A few days more left before one of the hugest sales of the year — Black Friday. This sale is an opportunity for all parties (advertisers, publishers, and customers) to benefit. Publishers and advertisers can earn a nice sum on this event meanwhile, the consumers can buy everything they desire with a huge discount or they can simply buy lots of presents for the upcoming holidays (Christmas and New Year).
So to make this sale even more profitable Admitad Academy has prepared a small guide with tips and insights on how publishers can prepare their ad spaces to the influx of customers.
Checklist
Below is a brief list to remind publishers what to check before the rush starts. Note that not all point may relate to your ad space.
Choose the offers with which you will work in advance. It will help you to prepare promotional materials and to plan the promotional strategy. But think over trying new offers before the sale as well. Sometimes small shops, in order to attract new customers, offer much more interesting deals than the huge stores.
Check the offers and which advertising materials the advertisers have provided (banners, coupons, promo codes, special landing page, etc.). The advertisers help publishers attract customers to their goods by providing promotional materials sometime before the deal.
Think about how you can help your audience to not get lost in thousands of deals. For example, several hours before the sale you can send a mailout with the best deals; if you have a coupon website, create a temporary page with the top coupons on the occasion of Black Friday; if you are a vlogger, shoot some videos with top goods and place the affiliate links to several advertisers in the description, or stream the process of you choosing the goods to purchase.
Draw attention to your channel before the sale time, this will help users to distinguish you from others. The buzz around the sale will be strong and all marketers will be chasing users to gain profit, so having the loyal audience will be an advantage.
Try to make many posts, but don’t overload. Nobody will like to see one hundred posts from one channel. However, if you work with social networks and before the period of sale you promised your followers to inform them about each highest discount, you can make lots of posts and this won’t annoy them. Make sure that the information is up-to-date and trustworthy.
Be as creative as possible. During the sale period, all marketing managers and publishers work hard to attract customers so you need to stand out from this crowd. Try to make bright and catchy banners or mailouts but always remember to approve them with the advertiser (if it is needed).
If you use email marketing, send a couple of mailouts with upcoming reduced prices in advance. It will motivate subscribers to look forward to receiving your next letters with these deals. Mailouts are one of the most effective ways to let customers know about sales and deals
If you have mobile traffic, check that the mobile version of advertiser’s website loads fast and properly so that users keep shopping after proceeding through your link. Mobile usage for shopping keeps increasing every year, thus you need to make sure that these users can enjoy their process of purchase without any issues.
If you are a website owner, make sure that your website is ready for the influx of customers. It won’t be a waste of time if you check it through the service Loadimpact.com before Black Friday.
Allocate a bigger budget for preparation and for advertising. It is a chance for you to get your channel noticed and to double (or triple) up your sales. And anyway, Black Friday is only once a year.
Geo and timing. If you have customers from several countries, make sure that your deals correspond to their time in case they want to start shopping at 00:00 on 23rd November. Moreover, Black Friday gives you a chance to try new audience and new offers as during the sale consumers are more likely to buy goods even from unknown websites.
Don’t forget that Cyber Monday comes after Black Friday, some users may avoid the craze about Friday and decide shop on Monday. So let your creatives stay a little longer.
Additional motivation
Most of the advertisers have one “Top product” which is in great demand. For instance, if it is a gadget store, it can be a new model of smartphone or tablet or sports watch. It can be a product of any kind (everything depends on the type of offer and on your audience interests). You can use this top product to draw attention of the customers and if they decide to purchase it, they may buy some side goods, accessories.
Offer something funny and extraordinary what users may not have the courage to buy without discounts.
Indicate how much time is left till the end of sale in order to create a slight tension that a customer may miss this great opportunity to buy the product with a significant discount. It can motivate some doubting customers.
Some advertisers arrange some additional bonuses for the customers which are chosen by a random choice or when a customer happens to be the 1000th (or any other number) customer. You can use it in the promotion by suggesting that somebody from your audience can also become this lucky person.
If you want to stand out from other similar resources, avoid aggressive sales like “Buy now”, “Lowest price ever” and so on. We are not saying that it is bad, just most channels use such strategies. So instead, try to provide some interesting and useful content for the users such as a compilation of most romantic presents or a compilation of trend looks for this winter (and, of course, add the affiliate links to the relevant goods).
