Preparing the XML feeds of products

Whatever your e-shop is about, you should create an XML feed and link it to the ad managers you will run ads on so that you can a) run ads dynamically for all or some of your products and b) you can dynamically and automatically retarget visitors to your products with remarketing ads (each visitor sees an ad that is dynamically generated specifically for the product(s) they had visited after leaving your website). Make sure these feeds send correct descriptions, photos, and prices to the ad managers. All major ad managers allow commerce catalog feeds (Facebook, Google, Pinterest, TikTok, etc.). If you are interested in learning how to do this for each ad manager, check out the Meta Advertising, TikTok Advertising, Google Advertising, X (Twitter) Advertising, and Pinterest Advertising courses.

Checking the conversion events on your website

You obviously want ad managers as well as Google Analytics to track and record, which visitors have reached, exactly where on your website or in your funnel. Therefore, you should have placed several different conversion tags & events on each relevant page. It is recommended that you do this through Google Tag Manager. These tags & events will collect visitors of each step of your website funnel and aggregate them into many different audiences (e.g. 100,000 visited you, 10,000 put something in their cart, 500 reached checkout and 5 eventually became customers).

Preparing updated ad creatives

You are aware that for all the steps in all the advertising channels, you will have to run many advertising campaigns and each channel has many different creatives.

You are going to need creatives for step 1 and for step 2 which is where sensibly all the messages will be different. So write them all down from the beginning.

You need photos, graphics, videos, and texts (copy) for all campaigns and for all channels. Indicatively, you want rectangular graphics & videos (e.g. for LinkedIn and YouTube), square graphics & videos (e.g. for Facebook and Instagram), and vertical graphics & videos (e.g. for Pinterest, Instagram stories & reels, and TikTok).

Give your agency or partner graphic designers, copywriters, and video producers, well in advance, a detailed brief of what needs to be created and ready. If you are interested in learning how to do this check out the Sora AI, VEO AI, ChatGPT AI, CapCut, MidJourney AI & Canva courses.

Preparing email & mobile messages

You will definitely send several promotional emails with your offers. Either you directly or your publishing partners that you hire to send emails for you. Prepare all these messages in advance, i.e. SMS, Viber messages, and of course emails.

In addition, you should automatically send out many transactional messages to visitors, users, and customers. Therefore, set up scripts for emails or Viber messages or SMS which will automatically go out every time someone "abandons" your products in their cart. For instance, an abandoned cart potential email or SMS reminding someone that they left X product in their cart. So, make sure you have all these scripts and messages prepared and your emails or mobile platforms linked to your website to send out all the automatic dynamic transactional messages. If you are interested in learning how to do this check out the Email Marketing Strategy and the Mobile Marketing Strategy courses.

Launching awareness & traffic tactics

Organic social media marketing strategy

Along with any other educational, entertaining, informative, or product-related posts you make daily for your online community, it's a good idea to put up teasing posts & stories about upcoming sales. This will put in the minds of your fans that something is coming and those who are affected by the price will expect them. If you are interested in learning how to do this properly, check out the Social Media Marketing Strategy course.

Advertising campaigns strategy

Along with any other campaign, you should run ads for awareness or reach and also traffic (visitors) to your website, especially to the landing pages of the products or services you later intend to offer at a discount. This is needed, to create awareness for your products/services but at the same time generate visitors. All these visitors will become your future audiences (captured by the tags & events you have already set up) which you will need to retarget (remarket) with your discounts later on. In other words, anyone who showed interest but didn't buy at this time should see your discounts.

It is recommended to run these campaigns on a) Facebook & Instagram with ad objective awareness and traffic, b) Google Display Network and YouTube c) TikTok, d) Pinterest, etc. Obviously, you are targeting your buyer personas. Depending on your budget, choose as many of these channels have your audience. Ideally, if you want your strategy to work better, place twice the budget that you usually invest at this time. If you are interested in learning how to do this properly check out the Meta Advertising, TikTok Advertising, Google Advertising, X (Twitter) Advertising, and Pinterest Advertising courses.

Asking reviews from selected influencers

You should have chosen several micro or mega influencers who will only rate and review your products or services. Always pick the ones that have our audience and choose the affordable ones according to your budget. The goal is awareness and visits to your website. If you are interested in learning how to do this properly check out the Influencer Marketing Strategy course.

Launching tactics for conversions

Checking the advertising audiences

The day before our discount ads begin, we make sure that all ad managers have collected a sufficient number of visitors and have singled out our customers. Therefore, you have two main things in common: a) visitors and b) customers. These audiences will need to be accounted for in the campaigns that will be launched the next day. Specifically, from the next day you will target all your visitors excluding those who have already become your customers.

Updating the email & mobile audiences

The day before launching our discount emails, we make sure that we have collected or renewed our customers, on all our tools. Specifically, from the next day, you will send messages to all your subscribers excluding those who have already become your customers. If you are interested in learning how to do this properly check out our Email Marketing Strategy and the Mobile Marketing Strategy courses.

Launching conversion campaigns

These days then (or the whole week following if you want), you should strongly communicate your discounts for the products you've been promoting for so long. People have seen your products and some may have already bought them, but most have not. Let's go over the tactics.

Checking website pop-ups or tickers

Logically, your website has changed and your landing pages already mention your discounts. There should be a specific header image or pop-up somewhere on the home page or categories that mentions your discounts and leads to the specific landing page(s).

Preparing abandoned cart emails/messages

Set up scripts for emails or Viber messages or SMS that will automatically go out whenever someone abandons your products in their cart. This way your messages will "chase" the interested parties. Whether or not to offer an additional discount on these messages is up to you to decide.

Launching email & mobile sales campaigns

Send emails or Viber messages or SMS to all your subscribers (excluding those who already are customers) with information about your discounts.

In addition, send paid emails that you have established with major publishers, who have your audience and feature their own email newsletter and will send a purely promotional email for you.

Launching Google Search & Performance Max campaigns

Run campaigns that target searches for your topic/product in conjunction with Black Friday keywords. This way you will only show your ads to those who search for something related to you in conjunction with discounts (e.g. TVs blackfriday discounts).

Launching dynamic remarketing across all channels

Run campaigns that target website visitors from all previous days and of course, exclude everyone who has already become your customer. This way, you will only display your ads to those who have visited you.

You run these ads with dynamic remarketing so that visitors only see the product they have visited. The channels you will run them on are again a) Facebook & Instagram with ad objective awareness and traffic, b) Google Display Network and YouTube c) TikTok, d) Pinterest, etc.

Expect to invest for these remarketing ads 20% of the budget you had invested for the first step (awareness & traffic).

Posts & stories on your social media accounts

Obviously, you will make at least one post or story each day about your discounts with a link to your specific landing page.

Posts in relevant social media groups

If your executives participate in groups where your target audience exists and IF REQUIRED by the terms of the group, then you can make a post in which you mention your discounts to the members with a link to your specific landing page.

Repost posts & stories from selected influencers

You will have chosen several micro or mega influencers who will do purely promotional posts, stories, reels, or whatever else you have agreed on for your discounts. Always pick the ones that have your audience and choose the ones that your budget can afford. The goal is direct sales.

Publish press releases to selected publishers

You should have prepared and sent to major publishers who have your audience, press releases announcing your discounts. These should be published with an embargo on the exact day of the sale and no earlier.

Monitoring results during and after your campaigns

"You can't manage what you can't measure" said Peter Drucker. Therefore, you need to have a proper dashboard or report set up beforehand which you monitor before, during, and after to see if and how much all your above actions worked.

Obviously, what you are primarily interested in, is the sales and turnover on those days and you will know that immediately at your checkout! But there are several more elements that will help you improve your strategy from here on out.

You may be interested in looking at the following:

Monitoring social media marketing organic results

For social media marketing actions: the total REACH & ENGAGEMENT of all organic posts/stories,

Monitoring influencer marketing paid results

For influencer marketing actions: the total REACH & ENGAGEMENT of all paid posts/stories,

Monitoring advertising campaigns paid results

For paid advertising campaigns: the total CLICKS and CLICK THROUGH RATE of your ads and of course the CONVERSIONS and CONVERSION RATE of all your campaigns,

Monitoring email/mobile marketing direct results

For email & mobile marketing campaigns: the total OPENS & CLICKS of your messages.

Monitoring total strategy results

In addition, for those who are more ambitious, a very important result is the RETURN ON AD SPEND or ROAS of all actions (not just ads). Meaning, what you invested/gave in total and what you got back in total.

E.g. I invested 1000 euros/dollars I got 4000 euros/dollars in return. ROAS = 4. You realize that, the higher the ROAS the better your overall strategy was. If you are interested in learning how to do this properly check out the Google Analytics 4 and the Digital Marketing Reporting course.

Summary - How to get the best results on Black Friday & Cyber Monday

The Black Friday and Cyber Monday period is an opportunity to achieve more sales. If you provide products or services with real value and great deals, you will get great results. In this article, you saw how to prepare a complete digital marketing strategy with all possible promotions for your business. Us applying this strategy, we have delivered incredible results which have been awarded many times with a total ROAS of 20-60. Obviously, no strategy guarantees the same results across different businesses, products, or services. However, the steps and tactics can be the same. Good luck!

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Author : Apostolis Aivalis

Black Friday strategy

A practical guide to planning Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns with the right offers, timing, channels and conversion strategy.

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