Black Friday is creeping up on us (for some it’s already begun). Whether you love it or hate it, it is big business for e-commerce brands across the world.
A lot of us already have our plans in place to maximise ROAS during this busy period, but there is always room to test an audience or two that you might not have thought of before.
Whether you are starting your campaigns a week before, a few days in advance or on Black Friday itself (yes, people actually do this), I believe these audiences could give you that extra boost for your Black Friday sales.
1. Customers who purchased previously but not in 2019
Lapsed customers are a goldmine waiting to be reactivated, and a Black Friday sale can be the perfect time to start getting them to purchase once again.
This audience obviously will not be for everyone. For example, if you have a product which is a one-time purchase or a longer second purchase period, this might be one to avoid.
If your business has regular repeat purchasers, this could be one for you.
A few things you could do to warm this audience up in advance of Black Friday are:
- Provide them with ads of best selling products
- Seed in Black Friday teasers e.g Black Friday is coming…
- Run lead generation ads to sign up for early access
This way you are not going in straight away with sale messaging, which could end up having the opposite effect that you planned for.
We’ve seen really positive results with this type of audience in the past, so I’d definitely recommend testing it out and see how you get on.
2. 2018 Black Friday Purchasers
It’s fair to say, people who make a purchase on Black Friday aren’t necessarily the same type of people who might buy from you during non-sale, business as usual periods.
Therefore, an interesting audience to test is retargeting your 2018 Black Friday purchasers. You know they have purchased previously, so what better audience to focus your Black Friday sale on.
These people should be looking for Black Friday deals, so make sure you message is in front of them again this year.
You can also use this customer data to create a lookalike audience of customers who purchased on Black Friday last year. Depending on the % lookalike you go for, Facebook will look to find similar people to those on this list. Again, these people might not be your typical customer, so finding lookalikes of them could be invaluable for the Black Friday period.
3. On your newsletter/mailing list but have never purchased
Now this audience is slightly more challenging. If you run a newsletter or have asked customers to sign up to your email list, the chances are a lot of them might not have purchased from you in the past.
In my opinion, if they have not purchased from you already, it is going to take a really special offer to nudge them over the line.
This is where your Black Friday sale comes in…
By uploading a list of these customers to Facebook, you should look to retarget them with what is most probably, your best offer of the year.
If you see a healthy ROAS from this campaign, you’ve now got some key learnings about what gets people who have never purchased before to make that decision.
For this audience I’d recommend trialling a variety of ad formats – Static Image, Carousel, Instagram Story etc to really understand what type of creative will make them purchase.
4. People who have viewed your sales page throughout the year
If your website has a dedicated “sale” page, you know people viewing these pages are probably more likely to be persuaded to make a purchase with a special offer. Most companies will save their best offer of the year for Black Friday, so this audience is perfect for your Black Friday sale.
People who are viewing these pages might also be researching or looking for Black Friday deals, so there is a lot of potential customers here.
I’d recommend targeting anyone who has visited any sale related page on your website in the last 180 days, to capture as many people as possible who have an intent to buy during a sale.
And there you have it. Those were my 4 audiences which you might not have thought of as part of your Black Friday strategy. I recommend you trial at least one that makes the most sense for your business and hopefully you will see some strong results, which will increase your sales over this busy period.
