7 tried-and-true Black Friday marketing ideas your customers will love

As the Black Friday advice starts flooding in, it’s getting harder to separate proven strategies from marketing noise.

Some experts advise starting your campaigns in October, while others insist November is soon enough. Some swear by steep discounts, while others make room for a wider variety of perks. With conflicting advice everywhere, it’s hard to know which tactics will actually generate more revenue than last year—and which ones just sound good in theory.

That’s why we looked at the data. Last year, Klaviyo customers achieved record-breaking results, with over 15,000 brands experiencing their best sales day ever. Specifically, Klaviyo customers drove more than $3 billion in total Klaviyo-attributed value between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.

Based on what worked for top-performing brands in 2024, here are some tried-and-true Black Friday marketing ideas that drive sales, build lasting customer relationships, and cut through the noise—not only for Black Friday, but also throughout the entire holiday shopping season.

1. Start testing with AI in Q3

Every B2C marketer knows that Black Friday success is determined by all the work that happens before the actual event. One of the most critical parts of this work is A/B testing.

With AI, there are now two ways to conduct A/B tests: standard A/B testing and personalized variations for each recipient. Whereas the former involves testing one element at a time and sending the winning variation to a large segment of recipients, the latter uses AI to search for patterns amongst test recipients who interact with each variation. Based on this data, recipients get whatever variation they are most likely to interact with.

When you test early, your messages will be informed by the customer data necessary to personalize emails, SMS messages, and subject lines at scale. This testing phase should ideally happen before Q4 begins, so your Black Friday campaigns are fully informed.

KURU Footwear tests their way to Black Friday success

For years, KURU Footwear wasn’t able to A/B test their flows due to a complex and unreliable tech stack. But after switching to Klaviyo—without any interruptions to their customer communications—the team was able to A/B test flows in an intuitive way. This helped contribute to 51.3% YoY growth in BFCM revenue from email.

2. Mine your previous Black Friday data

If your brand has been running Black Friday campaigns for at least a few years, dig into your historical data to identify bestselling products, messaging approaches, and customer segments. Here are a few areas we recommend looking into:

• Customer data: Look at which customers spent the most last year, made repeat purchases, and signed up for your loyalty program. This is what will guide your Black Friday strategy, not only for the day but for customer retention into the following year.
• Products: Identify previous Black Friday bestsellers to inform your promotional strategy, inventory planning, and featured product placement in campaigns.
• Timing: Analyze when your customers are most likely to engage with messages and make purchases to optimize your campaign schedule and send times (more on that below).
• Discount structure: Review which discount types and thresholds drove the highest conversion rates and revenue. You may find you don’t need to offer as high of a discount as you think.
• Message content: Analyze high-performing subject lines, CTAs, and personalized messages to understand what resonates with your audience and drives action.

This data-driven approach doubles down on proven winners and allocates resources more effectively. Rather than guessing what might work, you can create targeted campaigns that speak directly to each segment’s demonstrated preferences and shopping behaviors.

Beekman 1802 uses historical data to inform their Black Friday strategy

Skincare brand Beekman 1802 dug into prior Black Friday data to prepare for their upcoming season. With this analysis, they were able to identify the products and messaging that consistently performed best around the holidays—especially with returning customers. This informed both their merchandising and marketing approach, which contributed to 74% YoY growth in BFCM email revenue.

3. Optimize Black Friday engagement with strategic timing

Timing is everything when it comes to Black Friday. Your brand’s peak sales times from last year can help you identify when to send your best promotions.

According to Klaviyo’s 2024 BFCM data, peak order volume happened between noon and 1 p.m. ET on Black Friday.

You can use this data as a starting point for your Black Friday campaigns, but A/B testing and your own historical data are a better indicator. Even better: if you have a marketing automation platform that can automatically optimize send times based on when individual customers are most likely to engage, let the technology do the work for you.

But it’s not just about what day and time you send. It’s also about cadence and frequency, and where you deviate from business as usual before and during Black Friday.

Little Sleepies takes advantage of smart timing for Black Friday

Family pajama brand Little Sleepies faced a timing challenge for their Black Friday campaign: they needed to start their sale later than competitors due to a packed new release schedule. To maximize their shorter timeframe, they sped up their abandonment flows from one hour to 30 minutes after inactivity, and increased flow frequency from once every 14 days to daily during the sale period.

They even implemented strategic double-sends on key days, specifically targeting engaged but non-converting customers. This timing optimization helped them drive more revenue on day one than they had projected for the entirety of BFCM.

4. Launch pre-season campaigns to capture early demand

Every year, brands wonder: how early is too early?

Klaviyo’s 2024 analysis showed that many brands began launching Black Friday promotions as early as November 7. And, most importantly, consumers were receptive, with many making purchases from brands as early as 3 weeks prior to Thanksgiving.

This is why it’s critical to start building momentum early, rather than waiting until the week leading up to Black Friday when brands are competing for attention.

But the goal of your early-bird campaigns isn’t just to send out more emails and messages. Your customer data should instead show you who may be most receptive to early-bird offers and which products are most likely to capture their attention.

For example, according to our 2024 consumer spending report, Gen X and boomer customers are more likely than other generations to do their holiday shopping throughout the course of the entire year. This means they may be more receptive to early promotions and deals.

Shinola boosts Black Friday revenue with early campaigns

As a luxury watch brand, Shinola never ran Black Friday promotions. They ran sales sparingly, often for VIP clients only.

To stay competitive in 2024, Shinola’s holiday event ran for almost 3 weeks. It was a daily drumbeat of email offers on specific products and limited-edition drops, amplified by regular SMS campaigns. During BFCM itself, they switched to a spend-more, save-more sitewide event. All of this contributed to 48% YoY growth in revenue per email recipient during BFCM.

5. Drive conversions with a limited-edition drop over discounts

Most people associate Black Friday with massive discounts. And while they can certainly be an effective strategy, Klaviyo’s 2024 analysis found that steep discounts mattered less than most brands assumed. Consumers prioritized product quality and brand loyalty.

In other words, a large discount might not be the best Black Friday strategy for your brand. Instead, you can see success with adding value through limited-time offers, exclusive products, or special bundles.

For example, consider launching a limited-edition product exclusively for Black Friday, offering early access to new collections, or creating exclusive bundles that aren’t available any other time of year.

These tactics not only protect your margins, but might also attract customers who care more about getting something special than snagging the lowest price—potentially leading to higher lifetime value and stronger brand relationships.

Jones Road Beauty uses exclusive offers to drive Black Friday demand

Like Shinola,Jones Road Beauty has never offered traditional Black Friday discounts. Instead, the brand has focused on limited-edition product drops that create genuine excitement among their customers. For 3 years, they released Mini Miracle Balms—their bestselling multi-purpose highlighter—exclusively during the holiday weekend, consistently selling out on the first day.

Recently, Jones Road refined their strategy by announcing the drop 4 days in advance instead of one, allowing them to better gauge demand and order more inventory. This approach to creating urgency through exclusivity rather than discounts paid off: Jones Road brought in as much revenue in the first 30 minutes of Black Friday as they had during the entire BFCM weekend the previous year.

6. Create urgency with a cross-channel “final hours” campaign

According to Klaviyo’s 2024 BFCM analysis, brands that added SMS to their marketing and CRM strategy in 2024 experienced a 20% YoY increase in ecommerce revenue last BFCM, accounting for more than $100 million in gross merchandise value (GMV).

The takeaway: leveraging multiple channels is crucial to maximizing Black Friday revenue. And while this should be your approach throughout the holiday shopping season, it becomes especially powerful as your sales wind down and you need to capture those final conversions.

The key is orchestrating these final-hour pushes strategically across email, SMS, push notifications, WhatsApp, and social media. An omnichannel approach will help your brand effectively amplify your messaging and bring in those last-minute sales, without overwhelming your customers in the process.

POPFLEX orchestrates across channels to create a Black Friday VIP experience

Activewear brandPOPFLEX wanted to create a more intimate VIP experience for their Black Friday campaign, recognizing that their customers had a strong appetite for SMS messaging alongside email. They integrated SMS into 3 key abandonment flows—browse, cart, and check-out, giving mobile subscribers personalized reminders to complete purchases before the sale ended.

By combining email and SMS as automations that worked together, along with targeted messaging based on wishlist and browsing data, POPFLEX achieved 91% YoY growth in ecommerce revenue from that year’s BFCM sale.

7. Invest in a post-purchase up-sell campaign to extend momentum

Even after Black Friday is over, there’s still lingering momentum. The best brands take advantage of this window with strategic post-purchase campaigns that aim to increase retention in the long run.

Consider setting up automated post-purchase flows that kick in immediately after a Black Friday sale. These might include complementary product recommendations (like accessories for a purchased item), replenishment reminders for products that run out, or exclusive “customer-only” deals for additional items.

You can also use Black Friday as an opportunity to share educational content that will help customers get the most out of their new purchases, positioning your brand as helpful rather than only transactional.

By striking while the iron is still hot, your brand can increase customer lifetime value by encouraging customers to see your brand as their go-to source, not just a one-time Black Friday stop.

Happy Way keeps the holiday shopping momentum alive

Health brand Happy Way wanted to maximize their BFCM results by extending momentum beyond the initial sale period through strategic post-purchase campaigns.

They set up automated flows based on purchase history that triggered 60–90 days after customers’ last orders, reminding them to reorder while their BFCM products were running low. These post-purchase flows also included personalized recipe ideas and add-on product recommendations to help customers get more value from their health products.

By using segmentation to deliver targeted, relevant follow-ups rather than generic reorder reminders, Happy Way successfully extended their BFCM momentum and increased customer retention long after the holiday weekend concluded.

Get ahead of this year’s Black Friday with these tried-and-true tactics

It’s hard to raise the bar around Black Friday every year—and doing so requires a thoughtful, strategic approach that’s supported by data. By pairing these Black Friday marketing ideas with Klaviyo B2C CRM, you can identify even more opportunities to take your Black Friday performance to the next level.

Whether it’s tapping into Klaviyo’s 350+ integrations to unify your customer data across all channels, using Klaviyo AI to optimize send times and personalize product recommendations at scale, or setting up sophisticated automated flows that respond to real-time customer behavior, Klaviyo gives you the tools to execute these strategies faster and more effectively.