Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know all about Black Friday, and you’ll see that it’s become a regular pre-Christmas sale for many e-commerce and physical brands. We’ve all seen the clamouring hoards climbing over each other for bargains in physical stores, and – quite rightly – that puts many people off even trying to grab a deal.
This is why Black Friday has become such an attractive opportunity for online brands. And while many e-commerce companies focus a specific marketing campaign around this big annual event, not everyone achieves a reasonable ROAS.
Many people think we only run lead-generation campaigns. But that’s really not the case: we work with lots of e-commerce brands, and we’re helping them achieve super-impressive results.
This article is all about the Black Friday campaign we ran for one of our e-commerce clients, achieving a ROAS of 11.89. I’m going to explain the approach that maximised returns for the brand’s budget, along with some top tips for running your own seasonal campaigns.
Ready? Let’s go!
What is Black Friday?
Black Friday traditionally follows the day after Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday of November). And, since 2005, it has been the busiest shopping day in the United States, followed by Cyber Monday, which was initially launched to promote online retailers.
Over the years, Black Friday and Cyber Monday have spread worldwide: observed in Canada, the UK, South Africa, Ireland, Australia, Germany, Italy, New Zealand.
The list goes on, making it safe to say that it’s a BIG international sales event.
Why is Black Friday relevant to online brands?
In short, Black Friday is one of the most significant dates in the marketing diary. Many brands make more money on this day and the days around it than throughout the entire month of November.
The potential for increased profits, therefore, is colossal. So, if you’ve resisted the pull of the event so far, it’s probably time to change that.
I’m going to share how we approach Black Friday here at Yatter, focusing on how we helped a popular sports apparel brand enjoy a whopping 11.89X ROAS.
If returns like that sound attractive, keep reading, and we’ll fill you in with the details.
And the best thing about what I’m about to share is that the framework isn’t exclusive to Black Friday; it will work for all special calendar events or special offers all year round.
About the client
The client is a sportswear apparel brand, focussing specifically on the football market (that’s “soccer” for my American pals!).
They already had a large audience and wanted support to maximise the returns on their upcoming BF event.
They approached Yatter several months before Black Friday, which was a very wise starting point – you’ll find out why in a moment. They wanted to build awareness of their Black Friday event and squeeze in as many sales as possible in the short window of opportunity.
This was the first time they had run a Black Friday campaign, so this was a bit of a test. They wanted to see how their audience reacted. (Spoiler alert: they were delighted!).
Our Black Friday framework
We already have a proven framework for seasonal campaigns like Black Friday. We’ve been honing this framework for over seven years, so it’s tried, tested, and proven successful – and I’m excited to be sharing it with you.
One of the big mistakes many brands make with their BF campaigns is focusing solely on the few days around the event. But our approach is to extend the campaign much further – giving us more time to make an impact with our carefully selected marketing content.
This is the basic shape of our BF framework:
2-3 weeks beforehand: We run list-building campaigns to generate leads. We aim to gather high-value data from those leads, such as phone numbers, which we can use to run SMS campaigns.
3-5 days before: We run a campaign specifically targeting those who signed up for our lead-gen campaign. This helps create a buzz.
On the day: We launch our main campaign, focussing on special offers and exclusives.
After the event: We continue to run the campaigns until they are no longer applicable or stop generating a profit.
Essentially: DON’T turn off your campaign if it’s making you money. Let it run its natural course, even if it means that the campaign contains expired dates.
How does this relate to our sports apparel campaign?
Pre-Black Friday
Following Yatter’s proven framework, we launched a lead-gen campaign to cold audiences 2-3 weeks before Black Friday.
We invited this cold audience to share their name, email, and SMS number. And in return, we offered those leads the opportunity to be the first to find out about our client’s Black Friday special offers. And we generated over 550 new leads for their e-commerce site at just 63p per lead!
We ran this initial campaign until the Wednesday before Black Friday. At this point we launched a 48-hour campaign targeting those leads who had provided their information.
We spent just £60 retargeting these pre-BF leads (556 people). And 28 of them made a purchase, spending a total of £1,522,76 – a reasonably healthy ROAS considering the full Black Friday event hadn’t yet launched.
The Black Friday Ad Campaign
We launched our main campaigns on Black Friday and ran them until the week after Cyber Monday. This gave us plenty of time to retarget the leads we had already generated and retarget other warm and cold audiences.
In summary:
- Our spending on this campaign was £4,295.73
- Reached 256,602 people
- Generated a very beautiful £51,065.50 for our client
- ROAS of 11.89 (from 1,204 sales)
This was a super-positive result for our client, considering this was their first Black Friday Facebook ad campaign. It gave them confidence in our framework, which we’ve continued to apply for their ongoing seasonal campaigns.
And we plan to spend a lot more in 2022 – maybe even adding another “0” onto the end of the revenue!
Why this framework works
It might not sound like rocket science, but we’ve been developing this specific framework for over seven years. So we have total confidence that it works time and time again.
The takeaway:
- We built awareness BEFORE Black Friday. Of course, all the platforms hike up their advertising rates during seasonally busy marketing periods, so we get more reach for less by running the campaign early.
- We generated leads using a lead gen campaign. Gathering SMS details meant that we could reach people with confirmation and certainty when our client launched the offer.
- We made a great offer on the day, encouraging people to buy there and then!
So, there you have it – our very own Black Friday campaign framework, set up and ready for you to use and improve your e-commerce service.
Unless, of course, you’d rather work with Yatter to set this up for you. In which case, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Thanks for reading. 
