stream shopping during BFCM allows you to showcase exclusive products and interact directly with viewers. For a customer, such a shopping experience feels personal and dynamic. It is important to promote this live sale event in advance through email and social media. This can help build anticipation and ensure strong participation. Sellers usually use platforms like Instagram Live or YouTube to stream live during the Black Friday sale. 

💡 Pro Tip: You can feature influencers or brand ambassadors to increase credibility and attract a wider audience.

14. Showcase Your Brand Values with Pride

If your company focuses on sustainability, ethical practices, or community initiatives, highlight it with great pride. This is a great way to attract customers who want to support businesses with a mission they believe in. You stand out from the crowd because most of your competitors are focusing on discounts and deals, while you add depth to their shopping experience. You are allowing your customers to feel good about their purchases, which can help build long-lasting relationships with your brand. Here’s Walmart showcasing its brand values on its home page during the Black Friday marketing sale:

Shopify Apps: Use a tool like SEOAnt ‑ GDPR EU Cookie Banner and EcomSend to create banners, bars, and pop-ups to highlight your initiatives on the home page. Alternatively, if you want to highlight this through a dedicated page, you could use a landing page builder like PageFly.

💡 Pro Tip: Ensure that you do not use a bland tone to convey your mission and objectives. Instead, use storytelling to show the impact of your brand’s values.

15. Keep Them Guessing with Mystery Savings

Everyone loves surprises, including your shoppers. Adding an element of surprise can create a buzz around your Black Friday promotion. Offer “mystery savings,” where customers can unlock a random discount or a gift. The unpredictability creates an aura of excitement and encourages users to take action. You can share these mystery savings via email or sudden pop-ups on your website. 

Shopify Apps: You can use apps like AOV and Monk Free Gift to add a gift to the cart automatically based on preset rules.

💡 Pro Tip: You can implement tiered mystery discounts. Offer varying discount percentages (e.g., 10%, 20%, or 50%) but keep the specific discount revealed only at checkout.

16. Tempt Shoppers with Conditional Free Shipping

Despite the simplicity of the idea, free shipping is still one of the most enticing offers during Black Friday. It is an effective and sure-shot way to encourage higher spending. This approach increases your average order value while satisfying customers who dislike paying for shipping. 

Make the threshold clear in your marketing materials. Promote the offer prominently on your homepage and product pages. Here’s Macy’s giving free shipping for a minimum purchase order of $25 during the Black Friday 2023 sale: 

Shopify Apps: You can use tools like SEOAnt‑ GDPR EU Cookie Banner and Slide Cart to display a free shipping bar on the website. This gives your customers an idea of how far behind they are to avail of free shipping. 

💡 Pro Tip: Set the threshold for free shipping just above your average order value. For instance, if your AOV for last year has been $40, this year, keep the free shipping threshold as $50. 

17. Black Friday Marketing – Cater to All Tastes with Diverse Offers

Here’s the truth: a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work even with promotions. So, offer a variety of deals to different product categories. For example, run a flash sale for one category on day one and bundle offer for another category on the same day. Mix and match the following day. You can also offer coupons and free shipping on top of the existing offers. 

Brands like Target excel at offering a mix of deals. This will ensure they capture the attention of bargain hunters and holiday gift shoppers alike.

Shopify Apps: Use tools like Ultimate Special Offers to configure a variety of promotions for your online store. 

💡 Pro Tip: Do a thorough analysis before the event starts on what kind of offers work best with your target audience. This will boost sales due to better conversions. 

18. Reward Loyalty with Future Purchase Coupons

This strategy turns your one-time Black Friday shoppers into repeat customers. It is critical for your brand’s long-term growth. In this, you offer coupons or discounts for future purchases. The coupons should be redeemable immediately after the Black Friday weekend. There are two main reasons for following this strategy. One, it builds customer loyalty. Two, it incentivizes them to return during slower periods. 

Shopify Apps: Use tools like Loloyal to create personalized coupon codes that are redeemable on the cart page. 

💡 Pro Tip: Offer exclusive discounts and higher-value coupons for your most loyal customers. Rewarding them more generously than once-in-a-while repeat buyers will make them feel special and turn them into your brand advocates. 

Post-Black Friday Marketing Strategies

Once the Black Friday weekend is over, do not slow down on your marketing efforts. It is important to maintain the Black Friday momentum and attract customers even after the sale to drive long-term growth. Here are two strategies you can adopt after the Black Friday weekend: 

Go Big On Ads

Invest in running advertising campaigns across platforms like Google Ads, Facebook, and Instagram. Craft eye-catching ad creatives that spotlight remaining deals or exclusive post-BFCM offers. Leverage data from Black Friday to optimize your targeting and improve the conversion rates of your Black Friday marketing campaigns. Always keep your brand top-of-mind throughout the year if you want to grow as a business. 

Tease Your Next Campaign

Once the sale is over, build anticipation for the next events, like the Christmas Sale. Send emails that use humor and a curiosity-driven tone, highlighting this. For instance, you use bold subject lines in emails and/or unique imagery or videos on your social media posts to tease your next big promotion. Highlight that more exciting deals are coming soon, keeping your audience engaged and eager for what’s next. 

Black Friday Marketing Strategies: Ready, set, go!

And those are some of the best Black Friday promotion ideas you can adopt to succeed in this year’s sale. Use only those that you believe will work for your eCommerce store and your target audience. And don’t forget to take the help of the dedicated Shopify apps to simplify the execution of these strategies. So, gear up, adopt, and watch the Black Friday sales roll in!