Is your Black Friday Cyber Monday strategy working yet? Read this before it’s too late.

Here it is again. 

Every brand / marketer’s entire year of training, preparation and hustle has led to this. Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) sales are here, and your customers are drowning in ads.

As a digital marketing agency working with eCommerce brands (and beyond) across Australia, DataSauce sees this every year – millions of paid ads, even more discounts, overflowing inboxes, and customers who are excited and overwhelmed at the same time.

The brands that win BFCM aren’t always the loudest. But they always are the ones who plan smarter. Fortunately, it may not be too late to get your digital strategy right. 

Continue reading for some top last minute tips…

01 - Black Friday lead gen. Get going on this, even if you’re late.

Earlier is ideal. But late is still better than never.

BFCM is one of the few moments where customers actively look for sales. They’re warming up their wallets, comparing offers, and adding-to-cart like it’s cardio. And if your brand isn’t part of the consideration pool now, it’s painfully easy to be forgotten in the noise.

What to do right now?

• Spin up a high-intent lead gen campaign
• Use language like “VIP early access” or “Biggest sale of the year starts soon!”
• Add a countdown timer
• Immediately nurture with Klaviyo flows for live sale notifications.

More leads = More warm audiences = Cheaper conversions when the time comes.

02 - Stay competitive with discounting. Nobody moves for 10% off.

No one is sprinting to checkout for 10% off in a cost-of-living crisis. Would you?

This year, the Australian eCommerce landscape is cautious but willing – shoppers will spend, but only when the offer feels worth it and enticing enough.

Ask yourself honestly: Would I stop scrolling for this discount?

If the answer isn’t a hard yes, your audience will probably feel the same. And frankly, the reality is we have our own biases when it comes to our own brands. So, maybe ask a friend.

Would they stop for your discount, especially if unfamiliar with your brand?

This is what makes a good BFCM offer that’s competitive:

• 20–40% off (i.e. the most common sweet spot)
• Product bundles that feel like a steal
• Gift-with-purchase (GwP) perks
• Tiered discounts that reward bigger baskets
• Limited drops or exclusive colours / sizes

If you are a brand that goes on sale: Go all in. 

Half-strength discounts = Half-strength results.

03 - Never change your offer mid-sale… Especially to make it better.

Better is good, right? Wrong. Better can feel like betrayal when it comes too late.

One of the fastest ways to lose customer trust is to run a better offer after people have already purchased. If the offer improves after someone buys (e.g. 20% off on Day 1 becomes 30% off + an extra GwP on Day 3), those customers who purchased prior? They feel burned.

Especially worse when you advertise this updated discount publicly, without campaign exclusions. Trust drops, repeat purchase likelihood tanks, and you might just get a new hater.

BFCM is the #1 weekend of the year for new customer acquisition. Brands should always start the relationship on the right foot, not the wrong discount.

04 - Keep warming your funnel until the BFCM weekend itself.

Not sure if you noticed, but brands aplenty have started way earlier than usual this year.

Pre-BFCM offers flooded feeds in early November, maybe even late October – and this has scrambled customer behaviour beyond what we’re typically familiar with.

Many shoppers are waiting. Watching. Refreshing. Comparing.

That’s why it’s crucial to continue building activity AND nurturing your warm audiences right up until BFCM hits. So, what to focus on now?

• Retarget, heavily.
• High-engagement ad creatives.
• Tempting “coming soon” messaging.
• Countdown ads.
• Teaser video ads and founder-led hype.

05 - Actually diverse Paid Social creative, not just 3 colour variations. 

Too many brands think they have “creative diversity” just because they exported the same static ad three times in different colours and maybe turned one into a GIF.

Not this year. Not ever, honestly.

To really deliver what the Meta Ads algorithm needs (hello, Andromeda and GEM!), your creative arsenal needs true variation that feeds both the people and the algorithm.

Curious about the mix of content you’d need?

• User-generated content (UGC) for trust-building
• Testimonials and customer reviews
• Value-add messaging (aka. why this product matters)
• Text overlay variations
• Urgency messaging (i.e. final hours / limited stock)
• Employee-generated content (EGC) for high-retention storytelling
• Founder piece-to-camera

Together, you’ll get a unified feel across your brand – content that stands out in the feed, reduces ad fatigues, unlocks cheaper audiences, and maintains CPMs whilst boosting reach.

06 - Don’t neglect your customer journey. CRM matters!

You can have a killer discount and killer paid ads…

But if your customer journey is broken, you’re leaving money on the table.

Make sure to review and check these ASAP:

• Are your Klaviyo flows switched to sale mode?
• Are landing pages optimised and updated with sale messaging?
• Does your website clearly communicate shipping cut-offs and delivery info?
• Do you have a time-delay pop-up to capture hesitant traffic?
• Is your checkout smooth and fast?

Even small CRM optimisations make for huge revenue during high-intent periods.

07 - Post-BFCM planning starts now. The impending sales slump is real.

December can get quiet. Too quiet. After the adrenaline rush of BFCM, customers often retreat… Unless you’ve already planned your post-sale revival.

Prep now for December / early January:

• Creative refresh
• Influencer partnerships or UGC campaigns
• “Thank you” discount codes inside BFCM orders
• VIP-only offers before Boxing Day
• Giveaways to stimulate new purchase behaviour
• “How to use your new product” content to drive customer retention
• Re-emphasise gifting messaging for last minute shoppers

If you’re reading this thinking: “Oh god, I’ve done none of this…”

Fret not, don’t stress. These are relatively quick considerations if you really lock in and dedicate proper resources to it now, to squeeze every last drop out of Q4.

And we can attest to that, as a digital marketing agency that’s done this for ~8 years.