Thread by @JemBourouhDE

Black Friday Checklist - Topics:

📈 define & plan your strategy
🚀 website speed & development freeze
🛒 stock & fulfilment
📣 ads (paid social, paid search, ...)
📸 influencer
📨 lead gen
✉️ email & inboxing

THREAD 🧵 (1/13)

📈 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞 & 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲
❓ heavy discounts vs. no discounts?
❓ start early and extend BF period vs. short timeframe & more urgency?
❓ anti-BF movement: close the store, charge more, or no offers at all?

(2/13)

🚀 𝐰𝐞𝐛𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐝 & 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐳𝐞
👉 don't deploy updates or changes shortly before BF, allow time for testing; any bugs will cost you most if they occur during BF

(3/13)

👉 make sure all apps & integrations can handle high traffic; check dependencies on 3rd-party services (e.g. address validator, geolocation based redirections, ...); Shopify also has API rate limits 😕
👉 improve site speed, focus on web core vitals

(4/13)

🛒 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐜𝐤 & 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭
👉 plan stock, ensure stock levels are both in warehouse and pushed to shop backend
👉 setup low stock alerts
👉 what is your plan B? (e.g. option in Shopify "continue selling when out of stock")

(5/13)

📣 𝐚𝐝𝐬 (𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥, 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡, ...)
❌ prices / CPMs are highest on BF - don't overspend
❌ avoid inflated numbers due to "over attribution": FB & Co will attribute revenue from customers who would have bought in any case

(6/13)

🔎 brand paid search volume will increase -> make sure campaigns are not limited by budget
✅ include offers in paid search ad copy & extensions (promotion, price, sitelinks, callout, ...)
👉 increase retargeting budgets on all channels

(7/13)

🔁 change to shorter optimization timeframes, e.g. 1 day click on FB, so the algorithm can adjust more quickly

(8/13)

📸 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫
👉 influencer charge more during BF, consider going anti-cyclic (times when competition is lower)
👉 also, performance is lower due to high density of offers & ads: avoid overspending

(9/13)

📨 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐠𝐞𝐧
👉 convert website traffic into leads (forms, pop-ups) - if you do it, now is the time
👉 run cross-channel lead campaigns to collect leads apart from email; e.g. build your SMS list (especially in US/outside Europe), FB messenger, WhatsApp, etc.

(10/13)

✉️ 𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐥 & 𝐢𝐧𝐛𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐧𝐠
👉 clean out inactive profiles to ensure good reputation (will lead to lower bounces, fewer spam complaints, and result in better inboxing rate)

(11/13)

👉 only send to most active & engaged customers (exclude not clicked/opened/purchased/active on site last 90/180 days)
👉 have a granular sending strategy (most engaged first, then next batch etc.)

(12/13)

👉 do not over use emojis, ALLCAPS, words that might trigger SPAM filters (e.g. 💥 SALE ‼️ SALE ‼️)
👉 even your email HTML markup has an impact on your inboxing: do not experiment with your layouts on/before BF

What would you add to the list?

(13/13)