Run Black Friday as two sales, not one

Every brand we look after runs this structure now. Here’s how it works and why.

Why run two sales instead of one?

Because the week of Black Friday is the most expensive, noisiest week of the year to get anyone’s attention. Every brand on the planet is in the newsfeed at once.

Early November is the opposite. It’s when there’s the least competition for your ads, and your list is already warm. So you sell to the people who already like you while it’s quiet, and save the big public push for the main event.

Two sales also means two offers. That sounds like more work, but it gives your ads creative variety and gives your emails something new to say. One brand I work with is running a spend-and-save for VIPs this year, a straight discount for the public sale, and a gift with purchase on Cyber Monday. That’s three reasons to buy and three stories to tell, and some customers will buy more than once.

And there’s barely any downside. If someone misses the early access, you get to say “we’re bringing it back in case you missed out”.

What does the early-access phase look like?

Email and SMS only. Nothing on the website, no ads, no banner. Here’s how I set it up:

• About a week before, send a “register now” email. Pre-registrants get first access, the best price and, ideally, a free gift.
• Run early access on a discount code, for a short window. Seventy-two hours works well.
• Build a hidden collection or landing page with the deals, and keep it out of your navigation. Tell people straight: this link is the only place to see these deals.
• If you run a standing welcome discount, retire it before the sale is announced. Email everyone who got the code but never used it to say it expires in a few days. It’s easy money, and nobody ends up stacking codes in the middle of your sale.

While phase one runs, your ads and pop-ups aren’t selling. They’re collecting sign-ups for phase two with “sale coming soon” messaging.

What changes when the sale goes public?

Now you turn everything on: ads, site-wide messaging, and automatic discounts, so nobody has to hunt for a code.

Keep the mechanics simple. I’ve watched plenty of clever plans fall over halfway through a sale. Rolling categories that open and close on different days is the classic one. Put everything in one sale collection and change which category you feature at the top each day. It’s no more work, it’s far easier to manage, and your ads all point to one place.

Then give Cyber Monday its own offer, so it feels like a new moment and not a repeat of the same email.

What should your pop-ups say at each stage?

Your pop-up should change three times.

A few weeks out, it sells the early access: join the list for first access, the best price and free gifts. Point paid ads and social posts at a landing page with the same sign-up form.

While your VIPs are shopping, it says early access is live for the list and the public sale is coming. Tweak your welcome email to say the same.

Once the sale is public, switch to “sale on now, no code needed”, with a small “stay in the loop” form in the corner for ending-soon reminders. Keep it out of the way of people who are trying to buy.

Then lock it down. Nobody adds a random exit-intent pop-up in the middle of the sale.

How many emails and texts can you send?

As many emails as you can make genuinely different. Most people won’t open any single send, so lots of little jabs beat one big email. Segment them so they don’t all say the same thing: VIPs, early access, different products, “people who bought this also bought that”, how the offer works.

SMS is different. I wouldn’t send more than six texts across the whole period, from the first early-access message to the last ending-soon.

Here’s the trick that takes most of the risk out of sending hard. Put a link above the unsubscribe that says something like “Not interested in the sale? Click here and we’ll pause sale emails until it’s over.” People who are sick of hearing about it opt out of the sale, not out of your list.

Do your automated flows need to change?

Most brands slap a sale banner on the top and bottom of their emails and call it done. Your flows keep firing all through the sale, so they need to change too:

• Add a content block with the sale offer to every flow: welcome, browse abandonment and abandoned cart. Swap it once and it updates everywhere. In my experience it’s worth another couple of per cent across the whole sale.
• If your abandoned cart email normally carries a discount, swap it for a Black Friday version, so nobody sees two competing offers.
• Rewrite your welcome email for the period: the sale is on, here’s how it works.

When should you start planning?

Pick the day early access opens, then reverse-engineer everything from it: the register-now email, the pop-up changes, the landing page, the creative.

Start on the creative now. To scale ad spend through Black Friday you need far more video than you think. Old footage with a sale banner on top is fine, but you also need fresh talking-head content: someone on camera, with energy, explaining the sale and the products. It doesn’t have to be the founder. But if it’s not you, then who? Set a filming deadline well before the sale, because nobody wants to be shooting reels on the Wednesday before Black Friday.