Black Friday in a New Era of Online Shopping – What to Expect?

Anida Rajapakse02.11.2021Marketing

In the past 18 months, our reality has changed a lot. We live on safe distances, covered by face masks and guess what: we are all online! This trend has brought many challenges (but also more work!) for advertisers. Suddenly every business out there wants a piece of the digital advertising cake. Not bad, if you ask me. Challenging, but not bad.

Now we are a few weeks before the biggest ecommerce holiday, Black Friday. However, has it got lost in the pandemic and worldwide online buying fever? Have the times when all we could do was buying stuff online reduced this shopping holiday to yet another day to buy online? Can we still keep our sales high during autumn? We too asked ourselves these questions. Let’s dive in my short overview of the past 18 months and take a look at how we aim to tackle the autumn 2021 campaigns.

Data never lies

Throughout the years, Black Friday, the greatest sales holiday of all, has evolved from a 1-day shopping fever into an entire BF weekend, later accompanied by Cyber Monday. In the old days, these events represented the times of advertisers’ lives, when online sales ROAS used to go up by several hundred %. However, the last 18 months have also brought about another miracle for ecommerce.

According to various online sources, during the worldwide lockdown, ecommerce grew by 40%! That’s almost like having Black Friday each day. GoGlobal reports that costs of advertising rose by 20% and there are now around 3.8 B users of social media. Overall, the internet population has risen by 1 billion since 2020. Imagine, 1 billion people joined the internet in 1 year! In short, everyone was out there, shopping, bidding, competing, offering, selling, and advertising.

This trend has also influenced many Slovenian companies as they were forced to cater to online buyers and go digital. Slovenian shoppers who had doubted online purchases before, simply had to adjust to the “new normal”. And in these circumstances we greeted the Black Friday of 2020. Therefore, the main question on our minds was: how do you even compete with the evolving trends? You may have wondered (and you would not be wrong) that considering all that madness surrounding online shopping, who would even care about Black Friday when one could enjoy it every day?

Well, I definitely would if I were you, because some things, even in advertising, never get old. Even data from 2020 Google Shopping Europe say that Black Friday was not a bust for Google Shopping or online sales generally, but rather that it was part of a broader, earlier holiday volume trend. Key industries in Europe still continued the old trend and spent more on advertising during Black Friday. The US saw a 21.6% increase in spending in comparison to 2019. So, things are still happening and you want to be there. And how did we guide our clients through this period? Check out the sections below.

#BF2020 skyrocketing

We keep on believing that the last quarter of the year is a period when the purchasing behaviour is more predictable, when people start thinking of Xmas presents and when the entire world keeps an eye out for those magic % numbers. Why not simply give the buyers what they are looking for? Google reports that at 2.05 billion, the global number of digital buyers has reached an all time high.

What is more, 2020 broke all the records when it comes to online sales. Criteo even reports that in October 2020, they were already very high (up 25% year over year), which set the stage for an impressive Cyber Month in November 2020. Global Black Friday 2020 sales more than doubled (+168%) compared to October of the same year. The 2019 Black Friday spike was more pronounced, at +213%.

Source: Criteo Data

rsz_11criteo-chart-us-sales-q4-2019-and-2020

When it comes to consumer behaviour, according to Google research, consumers were craving more connection, more entertainment, more novelty, and more normality. These unmet demands contributed to the surge in online shopping. In the lead up to the holiday season, this was manifested in a rise in searches for ‘Black Friday’ and ‘advent calendar’.

Source: Google Trends

What about Black Friday in Slovenia?

Looking at the past year data for Slovenia, the popularity of the search term “black friday” is evident, with the peak between 22 and 28 November. So yes, if you have had any doubts, let me tell you something: Slovenians do like Black Friday!

Source: Google Trends

In 2020, our clients played along and adjusted their BF strategies to respond to different shopping behaviours and the new normal. For example, one of them offered discounts throughout the entire month of November and reached an extraordinary jump in results in comparison to the year before.

Source: Google Analytics

Graphics from black friday on google analytics

The other client experienced its 1st year of being online and was already rewarded with skyrocketing sales, especially throughout the BF weekly, when everything was 40% off.

Source: Google Analytics

We speak from experience when we say that Black Friday was still a way to boost online sales in 2020, even when online buying lasted all year long. This means that the BF fever was still as key as ever for brands and retailers. What did I tell you: some things never get old! ☺
Carrying all these insights from the challenging year behind and looking forward into the future, we decided to take a few steps in shaping up our Retail Peak strategies as an advertising agency. Check our plan for the 2021 season in the next section.

Black Friday 2021

In the infographics below, I summarized our approach for this year’s Black Friday. It is just behind the corner and some things are already ongoing, but if you are new here, you may use some of our practices as an inspiration. Let’s get to it!

Start thinking about it early

Even before summer sales start decreasing, we have already started daydreaming (yes, we do that sometimes!) about our autumn peak strategy. The data reports that the search for Black Friday discounts start already in September. Optiweb advertisers, analytics and client managers therefore put their heads together early to shake up the magic for the best time of the year and brainstorm on approaches and strategies.

Same, same but different

Our clients choose different ways to join the BF fever, be it free shipping, discounts, 100% off or other means of giving something extra to their customers. It’s that time of the year, is it not? Putting together our research, analytical data and the clients’ overall strategy, we combine numbers with the experience to communicate their messages in unique and creative ways.

Rolling up our sleeves

Based on what we have agreed on with the client, we get to work. This means creating landing pages, banners, marketing copies and other materials for the chosen media of communication. Starting from the landing page is something many forget. Creating specific landing pages for Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns helps online shoppers to easily access the specific information on deals they’re looking for. With good SEO optimization, these pages can also easily pull through Google Search. The site needs to be fast, with the relevant content, UX-optimized and accessible.

After Black Friday is over, we need to clean the mess and change the communication on the landing pages. There should be clear CTAs that redirect the visitor to the URLs relevant throughout the entire year. And when the season peak comes back again, we can use the same landing pages for promotion teasers. Pretty amazing, right?

For some clients we push sales on Search and Display platforms, for others via social media. This depends on clients’ strategy and the nature of their products. The miracles can be achieved on one, the other or our favorite – a little bit of everything! The one thing to rule them all is personalization according to the products and target audience.

Ready, Steady, Go!

The advertisers gather around the table year after year to try to crack the age-old question: when to start Black Friday advertising? I have to disappoint you here, there is no one answer to fit them all. Sometimes the earlier is the better and sometimes the magic happens in the last week before BF. We prefer taking it slow, keeping in mind that Black Friday may last one day, but can have long-term effects and benefits. Therefore, we also try to achieve the following:

Capture new customers with top-of-the-funnel marketing activities;
Reach for low-hanging fruits during the peak;
Retarget those who have almost slipped away.

Guilty as charged – we are those purchasing funnel geeks. :)

Let's get started picture from the office.

Do your magic

Black Friday is just around the corner, we know. Nevertheless, you can still jump on the moving train until it reaches its peak speed. For many retailers, autumn is the driving force behind their sales and for many advertisers, this is also the time to shine. This is one time of the year when we know almost for sure what customers want: they want discounts. And based on what we know (and let’s not get humble here, we do know something about advertising), Black Friday is as live as ever and it is certainly a time to adjust advertising strategies.

How to be noticed in an ocean of discounts is yet another story. According to Google data, the online purchasing journey has become even more complicated and ‘messy’ during COVID-19, so it is important to stand out. We try to discover our potential by brainstorming out-of-the-box ideas, precise planning and holistic approach. If you wonder where to start, our team can advise you on how to find your way to the hearts of your customers (and win new ones on the way).

Disclaimer: we don’t do that only during black Friday month☺

Anida Rajapakse

Digital Advertising Team Lead

Digital Marketing Specialist at Optiweb. My mission is to focus on data and results and based on that bring clients’ campaigns to the next level.