Preparing for Black Friday 2025

Cyber weekend is just around the corner, so we’ve put together our last minute Black Friday checklist to help small businesses make sure you have everything in place to make the most of the sale season, without getting lost in the chaos.

When is Black Friday?

Black Friday lands a little later this year, taking place on the 28th November 2025, with Cyber Monday falling on the 1st December 2025.

But as we’ve seen with years gone by, don’t be surprised if some brands start their sales early (in fact, we’re not even out of October yet and we’ve already started spotting a few!), turning the whole of November into one long sale period.  For some brands, this can be just the boost in sales numbers you’ve been looking for, but for others the discount mentality in customers isn’t sustainable.  That’s why it’s always important to have a strategy in place that works for your business and stick to it.  Below are our top tips for SMBs getting prepared for Black Friday 2025:

Black Friday Check List

1. Start priming your audience now

The Black Friday & Cyber Monday weekend is an incredibly competitive period, and one that savvy customers are preparing for in advance.  Don’t leave it until the last minute to let your customers know what your plans are, start priming them now so they know what to expect and are ready to come to you directly once your deals are live. 

You can do this through email campaigns for your existing customers or use social media to attract new customers.  Either let them know exactly what offers to expect, use a teaser campaign to build intrigue, or simply remind them of your brand values and why they should be purchasing directly from you. Whatever the message, make sure you are front of mind in the weeks building up to Black Friday so that you’re the first port of call when your customers are ready to shop.  

2. Be strategic with your approach

The Cyber Weekend sales period has become a race to the bottom – keep a cool head and don’t get caught up in this. Use your CRM & 1st party data to segment your audiences & understand who your most valuable customers are and who are the customers that typically only purchase during a sales period.  You can then provide tailored offers or early access deals to each different audience segment, engaging them at a time when they’re most likely to convert, and before they look to purchase from your competitors! 

This is particularly important if you want to reward loyal customers without eating into your profit margin or damaging your brand perception.  Remember, Black Friday doesn’t only have to be about discounts, you can also offer gifts with purchase, unique one-off products or product bundles or other value-add alternatives.   

3. Be LLM ready 

Okay, you’re probably sick of hearing about it, but the reality is that AI is changing the way customers search and the likes of ChatGPT and other LLMs are going to play a big role this year.  Although chatbots still have a much lower reach than traditional search engines, this is the first year they have felt more “mainstream” and if your customer base is more likely to be early adopters of new tech, then they will be using them to gather information on the best available deals.   

If you haven’t already, you need to start making sure your offers and product pages are structured in an AI-friendly way, so you’re not missing out. 

4. Think beyond Cyber Weekend

Black Friday can be a great moment to win new customers, but only if you can identify the high-value new customers and have a retention plan for after the initial purchase.  If new customers purchase once whilst you have a sale on but you never see them again, then is that going to be profitable for your business?  For some brands the answer will be yes, but if your answer is no, then you need a retention strategy in place.  How will you collect and sort the customer data captured during this sales period?  If you’re not sure, feel free to get in touch and we can audit your analytics set up now to make sure you’re ready in time.   

5. Decide on your paid media budget now and lock it in

We see this every year – paid media budgets are set in advance but then panic or eagerness kicks in & suddenly things are changing last minute. If you’re not careful, Black Friday/Cyber Monday is the easiest way to blow your budget and kill your profitability for the year, even if sales are looking positive over the weekend.  You need to make sure you know what ROAS is affordable for you and don’t be tempted to increase budgets just because CPCs are skyrocketing on the day. 

For some brands, it might even be worth considering turning off your paid ads for the Black Friday period and focus on your owned channels instead to drive sales.  This is particularly relevant to any business that needs to protect their brand from being associated with discounts, such as luxury & premium brands, or businesses that operate in particularly competitive markets where CPCs are higher even at the best of times.  

Are you Black Friday ready?

Whilst there’s lots you can do to make the most of the Black Friday period, the most important thing to remember is to stick to your long-term strategy.  Growing a DTC brand requires an impeccable understanding of your customers and knowing how to add value to their user journey every step of the way.  BF/CM should be no different, so make sure you’re utilising your data & insights, ensure any decisions you make align with your business objectives and above all else, stay calm – you’ve got this.