We’re exactly one month away from Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the biggest shopping weekend of the year.
Like every year, advertising during this season is a challenge. CPMs skyrocket, competition gets tougher, and consumer behavior keeps evolving. With inflation pushing prices higher, shoppers are more cautious and informed than ever — prioritizing low prices and real value. They’re not buying on impulse anymore; they’re comparing, researching, and waiting for the right moment to click “buy.”
All these factors lead to one thing: you need a smart plan to stand out. It’s not enough to have an incredible offer, it needs to be seen. Your brand should show up everywhere your audience is: Google, Meta, TikTok, email, and organic content all working together to build presence and trust before the sale even starts.
That means starting early: building demand before BFCM weekend hits. Because once the discounts drop, attention disappears fast. The brands that show up first are usually the ones that stay top of mind (and top of cart).
You might already have your plan in motion by now: offer, winner creatives, copy, budget, and more. Or maybe you’re still piecing it together. Either way, this checklist will help you double-check every detail and get your brand ready to win.
Pre-BFCM
The brands that grew the most didn’t just scale during peak week: they built demand early. By investing in awareness and consideration when CPMs were lower and competition was lighter, they entered BFCM with warmer audiences and more efficient conversions.
By the last week of October, your pre-BFCM campaigns should already be live. This time is used to feed the algorithm, find your winner creatives and warm the audience for the big date.
However, by this time, you should already have more than just your awareness campaigns in motion, you need the core building blocks of your BFCM strategy locked in. Here’s what should be defined before Black Friday week begins:
Define your offer
You’d be surprised how many brands define their offer at the last minute. And this is a major mistake. They spend weeks warming up their audience and building anticipation, only to reveal an offer that doesn’t meet any expectations.
When that happens, trust breaks, engagement drops, and your conversion opportunity disappears right when it matters most.
Your audience has been paying attention: comparing, saving, and waiting. If your offer doesn’t deliver the value you’ve implied, they’ll move on fast to other brand that offers what they’re looking for. That’s why your promotion should be defined early, tested for clarity, and aligned with what your audience actually expects.
Testing your offer earlier will help you understand how your audience perceives value, giving you time to adjust messaging, discount depth, or framing before it’s too late.
Set your budget
During Black Friday/Cyber Monday, CPMs can jump 30–50%, this means that competition for impressions intensifies, and the platforms start rewarding advertisers who can react quickly. Having a dedicated “scale budget” lets you push your top performers in real time without draining funds from your evergreen or pre-BFCM campaigns.
Think of it as creating two distinct phases:
- Pre-BFCM spend → steady, data-driven, focused on testing and warming audiences.
- BFCM week spend → flexible, aggressive, focused on scaling winners and maximizing conversions.
A well-structured budget gives you control: you’re not reacting to costs; you’re anticipating them.
💡 Pro tip: Keep 10–15% of your total BFCM budget unassigned as a “reactive fund.” This allows you to pivot spend toward the creatives or audiences that outperform once the data starts rolling in.
Choosing your channels strategically
Let’s be honest: don’t rush into multiple platforms if you haven’t tested them yet.
What does that mean? If you jump into TikTok Ads, YouTube, or Pinterest without prior testing, you’ll be spending CPMs on campaigns that haven’t been optimized. That’s a fast way to burn through budget when it matters most.
Instead, focus on the platforms where you already have data and traction. Double down on what’s proven to drive results.
Sometimes, you may feel tempted to test a platform just because CPCs and CPMs are too low, but this doesn’t mean you’ll find the right audience there. Pre-BFCM, just focus on the platform that are already working for you and learn how to
Once your media mix is locked, shift focus to the part that actually drives results: creative.
Test and find your creative winners
And last but not least, this is the moment to experiment with creative.
Use this time to test fast, learn fast, and understand what truly captures attention and drives clicks.
Make tests for angles and for formats. Here are some ideas for you:
| Angle | Definition |
| Product-first vs. benefit-first | Show the product in action or highlight the transformation it delivers. |
| Emotional vs. rational | Appeal to desire, lifestyle, or status vs. focusing on features or savings. |
| Price-driven vs. value-driven | Emphasize discounts or long-term quality and utility. |
| Problem/solution storytelling | Show how your product solves a specific frustration. |
| Community or social proof | Lean on testimonials, creator opinions, or real customer reactions. |
| Nostalgia | Evoke memories, emotions, or familiar experiences that make your audience feel something instantly. |
| Purchase trigger | Center your creative around the specific reasons people decide to buy. |
| Expert / Authority | Position your brand as a credible expert who helps the customer make a smarter purchase. |
Of course, there are plenty more angles you can test, but don’t make the mistake of just testing angles… Test formats, because you never know which one would be preferred by your audience.
- UGC and creator content to build trust and authenticity. (If you’re not sure how to start testing UGC, simple, let’s talk)
- Carousels to showcase multiple products, features, or before-and-after visuals.
- Short-form videos to drive awareness and storytelling.
- Static images for clear offers and consistent branding.
Once you’ve done enough testing, found your winners, you’re nearly all set for the big date.
BFCM
The truth is, BFCM isn’t the time to reinvent your strategy: it’s the time to execute the plan you built during pre-BFCM with precision. Your goal this week is simple: protect performance and scale what’s proven.
Small mistakes, like changing budgets mid-flight or killing ads too soon, can reset learning and waste thousands in potential revenue. Others, like ignoring retargeting or neglecting post-purchase flows, can quietly erode your results even if your ads look great.
Here is what you need to be extremely cautious about on this day:
Don’t make changes too late
When your campaigns are live, resist the urge to panic-edit. It’s tempting, we get it. When you see performance dipping, CPCs rising, or one ad not converting as fast as you’d hoped, your first instinct is to change something.
Remember: during BFCM, platform algorithms (especially Meta and TikTok) are in overdrive. They’re learning from real-time signals, optimizing for your best-performing audiences and placements. Every time you make a structural change, you wipe that learning and send the system back to square one, just when it’s starting to optimize.
This is why pre-BFCM testing matters so much. If you’ve done your homework by tested creatives, defined winners, and locked your offers, you shouldn’t need to make big moves once campaigns go live. The best-performing brands during BFCM are the ones that trust their data and stay consistent.
💬 Primer tip: Think like a pilot, not a passenger. Your BFCM strategy is your flight plan: small course corrections keep you on track, but a sudden turn midair will only cause turbulence.
Don’t turn off ads too fast
One of the biggest mistakes we see during BFCM is killing ads too early.
Many brands panic when an ad doesn’t convert within a few hours, assuming it’s a flop. But during BFCM, purchase cycles stretch out — shoppers browse, compare, and wait before they buy.
Keep in mind that Shopify’s annual BFCM Trends Report consistently notes that purchase volume peaks in the evening hours, particularly between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. local time, across multiple regions. So, it doesn’t mean that your ad isn’t performing: people are waiting to buy, that’s why you can’t just focus on CPA or ROAS: pay attention to other metrics like CTR to see if your ad is driving traffic or Add-to-cart, to see if people are waiting to make the purchase later.
Monitor budget
BFCM spend can burn fast. It’s common to overspend early in the day (or early in the weekend) and run out of gas right before conversion windows heat up. Add in volatile CPMs and longer decision cycles, and poorly paced budgets become one of the biggest performance leaks of the weekend.
Check pacing hourly during peak days. Look at spend vs. revenue, CPA/ROAS, impression share, and frequency, not just one metric.
Also, you should keep a reserve. Ring-fence 10–15% of total BFCM budget as a reactive fund to push proven winners in real time.
And lastly, use rules/alerts to flag overspend or underdelivery, but make final calls manually (context matters).
The brands that win during BFCM are the ones that trust the work they’ve done before the sale. Remember that this weekend is where everything you’ve built finally shows and it’s finally time to boost your conversions.
So as you head into the busiest shopping weekend of the year, remember: stability scales better than panic. Trust your prep work, monitor your spend intentionally, and keep your eyes on efficiency over volume.
Q5
Right after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, most brands hit pause — but the smartest ones are just getting started. The weeks that follow, known as Q5, represent one of the most overlooked growth windows in marketing. It’s the period from December through mid-January, when CPMs drop, competition fades, and consumers are still in a buying mindset.
People are online more than ever: scrolling, spending holiday gift cards, and finally buying for themselves after weeks of shopping for others. It’s a quieter, more efficient time to re-engage new customers, scale proven creatives, and test new angles without the noise of BFCM.
We’ve talked about the power of Q5 before (in our blog on maximizing ad conversions in 2025) and it’s worth repeating: Q5 isn’t downtime. It’s your most cost-efficient testing and growth period of the year.
The best brands use Q5 to turn short-term wins into long-term momentum. They double down on retention, launch creative tests that inform Q1, and keep feeding their algorithm steady data while everyone else goes quiet. Lower CPMs and higher engagement make this window the perfect moment to experiment, learn, and scale efficiently before costs rise again in February.
What to do next
Remember that BFCM is more than a marketing event: it’s a test of how well your brand can adapt under pressure. The brands that win don’t rely on luck or discounts; they rely on structure.
Be aware: of how your audience behaves before the sale; they’re researching, comparing, and planning. Build awareness early so your brand earns its place on their list.
Avoid: the noise. Don’t fall for the urge to rebuild campaigns mid-flight or chase quick wins. During BFCM, discipline beats panic every time.
Do: use what you’ve learned to fuel what’s next. Q5 is your opportunity to double down, retest, and scale efficiently while others go quiet.
This entire season – from Pre-BFCM to Q5 – is one continuous performance loop. The work you do early defines how you perform during, and the learnings you collect after shape how you grow next year.
Hopefully, after reading this blog, you’re now aware of what to watch out for — and ready to double-check every detail before the big weekend starts!
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