What our data says about who buys, what they spend afterwards, and the sale you can afford.
We matched one brand’s sale buyers against its email list.
1/3 of the people we considered “new” actually existed on their email list already
The average amount of time people spent on the list was 191 days
>50% of the remainder, showed up as “engaged” on Meta
This is a useful starting point for thinking about your Black Friday – because it’s only 67 days until the weekend begins.
And that means to a certain extent, some of your Black Friday performance will already have been determined. (Though thankfully just a small percentage at this stage).
When people talk about Black Friday planning, it’s usually focused on creative. That’s important of course, but so to is everything else around that. The media buying in advance, the offer testing, and perhaps most importantly really understanding your unit economics so you can be media buying based on live profit throughout the weekend.
We’ve put together a Black Friday advanced kit for Early Stage Growth subscribers. It covers the numbers to check before committing to a sale, with interactive examples you can work through against your own business.
Sign up to Early Stage Growth to view the report.
Do not wait until November to ramp up your budgets
In our Black Friday analysis, existing customers accounted for 63% of sales revenue for the typical brand.
Even if they’re not becoming customers yet, they sign up to newsletters, they enter into Meta’s ads targeting. Then they convert during the weekend.
Growing your customer base now gives you more people who might return in November. Building the list gives interested people time to become buyers. Leaving all that work until the sale puts a lot of pressure on one weekend.
It also changes the budget. Be clear in advance about how much you want to spend on prospecting versus repeat customers. Some of both those customers, you’ll have already paid for.
Give each its own acquisition cost target, so a strong repeat weekend doesn’t hide expensive new customers.
And then you’re best off viewing H2 or Q4 as a whole and considering that total marketing period as one.
Making sure Black Friday is profitable
We compared first-time Black Friday buyers with first-time buyers from a matched October weekend, then followed both groups for the same amount of time. At the typical brand, Black Friday buyers spent 11% less on repeat orders in their first six months.
By nine months, that gap had grown to 22%.
Your brand may be different. And while these figures are averages, there’s definite examples to the contrary.
Sign up to Early Stage Growth to view the report.
A lower CPA can look good during the sale, but your COGS stay the same, returns are often higher, and CPA improvements rarely measure up.
Knowing your unit economics upfront is essential in planning. And even more important is having a live BFCM dashboard that updates hourly, you can see what’s in ours in the report.
Check out the report today
And answer these questions:
Should I even be doing Black Friday?
How much creative do I need?
What unit economics do I need to understand?
How should I forecast?
What is the right level of spend for the weekend?
How active should media buyers be?
How do I make a profit?
Sign up to Early Stage Growth to view the report.
I’m Josh, the founder of Ballpoint. We’re an AI & technology-led growth agency that’s deeply focus on customer psychology, performance creative, and marketing measurement. If you are in need of a killer Black Friday and don’t trust your current setup, then get in touch.