Black Friday isn’t an official U.S. holiday, but it’s still one of the most anticipated events in the country; after all, it’s hard not to get excited when brands are running their most exciting e-commerce marketing bargains.

Shopify store owners as a whole earned $6.3 billion between Black Friday and Cyber Monday of 2021 alone — a whopping 23% increase from the year prior.

This much-awaited promotion season is just around the corner again. If you haven’t prepared your Black Friday 2022 marketing plan, now’s the time.

Black Friday Marketing Ideas to move Sales

1. Niche down with a Gift Guide 🎄

One of the most powerful online platforms you can use is your website – after all, you can link all of your e-commerce campaigns to it. Make it pop with a curated gift guide by niche for your shoppers. These guides can take the form of blog posts or better special Black Friday landing pages for moms, dads, and your top-performing buyer segments.

Ideas to get started on this Black Friday 2022 strategy:

Test different buyer personas: Segment your products into personalized categories that will resonate with your existing and new clients. For example, your website has a male-heavy shopper base but don’t forget a gift guide for their better halves so they can hit the easy button to make quick work getting that perfect gift.
Poll your team for Ideas: Apart from sales data, send a quick Google Survey about products you can add to your gift guide. They can offer valuable insights into their angle on potential top-selling products.
Highlight bestsellers: If you have a cash cow that appeals to different markets, put those on top of people’s holiday gift lists.
Bundles: Can we increase our AOV with items that complement each other? Test, test, test product combinations against search intent to unlock winning combinations that make your shoppers’ life easier and you gain wallet share.

2. Google Ads Tactics to Test 🧪

Google rolled out lots of new machine learning-driven features. Have you tested Performance Max campaigns and promotion extensions? We’ll cover both below.

Performance Max Campaigns

Performance Max campaigns, also known as PMax campaigns, are new ad types that combine automation and machine learning to deliver smarter sales. They gaon data across various platforms on Google’s network, including YouTube, Gmail, Shopping, display, search, and maps.

Here’s how they work: you choose a marketing objective and desired conversion goals for the campaign. PMax’s automated bidding and targeting technology will invest your budget based on your targets. Advertisers experienced an average 13% increase in conversions with PMax.

Promotion Extensions

Many brands save great deals for Black Friday and add a Google promotion extension to your campaigns to highlight them.

This feature lets you include a monetary or percentage discount, giving your ads more impact. You can write ad copy like “Black Friday Sale: 25% Off All Items! Valid Nov 20 – 27.”

3. Offer Early Promos for your Best Customers 🎉

The Pareto principle — also called the 80/20 rule — can be applied to digital marketing by saying that 80% of a company’s profits come from 20% of its best clients. Grab more than your wallet share early before the credit card bills arrive.

One of the most convenient and cost-effective ways to show appreciation to your best customers is to offer them exclusive e-commerce promos for the weeks leading up to Black Friday. Create an email drip to encourage them to support your sale event over two weeks. You can do this by offering exclusive early access to sales or if sales are not your thing exclusive products that are only available to them as loyal customers.

4. Remarket with Facebook and Instagram Ads 🚨

Facebook is an expensive place to advertise. Cut the top of the funnel ads and focus on retargeting for Black Friday week. Work on tapping people who are already familiar with your brand but have NOT purchased in the past 90 days. Using the Facebook API connected to GA4 you can make up for some of the impacts of the IOS privacy changes while spending your ad dollars on getting browsers to be buyers. With consumer wallets feeling the impact of inflation and energy prices rising…the path to purchase is longer in 2022. Don’t be that brand that expects buyers to convert on JUST 😳 those early ads.

According to recent remarketing statistics, 58% of shoppers notice ads for familiar products, and these tactics generate 40% of revenue for advertisers.

Exceed Black Friday Sales Targets

Here’s our favorite Black Friday marketing 2022 tip: use a multi-channel approach for your sales weeks. Build momentum with unique promotions, custom content, niched segments, emotions that resonate, and ads that keep you top of mind so you exceed your sales targets this year.

Out of ideas for 2022! Let’s chat so we can boost your sales to have your best Black Friday campaign yet.