Why You Can’t Afford to Wait Until Black Friday to Activate Marketing

Black Friday weekend has become a globally recognised retail event and one that is synonymous with the big festive season spending rush at the end of November. Many digital retail businesses recognise that the festive period represents a huge portion of their annual revenue generation and plan marketing campaigns to activate heavily around this time.

It is even the case for many that building a creative campaign around black Friday and stretching the activity out to last over the weekend and even into December is now standard practise and the challenge each year. But is building a festive campaign all around Black Friday really making the most of the shopping opportunity?

Recent data released by Google and other retail researcher brands indicates that in actuality, 50%+ of all Christmas shopping is conducted by consumer before Black Friday. With a seasonal peak taking place early to mid-November before the more significant peak which is indeed set off by the arrival of Black Friday weekend.

Now don’t read us wrong, 50% of all festive shopping from the end of November to mid/late December is still an absolutely incredible amount of revenue and sales in a very short period of time. But any retail business would need to ask themselves if they’re willing to miss out on that early peak and not activate a marketing campaign to support the festive season earlier.

On top of the ratio of sales and how it’s split, there is another consumer behaviour to consider. If you look at the search queries and the trends of consumer searching from early November right up until Christmas, you see a big change in behaviour. The early peak in November shows a higher percentage of users searching for products, brands and questions regarding product specifics. All in a all a high focus on generic purchase intent queries associated with products. This changes dramatically as we hit Black Friday weekend. The trend then shows a huge hike in searches looking for best prices, best deals and offers.

Despite the calendar showing less and less time until the big day, consumers in December are far more concerned about deals and cheap prices then they are finding the right product. As such, the chances are that you’ll perform better as a retailer in terms of retained margin on what you sell early November than you will in December when the emphasis is on deal instead of products.

Perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate how we approach festive season marketing with a much earlier start to our campaigns and a messaging swap mid-way through to accommodate for consumer intent.