Maximise your sales on Black Friday: data-driven and AI-based media strategies to dominate the peak season

There’s no doubt that Black Friday is one of the most important events for e-commerce in Spain, making it one of the most competitive times for brands. Every year, companies and advertisers face debates on how to adjust their strategies. But the data is clear:

Given these striking figures, the question is: how can we make the most of this opportunity?

Plan, plan and plan.

The Black Friday strategy shouldn’t just focus on that single day; instead, we must consider the entire concept of the peak season in online sales, which encompasses the last quarter of the year. Therefore, it is essential to design a media plan covering each phase of the season:

Pre-Black Friday.

Interest in Black Friday doesn’t just increase every year; it also begins earlier each time. According to Google, searches related to the event begin to surge weeks in advance, peaking in the days just before. Meanwhile, Meta reports that holiday shopping planning on its platforms kicks off strongly in October and intensifies in early November.

This pattern shows that, although purchases concentrate around Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the days before, the “warming-up” period starts in October. This presents a strategic opportunity to captivate your audience, fostering purchase consideration and gathering user data without the need for extensive resources dedicated to direct conversion, as many consumers are in the exploration phase.

At this stage, it’s optimal to focus efforts on mid-funnel objectives, such as generating website traffic and capturing subscribers, enabling you to leverage this data in later stages of the season. Messaging should centre on product discovery and exploration.

Black Friday Week.

The Black Friday phenomenon is no longer limited to just 24 hours; the entire week beforehand and Cyber Monday are now days of high activity. At this point, the user is ready to purchase, and our prior activations will have generated the necessary discovery and purchase intent for our products.

In this phase, segmentation will focus on highly qualified users by leveraging pre-warmed audiences, which helps reduce conversion costs and maximise campaign effectiveness.

Message personalisation will be key, and thanks to previously gathered data, we can explore advanced options focused on key incentives to close the transaction.

Post-Black Friday.

Although Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the focal points, the period following Black Friday remains essential. According to Meta data, the first days of December show a second peak in sales planning, driven by the approach of the holiday season—an excellent opportunity to capture users looking to complete their purchases.

Source: Meta platform data, Q4.

As major discounts end and certain products go out of stock, this phase should capitalise on messages of urgency and scarcity. Last-minute promotions, limited stock, and flash offers are effective strategies to drive impulsive last-chance purchases.

Segmentation in this stage allows maximising the use of data collected in previous weeks, retargeting users interested in specific products they haven’t yet purchased. Additionally, allocating a small part of the budget to reach new audiences can attract late buyers who were not impacted in earlier phases but have shown purchase intent on the platform.

How to use your data to boost results?

To maximise success on Black Friday, it’s crucial to have a solid data strategy optimising every phase of the customer journey, from discovery to purchase. Here are the main ways to work with data:

• Building and using remarketing audiences. The first step is to build a journey for warming up audiences that enables a traceable path of impressions, increasing the volume of our first-party data. This way, during peak times, we can apply pre-qualified remarketing audiences to our campaigns, optimising the budget during high-advertising competition periods. Additionally, leveraging first-party data allows for message personalisation and refinement at every stage, increasing effectiveness without inflating costs.
• Pre-optimisation of algorithms. Maintaining account health before a campaign is essential to avoid pauses and loss of optimisation. Google recommends gradually scaling budgets and goals without drastic changes and waiting 1-2 conversion cycles before making adjustments. This allows algorithms to retain learning and maximise performance during demand peaks. Additionally, it is vital to ensure key assets, such as the product feed and event tagging, are in optimal condition.
• Campaign measurement and monitoring. Before launching the strategy, it is essential to set up a real-time dashboard to monitor campaign progress, applying periodic reviews of key KPIs at each stage. This dashboard, supported by automation technology, should integrate data from platforms, e-commerce, and CRM to provide a comprehensive view for immediate and effective decision-making.
• Real-time optimisation. Having quantifiable goals and continuously tracking metric evolution once the campaign is live allows for quickly detecting potential cost deviations and, based on this, adjusting strategies and budgets on the go, maintaining a data-driven approach to maximise campaign performance.

The combination of creativity and technology to create winning ads.

To stand out in an increasingly competitive Black Friday, it’s crucial to connect with consumer values and offer a personalised experience. Leveraging data, personalisation, and technologies like artificial intelligence enables the creation of impactful and effective ads, optimising each campaign to capture attention and maximise conversions during this highly competitive season.

1. Key messages: Although discounts are the main draw, factors like sustainability and convenience also influence purchasing decisions. Google reports a 16% increase in interest in sustainable products in 2024, reflecting the shift towards responsible consumption. Additionally, 66% of online shoppers in Spain consider free shipping essential when deciding to buy online (GWI, 2023-2024).
2. Content personalisation: Analysing past data and leveraging segmentation allows for tailoring messages to the user’s specific needs, capturing attention and motivating conversion. This includes sending time-limited offers to price-sensitive users, notifying when a product of interest has low stock, and suggesting complementary products based on previous purchases.
3. Use of Artificial Intelligence: AI solutions already incorporated in advertising platforms offer dynamic ad creation, combining basic assets into multiple variations adapted to different segments, creating hyper-personalised ads with minimal effort. It also facilitates continuous optimisation: it analyses each variation’s performance in real-time and quickly detects the visual elements or messages that work best for each group, thereby boosting campaign effectiveness without constant manual intervention.

In short, if you want to make the most of the peak season, remember to plan your media strategy, extending the focus to the weeks before and after Black Friday, leverage the technology at your disposal by improving audience qualification, personalising messages, and reducing costs, and finally, ensure that every detail is measured to guarantee your campaign’s success.