6 Strategies to Optimize Black Friday
+ Cyber Monday with FERMÀT

Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) is the biggest revenue weekend of the year for retailers, with $35.3B in Cyber Week sales reported in 2022. BFCM 2023 is expected to set even bigger records – but to ensure you take home as much of this pie as possible, you need to start preparing now.

Typically, it takes months to get your brand BFCM-ready, between optimizing your website, hammering out your discounts, and preparing campaigns to help you stand out amongst all the holiday noise. (That's why some of the biggest brands started preparing for this year's BFCM in December 2022.)

Feeling a little behind in your BFCM prep? No worries – FERMÀT's optimized storefronts and clever AI can streamline your BFCM preparations and get you ready in a fraction of the time. Here's how.

1. Create Articles Pitching Specific SKUs as Holiday Gifts

Use FERMÀT’s AI to generate articles that explain why certain products are great gifts for the holiday season. With every brand on the internet vying for customer attention, these pieces keep your products top of mind and help them stick out from the crowd. Creating them is this simple:

  • Pick X amount of SKUs
  • Tell FERMÀT’s AI engine to describe why they’re ideal holiday gifts
  • Let the article generate
  • Share the article via email copy and promote it on socials

This article will render those SKUs far more marketable for the season. Then, you can prep influencer content, marketing assets, and discounts for the products you highlight in the article. Not sure which SKUs to feature? Pick the ones you’re overstocked on so that you can:

  • Improve your margins – gain revenue on product that may not have sold
  • Plan inventory better – make the process work to your advantage!

2. Theme Your Black Friday or Cyber Monday Landing Pages

If you don’t want to make serious investments theming your website for the holidays only to have to reset it once the season passes, we’ve got better solutions:

  • Spin up FERMÀT landing experiences to precisely theme for the holidays and inventory those stores with holiday-forward products. For example, clothing retailers can highlight New Year’s Eve-themed pieces (think: sequins, jewel tones, formal) and spin up landing pages that reflect that mood.
  • Additionally, load custom images into PDP carousels on landing pages so products feel holiday-appropriate without changing your overall theme. For example, L.L. Bean seasonally adds photos of their year-round flannels and sweaters being used in snowy conditions with holiday lights in the background.

These options are far lower lifts, cost less, and have fewer ramifications following these major shopping events. As a bonus, subtle holiday imagery thematically vibes through the entire month of December, so there’s truly no rush to take down any BFCM-specific changes.

You can expect the same impressive degree of data hygiene and eye-opening testing from FERMÀT — with none of the standard lift.

3. Conduct Split Tests Before the Holiday Season Starts

When it comes to running offer testing, the earlier the better. By the time Black Friday and Cyber Monday arrive, you’ve gathered as much data as possible and scaled the best strategy for your brand.

To do so, run clean A, B, and C split tests with FERMÀT to differentiate between:

  • Gift with purchase
  • Discounting
  • Bundling

This is a critical step because preconceived strategy notions don’t always prove out – you may think that heavy discounts perform best until your data shows that bundles are far more effective. Don’t miss out on conversions – make the data-driven decision.

4. Make Sure Your Holiday Discount
Codes Don’t Leak

Maintain paid efficiency at a large scale by ensuring that your discount codes, which are often for a more significant amount during the Black Friday season, don’t get on Honey, Retail Me Not, or any other discounting tools. To do this:

  • Send out personalized codes to your users
  • Limit the amount of times a non-personalized code can be used

5. Dynamically Manage Inventory With Merchandising

If you’re wondering how to strategically push different products or dynamically run out of stock (i.e., push products where necessary to ensure all of your inventory sells), FERMÀT has the answer.

We update your merchandising very quickly for specific ad sets, for example, we can automatically hide items out of stock, or help simplify offer building / bundling for the products you want to sell through. That way, you don’t need to worry about products running out or ending up with excess inventory.

Additionally, send emails and SMSs to speed up purchase cycles for any product.

6. Target Intent-Based Shoppers With
Comparison Articles

To drive purchases with people who know what type of good they want to buy, write comparison articles. These demonstrate:

  • The benefits of your product relative to others
  • Can drive urgency by giving a specific offer and answering the main questions a buyer would have

These articles add to the content push that sells the inventory you banked on – and you can build them with FERMÀT in minutes. These assets are ideal for more niche, expensive purchases that people research beforehand, like camping gear or noise-canceling headphones. Plant the articles anywhere shoppers would encounter the designated product category when they navigate your website. Finally, make sure to highlight this information in email flows weeks before the shopping weekend so people can marinate on the product options.