Black Friday ad strategy for ecommerce: the 6-week playbook

Black Friday is the biggest revenue event of the year for most UK ecommerce brands — and the biggest budget-waster for those who aren't prepared. The brands that win don't start on Black Friday; they start 6 weeks early. Here's the playbook.

6 weeks out (mid-October): build your audiences

Now is when you build the retargeting pools that will convert in November. Run cold prospecting campaigns on Meta and TikTok to drive traffic to your product pages. These visitors won't buy yet — that's fine. You're investing in the audience you'll retarget during Black Friday week. Budget: 20% of your total Black Friday spend goes here.

4 weeks out: test your creative

Launch 3–5 ad variations testing different hooks, offers and angles. You're not trying to convert yet — you're finding which creative resonates before you scale it. The creative that gets the highest CTR and lowest CPC now is the creative you'll pour budget into during Black Friday week. Don't wait until November to test — CPCs triple during Black Friday week, and testing then is the most expensive way to learn.

2 weeks out: warm your list

Start email and SMS campaigns teasing the Black Friday offer. Retarget your website visitors from the last 30 days with 'early access' messaging. Build anticipation. The goal: by Black Friday week, your audience has seen your brand 3–5 times and is primed to buy. Warm audiences convert 3–5x better than cold ones during high-noise periods.

Black Friday week: scale what works

This is not the time to test. Take the creative that won in your testing phase and scale it. Increase budgets by 50–100% on your best-performing campaigns (not 300% — scaling too fast during a high-CPC week will tank ROAS). Run retargeting campaigns at full frequency (4–5 per week, not the usual 3). And don't forget Google — branded search spikes during Black Friday as people who saw your social ads search for you by name.

Cyber Monday and beyond: the follow-through

Cyber Monday is the second peak. Retarget everyone who visited during Black Friday but didn't buy — they're the highest-intent audience you'll ever have. Run a 'last chance' offer. Then, the week after, retarget all Black Friday purchasers with complementary products. The post-Black Friday cross-sell window is where most brands leave money on the table.

The measurement trap

During Black Friday, customers interact with 5–10 touchpoints before buying. Last-click attribution will give all the credit to Google branded search or direct traffic — and your Meta and TikTok campaigns will look like they failed. Without a unified view showing every platform's contribution, you'll make the wrong budget decisions for December. AdPulse shows spend, ROAS and conversions across every platform in one dashboard — so you know what actually drove Black Friday revenue. Start free.