Your BFCM Campaign Checklist

Hey there 👋

It's almost here — the four days when inboxes are flooded, ads are everywhere, and DTC brands either win big or... don’t.

But you’re here, so won’t be in that second group — in today’s post, we’ll break down how to nail BFCM without relying on 70% off banners like it's 2012 😂 

Let’s get into it 🔥

1. Q4 Sales Calendar 📆 

Before we get to BFCM, you need to know the most important dates pre, during, and post-BFCM so that you can prepare your campaigns for them, too:

Halloween (October 31)

During Halloween, costumes, decorations, party supplies, and makeup all drive eCom sales — and for those that don’t sell any products of that nature, updating your brand to be more in-season does the job.

P.S — We’ve already done the work for you, check out our DTC Halloween Guide to prepare your store for the spooky season! 👻 

Singles Day (November 11)

With a larger presence in Asia, this day is also significant globally — consumers shop for cosmetics, skincare, electronics, apparel & household items on discount.

If you have an Asian market, and also sell any of these goods, you should add Singles Day to your sales calendar.

Black Friday (November 29)

The biggest date in Q4 eCom — all major global & local eCom platforms participate & offer big discounts on goods.

Cyber Monday (December 2)

The following event right after Black Friday, Cyber Monday also surges eCom sales, especially for brands that sell tech. These two dates will be the focus of this post!

Double 12 (December 12)

The Double 12 is another big retail sales event, giving shoppers another chance at grabbing the deals following Singles Day. Just like for Singles Day, if your brand has a presence in Asia, leveraging it is a no-brainer.

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day (December 24-25)

Christmas always has high retail sales, especially in regions where it is widely celebrated — during this time, consumers usually purchase gifts (which include the entire spectrum of goods, from luxury clothing to toys for kids), you can’t miss out on this period.

Now that you’ve marked your calendars, let’s get into the BFCM Checklist 🔥

1. Segment & Target. Right Now. ⏲️ 

Focus on high-value segments — loyal customers, recent buyers, and cart abandoners. These groups are most likely to convert quickly, so prioritize targeting them over cold prospects.

Warm them up with personalized campaigns, so that by November your brand is on their mind, and they’re to buy. There’s a ton of ways to do this, here are some we love:

1️⃣ Use dynamic email content that shows each customer’s most viewed or wishlisted products, with a message like “Have you seen X?”

2️⃣ Leverage customer data to send out “We thought you might like”-style emails, showing similar products to what they’ve bought before (with a discount, ideally)

3️⃣ Celebrate loyalty milestones for the customers that have stuck around for a while — “Thank you for being with us for 1 year! Here’s a super special offer just for you”.

It’s optimal to collect emails using a site-wide discount survey, which segments the shoppers — here’s a perfect example from Create:

And for your least engaged segments, reactivate them with a low-risk, irresistible offer — like a huge discount with no strings attached, knowing what products they viewed prior would also increase CR%.

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2. Paid Ads & UGC 🤳 

Stick to your most proven creatives & reliable segments, and focus your ad budget on them.

1️⃣ Retarget cart abandoners and past visitors with dynamic ads showing the products they viewed

2️⃣ Sync ad creatives with landing pages, so that both the visual & messaging are consistent

3️⃣ Focus mainly on mobile-optimized ad creatives since predictions state that 75% of consumers will engage in mobile shopping during this BFCM, with 45% purchasing via mobile devices

And if there’s one thing worth dabbling into if you haven’t already — it’s UGC.

Half the world is on social media, and having micro-influencers with tens of thousands of followers promote your products can funnel in entire new audiences.

I can’t stress enough how important UGC is for DTC, and we’ve already made a complete eCom UGC Guide so that you can learn about it fast 😄 

3. Landing Pages 101 📃 

Speed & simplicity are everything — your landing pages need to guide visitors to the products they want, and then to the checkout page with zero friction, in as little time as possible.

1️⃣ Optimize page speed with an emphasis on mobile devices

2️⃣ Add FOMO elements like real-time stock alerts or countdown timers

3️⃣ Make it easy for customers to purchase — it’s bad if a visitor can’t get to checkout in less than 30 seconds.

4️⃣ Group offers visually by category to avoid overwhelming your customers — Hint does this well, with an irresistible & easy-to-purchase new customer bundle:

Also, make sure your customers can easily tell what your brand sells and it’s USP right from the home page, and that product pages clearly show who that product is for & what problems it solves.

4. Upselling & Selling Without Discounts 😶 

Instead of slapping a 40% off on everything, you can offer value through strategic bundling and upselling to increase AOV.

Exclusive product bundles are perceived to be higher in value, and you can further up the perceived value by making it limited in stock or limited-edition, right now it’d be best to make a BFCM-themed bundle.

It’s also great to highlight savings in dollar amounts to further show the value, something like “Save $50 on this bundle!”.

Here’s a pretty overkill, but great example of bundling from Innosupps:

As for upselling & cross-selling, here are a couple of key steps you can’t skip:

1️⃣ Add product recommendations to checkout — “People who loved this also bought X”

2️⃣ Offer limited-time post-purchase discounts to nudge impulse buys, for example, a pop-up saying “Add this for 15% off your next order”

3️⃣ Use Browsing & Purchase history to personalize upsell suggestions

To increase AOV even further, you could use mechanisms like custom bundles, gift boxes, mystery boxes, sample packs, subscription boxes, or even mix subscription boxes with free gifts like the Innosupps example above.

5. Email Marketing & Post-Purchase Surveys ✏️ 

Standing out is important, especially during BFCM — your email campaigns need to be urgent, frequent, and simple:

1️⃣ Send back-to-back launch emails for both Black Friday & Cyber Monday, only focusing on your best deals

2️⃣ Use clear subject lines to cut through inbox clutter (something simple such as “24 Hours Left — Don’t Miss Out!", or leading with a discount)

3️⃣ Abandoned carts will be frequent, so remind shoppers and throw in a last-minute discount to close the deal — it’ll also help if the subject line is emotional, like “Don’t leave me behind!”

And finally, something that’ll give you instant feedback during BFCM — post-purchase surveys.

Ask your customers honest questions like “What made you buy today?” and “What almost stopped you from purchasing?” — you’ll get an unbiased perspective, and you can use these responses to adjust your BFCM messaging on the fly.

P.S. — If you happen to sell on Shopify & want to learn more about it’s email platform, check out our guide on Shopify Email for Merchants 🔥

🎧 Bonus Podcast w/ BFCM Email Strategies:

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Daniil from ECORN