Black Friday keeps getting louder, faster, and more competitive. Brands that win aren’t the ones shouting the hardest,  they’re the ones pairing sharp offers with frictionless experiences and data-backed execution. When the biggest shopping week of the year arrives, Pacific54 makes sure every click counts and every channel pulls its weight.

Black Friday Marketing is a high-stakes sprint. In the US, consumers spent $10.8 billion online on Black Friday 2024, a 10.2% jump from the previous year’s $9.8 billion in online sales. Competition is rising, margins are tight, and attention is scarce.

To win in 2025, focus on clarity, speed, and conversion readiness. Align offers with intent, tighten the ad-to-landing page journey, and remove checkout friction. The following marketing tips for 2025 will help you capture more carts, protect AOV, and turn first-time buyers into repeat customers.

Ready to turn strategy into revenue? Schedule a quick strategy session with Pacific54 and get a Black Friday plan tailored to your store.

Harnessing the Power of Email Marketing for Black Friday

Leverage Proven Success: Take inspiration from successful Black Friday email marketing strategies. Despite being one of the oldest digital marketing forms, email marketing boasts an impressive $36 return on investment (ROI) for every $1 spent.

Target Your Audience: Recognize the potential of email marketing with over 4 billion daily email users. Craft targeted emails, including discount codes for both new and loyal customers, to generate excitement leading up to Black Friday.

Create Urgency: Craft compelling 40-character email subject lines to create a sense of urgency and drive shoppers to your site. Personalize emails to boost conversion rates, and consider retargeting individuals who have previously abandoned their shopping carts.

Highlight Value: Make your value proposition clear while maintaining your brand identity. Offer tailored exclusive deals to segmented audiences, prioritizing big spenders in your email list.

Mind Email Frequency: Strike a balance between maintaining email frequency and avoiding inbox spam. Consider Target’s strategy of approximately three emails per week to ensure visibility without triggering spam filters.

Abandoned Cart Emails: Set up special Black Friday cart emails with countdown timers and item suggestions for abandoned orders. For high-value carts, generate unique discount codes to incentivize completion.

Dominating Social Media Marketing for Black Friday

Paid Facebook Ads: In 2025, social media marketing is essential for Black Friday success. With an average conversion rate over 9%, platforms like Instagram and Facebook are where the shopping journey often begins. Utilize Custom Audiences and lookalike audiences based on engaged users, website visitors, followers, and email subscribers.

Sell Directly Through Social Media Ads: Create a Commerce Manager account on Facebook and Instagram to set up a shop and offer special deals directly on social media platforms during the holiday season. Use dynamic ads and focus on video ads and carousel ads for maximum ROI.

The Value of Organic Social Media: Despite algorithm changes, organic social media still holds sway, influencing 40% of active users in their purchase decisions (via SmartInsights). Prepare organic posts highlighting attractive products and employ relevant hashtags, including #blackfriday and #blackfridaysale.

Engage with Contests: Boost engagement with Black Friday contests on social media. These contests boast a 3.4% conversion rate and offer exposure while enticing users with prizes or discounts.

Announce Exclusive Offers: Use social media to tease exclusive product drops and Black Friday deals in advance. Create excitement among loyal followers and consider early bird sales leading up to the big day.

Harness Influencer Marketing: Collaborate with social media influencers to reach a broader audience. Track influencer campaign success with special coupon codes at checkout.
Famous Photographer and Influencer Peter Mckinnon promotes the release of a new ND filter by Polar Pro to a massive audience!

Optimizing Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Campaigns for Black Friday

PPC is essential for peak-season growth. Use it to capture high-intent demand, accelerate customer engagement, and feed downstream channels like SMS marketing and email.

Dedicated Black Friday PPC campaigns

Build a focused Black Friday landing page and pair it with fast, conversion-ready product pages. Point Google Ads and Performance Max to these URLs. Prioritize exact and phrase match terms around Black Friday deals, “Black Friday sales,” and category plus “Black Friday.” Keep copy tight, load fast, and surface clear CTAs.

Competitor targeting

Capture shoppers who are comparing options. Bid on brand-plus-Black-Friday queries for category rivals where policy allows. Use comparison ad copy, price overlays, and promo extensions to win consideration and lift online sales.

Audience and creative

Layer Remarketing, Customer Lists, and Similar segments to scale efficiently. Mirror offer hierarchy across search and shopping with promo codes, countdowns, and inventory cues. Sync with SMS marketing for last-chance reminders that recover carts and improve customer experience.

Bidding and timing

Raise budgets during peak windows and tighten ROAS targets once volume surges. Schedule heavier delivery around doorbusters and evening hours when mobile traffic spikes. Always protect branded terms to defend SERP real estate.

Measurement and loyalty impact


Track assisted conversions and repeat purchase rates to prove impact on customer lifetime value. Route new purchasers into lifecycle flows that build customer loyalty. Use post-purchase PPC audiences to upsell accessories and gift bundles through the rest of the holiday shopping season.

General Black Friday Marketing Tips

Keep more revenue in-house by strengthening owned channels and experience. Use marketing automation to personalize offers, protect ad spend, and turn peak traffic into long-term value through smart retention campaigns.

  • VIP Discounts: Give loyalty members early access and higher-tier promos. Segment by purchase history to reward top customers and lift order value without eroding margins.
  • Free Shipping: Set simple, visible thresholds. Pair with limited-time countdowns to nudge completion and reduce cart abandonment.
  • Hourly Deals: Rotate doorbusters by category to keep shoppers returning. Announce the schedule on-site and reinforce with social media strategy plus triggered emails and SMS.
  • Bundles That Make Sense: Package complementary products and prebuild gift sets. Lead with best sellers and one-click add-to-cart links for speed.
  • Gift Cards That Scale: Promote digital gift cards as last-minute solutions. Feature them in post-cutoff messaging to convert late traffic and extend retention campaigns into January.
  • Referrals With Real Upside: Offer stackable rewards or store credit for successful referrals. Trigger instant share prompts on order confirmation and in loyalty dashboards.

Execution Tips

  • Automate journeys. Use marketing automation to trigger VIP previews, price-drop alerts, and low-inventory notices across email and SMS.
  • Protect margins. Cap sitewide discounts and shift deeper offers to targeted segments to control effective ad spend.
  • Reduce friction. Surface payment options, returns, and delivery dates above the fold to prevent cart abandonment.
  • Measure what compounds. Track repeat rate, subscription starts, and LTV to validate how Black Friday activity improves retention campaigns beyond the weekend.

Leveraging User-Generated Content for Black Friday

User-generated content (UGC) turns customers into a high-trust acquisition and conversion engine. Fold it into your social media advertising, onsite experiences, and lifecycle touchpoints to amplify credibility, reduce decision friction, and drive more qualified traffic during peak demand.

  • Customer reviews and testimonials
    Prompt verified buyers for quick star ratings and short quotes. Feature the best on product pages, carts, and ads. Tie requests to referral rewards so happy customers share with friends. Route negative feedback to customer service for fast recovery before it hits the feed.
  • User-generated images and videos
    Launch a branded Black Friday hashtag and invite customers to post real-life use shots and short try-ons. Repost with permission across social media advertising, PDP galleries, and Stories. Offer small thank-you perks or referral rewards to fuel volume.
  • Contests and challenges
    Run time-boxed UGC contests that ask shoppers to show how they style, gift, or unbox your products. Collect entries via comments and email capture to grow VIP and early-bird lists. Announce winners publicly to extend reach and inspire new submissions.
  • UGC in email and SMS
    Drop review snippets, customer photos, and short quotes into pre-sale emails and text message blasts. Lead with social proof above the fold, then link straight to the most relevant product pages. Use countdowns and low-inventory cues to convert warm intent.
  • Live UGC feeds on site
    Embed real-time social walls or curated carousels on home, collection, and PDPs. Pin seasonal hashtags like #BlackFriday and surface shoppable tiles so shoppers can move from inspiration to checkout in one click.
  • VIP seeding and exclusives
    Give VIP early-bird lists first access to limited drops in exchange for UGC. Provide simple creative prompts and a unique code so attribution is clean and participation feels rewarding.
  • Measure and moderate
    Track lift in CTR, CVR, and AOV when UGC is present. Set up light moderation to keep assets on-brand. Route support questions from UGC comments to customer service so engagement becomes opportunity, not noise.

Used well, UGC compounds results across channels. It strengthens Black Friday marketing credibility in ads, improves discovery in feeds, and removes doubt on product pages. Pair it with tight offers, smooth service, and consistent creative to turn social proof into revenue.

Mobile Optimization for Black Friday Success

During peak season, mobile is where discovery and purchases happen. Treat mobile UX as a core pillar of your marketing strategy so shoppers can move from scroll to checkout without friction. Every improvement should shorten time to value and strengthen the shopping experience, customer support, and loyalty program outcomes.

  • Responsive by default
    Use a fully responsive layout that adapts to common breakpoints. Test real devices, not just emulators, to validate tap targets, nav, and image crops.
  • Speed that converts
    Compress images, lazy-load below-the-fold assets, and minify CSS and JS. Serve from a CDN and aim for sub-2s LCP on key product and category pages.
  • Checkout built for thumbs
    Enable one-click purchasing, autofill, and guest checkout. Offer Apple Pay and Google Pay. Reduce fields to the essentials and surface trust badges above the fold.
  • CTAs that guide action
    Keep “Add to Cart” and “Buy Now” large, sticky, and visible. Use concise microcopy for shipping, returns, and delivery dates to prevent hesitation and cart abandonment.
  • Mobile search that feels smart
    Add predictive search, popular queries, filters, and sort options. Send users to lean result templates that highlight price, ratings, and availability.
  • Notifications that drive sales
    Use SMS marketing and push notifications for price drops, low stock, and flash windows. Time sends to peak engagement and link straight to relevant product pages.
  • Service at speed
    Embed lightweight chat for instant customer support. Add quick answers for size, fit, delivery timelines, and returns to reduce drop-offs.
  • Live shopping readiness
    Prepare landing pages and shoppable video modules for live shopping events. Preload carts with featured items and enable single-tap checkout from the stream.
  • Personalization that pays
    Show recently viewed items, size preferences, and loyalty status. Tailor promos for members to encourage enrollment and repeat purchases through your loyalty program.
  • Test and tune continually
    Run pre-Black Friday device sweeps for broken links, form issues, and slow templates. Monitor real-time analytics during peak to fix bottlenecks fast.

Dialing in mobile now compounds results across channels and makes every campaign work harder during Black Friday.

Analyzing and Iterating Your Black Friday Strategy

Black Friday doesn’t end when the orders ship. Treat the weekend as a controlled test that reveals what moved revenue, what protected margin, and what slowed buyers. Start by reviewing performance at the channel, creative, and offer levels so your team can identify the plays worth scaling.

Quantitative performance review
 Evaluate ROAS, AOV, first-order profit, and cart-flow recovery across email, SMS, paid social, PPC, and onsite promotions. Identify which audiences converted fastest, which creatives delivered the cleanest revenue, and which touchpoints created friction.

Customer insights that reveal gaps
 Scan post-purchase surveys, onsite feedback modules, and service chats for patterns around shipping clarity, product questions, and checkout issues. These insights quickly pinpoint blockers that analytics alone don’t surface.

Competitive and market signals
 Document competitor offer depth, timing, messaging angles, and ad formats. Note where they outpaced you on urgency, bundles, or positioning so you can adjust your playbook ahead of next season.

Turn insights into concrete action
 Shift budget toward the tactics that compounded results and retire any that created noise. Improve mobile speed, simplify forms, and refine creative assets while the learnings are still fresh. Codify your winning offer ladder, UGC hooks, and automated lifecycle flows so your next campaign launches with precision.

Build momentum beyond the holiday
 Maintain post-Black-Friday velocity with cross-sell email flows, VIP upgrades, win-backs, and loyalty nudges. Expand high-performing audiences using your strongest Q4 purchasers. Incorporate affiliates and creators to drive evergreen traffic, especially across social commerce channels where discovery is strongest.

Plan proactively for next year
 Finalize timelines early, including creative production, offer rollout, testing cadences, and inventory planning. Maintain a documented record of wins, misses, and optimizations so your next Black Friday strategy becomes a repeatable revenue engine instead of a one-off rush.

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Young woman carrying multiple shopping bags while walking up a staircase during black friday 2025

Black Friday Marketing Tips That Work

Winning Black Friday is not a one-day play. It is a repeatable system that blends smart planning, disciplined execution, and honest post-mortems. Each season gets sharper when you pair clear offer architecture with conversion-ready pages, fast mobile UX, and tight lifecycle flows across email and SMS. Layer in paid and organic social that mirrors your message, enrich product pages with real customer proof, and protect margins with segmentation that rewards loyalty without training shoppers to wait for discounts. Track the metrics that matter, prioritize customer experience at every click, and let insights guide your next cycle so AOV, repeat rate, and lifetime value climb year over year.

If you want a partner that can turn strategy into moves that ship on time and perform under pressure, Pacific54 is ready. We plan, build, launch, and optimize campaigns that connect creative with data and turn peak traffic into lasting revenue.

Ready to make this your most profitable season yet? Request a Black Friday Strategy Session with Pacific54 to get a tailored action plan, timeline, and projected impact. Let’s align your offers, pages, ads, and lifecycle marketing so your next campaign performs from first impression to repeat purchase.

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