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Black Friday is just around the corner, and so, brands across the eCommerce space, have been tapping into their annual, excess effort reserves coming up with unique and innovative ad campaigns, be it large scale video shoots or new product launches. However, the brands that will emerge the most successful from this period, are those who will have established a strong foundation in one of the most tried and tested eCommerce marketing channels, Meta Ads.
It follows, that eCommerce businesses rely almost exclusively on internet based channels to drive traffic, there’s no click through rate on a billboard after all. So, with Facebook and Instagram being two of the internet’s most frequently visited websites, Meta Ads have become the go to channel for optimising your success. As brands are gearing up their Meta Ad campaigns to tackle the giant that is Black Friday, we’re taking a look at five things that you should keep in mind when setting up your business’ Meta Ad campaign this year.
If you leave your Black Friday Meta Ads campaign until the week of, you are going to be a fair bit behind your competitors in terms of how much web traffic you’ve generated. It should go without saying that retargeting ads are an essential part of your Meta Ad campaign. However, in the build up to specific dates, they’re only effective if you’ve already received significant engagement across your main channels. You need to focus on building up receptive, high-quality retargeting audiences in the lead-up to the Black Friday weekend.
Customer segmentation is a large part of this, which can be split up as precisely or broadly as you wish. For example, customers who have engaged with your ads, customers who have visited the website, and customers who have purchased from you previously. These customer audiences are already familiar with your brand to varying extents, and so are far more likely to purchase from you than entirely new customers. But this is especially true on Black Friday, when most people already have an idea of what they are going to spend their money on beforehand.
These custom audiences can last for up to 180 days for Meta Ads. So, it makes sense to start getting them accustomed to your brand more and more in the lead up to Black Friday, rather than starting from scratch. Similarly, understanding the differences in likelihood of each of these audiences purchasing from you, will strengthen your decision making on what content should be in each of your ads. A customer who has bought from you repeatedly is much more likely to checkout from your store on Black Friday than one who has maybe seen an ad or two floating around. And so, the content of the ads they see should give them different levels of encouragement, and the amount of expenditure placed on targeting each of them should be scaled accordingly.
This should seem obvious of course, as the content and quality of an ad campaign should be a major consideration regardless of what time of year it’s being rolled out.
in fact, meta states that 56% of sales from meta ads are made as a result of the quality of the creative.
However, Black Friday is a little different, as customer buying behaviour is, perhaps, more important during the run up to Black Friday than during any other time of year. After all, you won’t just be competing with your business’ direct competitors, but with businesses selling to your target audience as a whole. Customers are presented with deals across their range of interests, so they may be deciding to spend on a new pair of shoes, or a new pair of sunglasses, all whilst considering what they need to get their family and friends for christmas; and they can realistically only spend so much.
With you no longer competing with just your direct competitors, taking a different approach to your ad campaign might not be a bad idea.
Ask yourself this: What are you selling?
Unless you said “the deal”, you have the wrong idea.
You’re selling the deal - the savings. Of course, your product offering should be showcased in some ads, but this is why you have multiple audiences mapped out in the first place. Those existing customers, who know what you sell, need to be sold on the savings first and foremost.
We saw during last year’s Black Friday, that the brands that used softer messaging lost out. Ads where the deal was not placed as the primary offering had a significantly lower CTR compared to those that did.
Considering that brands aren’t just competing with their competitors, but with businesses selling to them across their range of interests, it’s not surprising that brands will significantly increase their ad spend in the run up to Black Friday. In fact, 2022 saw a 188% increase in retail ad spending during the month of November, as brands competed to fight through all of the noise and come out on top. Put simply, if you aren’t doing the same, that noise is going to drown you out, regardless of how optimised your campaign might be.
More budget allows you to bid more competitively, which is especially important during this time, as customers’ intent is different across the board. Customers aren’t just browsing idly, scrolling past ads as they look through their friends’ Instagram pictures. No! Instead, more so than any other period, they are browsing with the intent to buy; they’re actively looking for deals and are more willing to try new brands if the deal is good enough. This means that your ads are more likely to convert, and so, an increased budget put towards them should be seen as an extremely strategic, and necessary investment, rather than an expense.
Regardless of how perfect a piece of work might be, how often do we spot flaws in it, or think of things we could do to improve it? Black Friday can be a chaotic time, and you may be rushing to finish a campaign ahead of it going live. Similarly, you may be tweaking the audience mapping of already live campaigns.
It sounds counter intuitive, but if you want to maximise your success, you need to just leave your live campaigns be. This is because new Meta Ads undergo a “learning phase” after they launch. During this phase, your ads are being shown to different audience segments, insights are being gathered, and optimisations are being made. Typically, an ad needs to go through 50 conversion events before their performance stabilises, and this takes time, regardless of how little.
In the run up to Black Friday, you should make time to triple check everything from your audience mapping to your ad’s design to ensure you don’t waste time or launch an imperfect campaign.
It’s important to remember that, although Black Friday is an extremely important time to focus your Meta Ads efforts, it is often the brands with the highest brand awareness that stand out from the crowd. And so, while Q4 is an essential period for any brand, one that will typically see a heightened focus, it is important to place a similar level of focus on your Meta Ads, and advertising campaigns as a whole, year round.
Whilst Black Friday can be a stressful time for brands and marketing agencies alike, it is a golden opportunity to amplify your brand’s presence, attract new customers, and bring old ones back.
With a fully refined Meta Ads campaign that takes into account your audience’s intent, behaviour, and interests, there is no reason why you can’t ride the wave of Black Friday chaos all the way to exceptional results for your business.
To learn more about how we can help you with your Meta Ads strategy, click here.
