Black Friday Guide 1/3

Black Friday to Cyber Monday: A Defining Moment for Retail

Black Friday to Cyber Monday has evolved into the most critical four-day period on the retail calendar. In 2024, Black Friday alone generated $74.4 billion in global sales (the top shopping day of the year).

Shopify merchants alone saw a record $11.5 billion in sales during the week, reflecting a 24% year-on-year jump driven by 76 million shoppers worldwide. In the UK, Black Friday 2024 hit £1.12 billion in online sales, the biggest single-day on record. For many brands, BFCM can drive 30–50% of annual revenue. Simply put, BFCM is high-stakes and fiercely competitive.

That pressure is felt across markets. In the UK, Black Friday 2024 delivered £1.12 billion in online sales, the highest single-day figure on record, with retail transactions up 9.5% compared to the previous year. In Europe, order volumes across EMEA rose 9.3%, and nearly half of online shoppers reported making at least one purchase.

Saturated traditional channels

Email inboxes and social feeds overflow during BFCM. In 2024, over 41,000 Black Friday email campaigns bombarded 460 million recipients (11,000 on Black Friday day alone). Open rates for marketing emails hover around 20–25%, meaning most BFCM emails go unseen. SMS fares better with high open rates, but SMS has limitations (cost, 160-char brevity, no rich media).

What’s working now are channels that offer cut-through and immediacy. WhatsApp is increasingly filling that gap. It’s direct, mobile-first, and well suited to the urgency and noise of BFCM. Unlike email, messages on WhatsApp see far higher read rates (>90%) and the conversational format encourages real engagement rather than passive scrolling. For brands trying to get time-sensitive offers in front of shoppers, or to follow up with high-intent users, it’s a much sharper tool. In a weekend where timing is everything, the ability to reach people with relevance and speed matters more than ever.

In this 3-part blog, we’ll walk through how to set up and activate WhatsApp as a high-impact channel for BFCM built for speed, relevance, and measurable results.

Planning:

From our experience working with other customers, starting preparations three months ahead of BFCM is the most effective timeline. We recommend starting Black Friday preparations in September (at least three months in advance of BFCM). This timeline provides ample opportunity to properly set up the channel, drive opt-ins and begin engaging with your audience ahead of the rush to experiment with different strategies to determine what resonates best before the peak period.

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September: Set Up

Month Objective: Establish the business verified WhatsApp channel ready for subscribers to join in October

Key questions to answer:

1) Who will own/manage this project? (ideally marketing manager that is close to other channels)

2) Welcome Flow Creation

• What incentive do we offer?
• What customer segments do we want to create?
• What data do we then need to collect?

3) What sources/channels do we use to drive opt-ins?

4) What do we want the scope of the AI Agent to be?

You can offer any incentive that you know resonates with your target customers, we typically see:

• 10-25% discount on one purchase
• Free delivery
• £5-10 off an order (with usually a min spend)

Typical Segments we see:

• New customers
• VIP customers
• Low spend customers
• High spend customers
• Lapsed customers

Data Collection:

By presenting the discount incentive after the welcome flow questions, we create a stronger motivation for participants to share their data

Typical data collected:

• Email address (to link to CRM where not currently capturing phone numbers)
• Category Interest (e.g., services of brow products)
• Age (for bday campaign)
• Location (for any location-based campaigns)

Opt-In Sources

• ‍Website Integration: Turn site visitors into subscribers with pop-ups, banners, or chat widgets that promote WhatsApp updates.
  
  • Offer clear incentives like “Get 10% off when you sign up for WhatsApp alerts” or “Be the first to hear about our next sale.” See how Napiers, The Herbalists, do it here

• Checkout & Post-Purchase Moments: Use high-interest points like the checkout or order confirmation page to invite customers to receive updates via WhatsApp. A simple opt-in checkbox or post-purchase email with a link (“Track your order on WhatsApp”) can work well.
• QR Codes & Short Links: Make mobile opt-ins easy by using QR codes or links. Add them to product packaging, in-store signage, receipts, or event materials.‍
• Soft-opt in campaign: in the EU (find link), customers that have bought from the company may be contacted through another channel e.g., WhatsApp (as it is assumed these users have some interest in the brand)

• Social Media Instagram, TikTok, Linktree, stories/posts etc

• Paid Ads: get target traffic from Instagram, facebook etc onto the WhatsApp channel

• Games/competitions: Guess the number of skittles in this bowl, answers submitted via WhatsApp, closest gets the prize
• Friend referral scheme: referrer receives an incentive to share the channel with friends and family

What capabilities do we want the AI Agent to leverage?

• Product Recommender/ Gift Recommender
• Where is my order?
• Promotion term queries etc

Based on the capabilities we want the AI Agent to have, we need to provide the right inputs to train the Agent on. Typically, we leverage the brand guidelines document and scrape the website for product info, links etc.