How to Avoid Common Black Friday Marketing Pitfalls

Black Friday is a massive opportunity for brands, allowing them to drive sales volume unseen at any other time of year. The shopping holiday can also be a minefield of common marketing mistakes that can result in huge losses in potential profit. Whether brands wait until it’s too late to start their Black Friday campaigns, use ineffective creatives, or make many other potential mistakes, brands’ best bet is to know and plan for these pitfalls ahead of Q4.

That’s where GeistM comes in, using a data-first approach to help brands avoid costly errors during the Black Friday frenzy while making smarter, more profitable decisions. 

Here are the most common pitfalls that companies run across and how you can solve them

Pitfall 1: Waiting Too Late to Start Your Black Friday Campaigns

What goes wrong: Many brands start their Black Friday campaigns as late as November, forgoing the chance to warm up audiences and prime them for conversion. Starting late can often result in overspending on last-minute purchases as well as poor funnel performance.

GeistM’s fix: Begin campaigns as early as September and, at a minimum, by October. This pre-Black Friday period is a great opportunity to use content-driven strategies that can educate, engage, and energize audiences before the peak season. Starting early also gives brands time to build awareness, test creatives, and nurture potential customers, setting themselves up for stronger conversions when peak shopping season arrives.

Pitfall 2: Targeting Too Broadly and Ignoring Audience Segmentation

What goes wrong: Targeting is key during Q4, as brands want to ensure their ad spend isn’t wasted on low-intent or irrelevant audiences. Unfortunately, many brands overlook this pitfall and allocate significant amounts of spend to unqualified users. Poor targeting not only drains budgets but also leads to missed opportunities with high-value customers who are ready to convert. 

GeistM’s fix: Our team builds detailed, data-backed personas and continuously refines targeting for precision. This ensures that ad spend is directed towards the highest-intent audiences, maximizing ROI and minimizing wasted budget. 

Pitfall 3: Using Generic, Discount-Heavy Creative That Fails to Engage

What goes wrong: There are plenty of brands that consider a generic creative with “50% off” messaging to be sufficient for their Black Friday campaigns. A creative of this quality will not be effective in the long run, as it will likely face creative fatigue in a short time, as well as overall low engagement. 

GeistM’s fix: We develop person-driven, emotionally resonant creatives focused on value and urgency. By tailoring messaging to specific audiences and refreshing creatives regularly, we keep engagement high and prevent fatigue throughout the season.

Pitfall 4: Skipping Content Marketing to Warm Up Audiences

What goes wrong: Another common mistake brands make is missing the chance to build trust and nurture prospects before hitting them with an offer during November. Without pre-Black Friday content, brands risk appearing pushy or purely sales-focused, failing to engage potential customers and missing the opportunity for prime audiences for conversion. 

GeistM’s fix: We leverage editorial content, such as gift guides and product reviews, in mid-funnel campaigns. A benefit GeistM possesses is that its owned-and-operated publishers offer a third-party perspective, helping build trust and authenticity for consumers.

Pitfall 5: Network diversification 

What goes wrong: There are brands that exclusively run Black Friday campaigns on Meta, relying solely on one platform to reach their audience. This narrow approach causes them to miss out on a multitude of users active on other networks, such as Taboola, Google, or TikTok, limiting their reach and potentially leaving significant revenue on the table. Diversifying ad channels not only expands audience exposure but also provides more opportunities to test messaging, optimize performance, and maximize ROI during the high-stakes holiday season.

GeistM’s fix: We are experts in several networks, ensuring brands can access users across a far broader part of the Internet than just Meta’s limited scope. Our multi-network approach helps brands optimize performance, reduce their reliance on a single channel, and capture more revenue during critical campaigns, such as Black Friday.

Pitfall 6: Optimizations

What goes wrong: A surprise to many marketers is that some brands launch their Black Friday campaigns and make no edits throughout the holiday shopping season. Without ongoing optimizations, campaigns can underperform due to shifting audience behavior, fluctuating competition, or creative fatigue. 

GeistM’s fix: We understand that making optimizations and testing different ideas at every level of a campaign is pivotal to ensuring maximum efficiency during Q4. In fact, we do not stop testing; instead, we continue to find new opportunities for efficiency and scale.

Pitfall 7: Neglecting Deep Post-Campaign Analysis to Inform Future Strategies

What goes wrong: A major mistake that can be made is neglecting to perform deep post-campaign analysis to inform future Q4 strategies. Without reviewing key data, brands miss critical insights that could improve targeting, messaging, and overall campaign ROI in subsequent years. 

GeistM fix: Fortunately, we always perform comprehensive post-mortem analyses to drive more efficient and profitable campaigns in future Q4 periods and ensure we apply the learnings to the next year. 

Conclusion

Success during the Black Friday period requires data-driven budget management, audience focus, creative relevance, content marketing, real-time optimizations, segmentation, and post-campaign insights. 

GeistM does not miss any of these pivotal aspects and focuses on opportunities for sustained growth. Considering the importance of the Black Friday period for a major portion of brands’ yearly sales, working with a partner who understands the intricacies of digital marketing is of paramount importance. 

Contact GeistM to prepare your next Black Friday campaign with precision and confidence.