BFCM Marketing Strategy Guide 2025: Complete Playbook forE-commerce Brands

Remember last year when you spent three months planning BFCM, sent 47 emails, and somehow still watched your competitors crush it while you were left wondering what went wrong?

Yeah. We need to talk about that.

Here’s the thing about BFCM 2025: the brands winning aren’t just throwing bigger discounts or sending more emails. They figured out that the game changed. Website performance jumped to the top priority for 33.4% of merchants in 2025, more than doubling from just 13% in 2024. Translation? Your customers will leave if your site lags, no matter how good your deal is.
This guide transforms how you approach Black Friday Cyber Monday. Not with theory or buzzwords, but with what actually worked for brands that turned BFCM into their biggest revenue driver.

The Reality Check You Need

US shoppers dropped $10.8 billion online on Black Friday 2024 (up 10.2%) and $13.3 billion on Cyber Monday (up 7.3%). That’s real money on the table.

But here’s where most brands mess up. They think BFCM is a weekend. It’s not anymore. By the Monday before Thanksgiving, over 40% of email campaigns already contained Black Friday discounts. While you’re waiting for Black Friday to hit send, your competitors already locked in sales.

For some merchants, BFCM accounts for 30-50% of annual revenue, with 8% reporting over 50% of their entire year’s revenue coming from this period. This isn’t just a busy weekend. This is your entire year compressed into a few weeks.

Your 8-Week BFCM Timeline (The One That Actually Works)

Most BFCM prep guides tell you to start in September. That’s cute. Brands that crush BFCM start planning in July or August, giving creative teams time for multiple rounds of edits and strategy refinement.

8 Weeks Out (Early October)

Website Performance Audit
Your site needs to handle 3x normal traffic without breaking. Period. 33.4% of merchants made website performance optimization their top priority, with another 7.5% upgrading hosting.

What to actually do:

Load test your site at 300% capacity
Install express checkout options
Add buy now, pay later (BNPL) if you’re doing over $1M annually (because businesses over $1M were 3-4 times more likely to offer BNPL)
Check mobile performance (because 57% of sales came from mobile in 2024, up from 51.8% in 2023)

Inventory Planning

32.6% of merchants ranked increasing inventory as their second-highest priority. Running out of stock during BFCM is like showing up to a gunfight with a water pistol.

Email List Warming

Start list warming at least 6 weeks before BFCM campaigns begin. If you suddenly blast your entire list on Black Friday after months of silence, you’re going straight to spam folders.

6 Weeks Out (Mid October)

Build Your SMS List

Brands that added SMS to their strategy saw a 20% year-over-year increase in ecommerce revenue during BFCM, accounting for over $100M in GMV.

SMS converts at 21-40%, crushing most other channels. And here’s the kicker: businesses generate $71 for every $1 spent on SMS.

Start collecting numbers now. Not the week before BFCM.

Email Deliverability Audit

Audit in July or August to fix critical issues before Black Friday campaigns begin. Check authentication, DMARC settings, and make sure your current campaigns hit deliverability benchmarks.

4 Weeks Out (Early November)

Lock In Your Promotional Strategy

42% of merchants are trying new approaches: introducing subscription services (30%) and new promotional strategies (25%) including product bundles, earlier sales, and strategic email list-building.

The discount sweet spot? Discounts in the 10-15% or 20-25% range drove the best conversion rates during BFCM 2024. Bigger isn’t always better.

Consider these instead of straight discounts:

Free gift with purchase
Tiered discounts (buy more, save more)
Limited-time bundles
Early VIP access for loyalty members

Ad Campaign Setup

Get your creative finalized. Meta still dominates with 67.81% of ad spend, Google takes 23.14%, but TikTok is the fastest-growing channel.

Here’s what matters:

Meta: CTR of 1.79% (highest of all platforms), AOV of $100.17, but ROAS dropped 4.20% to 3.19
Google: 7.29% conversion rate (second-highest), but CPA jumped 26.43% to $18.32
TikTok: Conversion rate increased 56.41% year-over-year, CPA dropped from $24.13 to $13.08

3 Weeks Out (Mid November)

Start Your Campaign

Not on Black Friday. Now.

Many brands began BFCM promotions on November 7, 2024. Over one-third of shoppers want to hear about BFCM deals as soon as possible, with another 37.3% wanting to know a month in advance.

Email Sequence Launch

Week of October 21: VIP early access opt-in emails Week of October 28: Season kickoff highlighting overstock deals Week of November 4: Teaser campaigns building anticipation

Week of BFCM

The Sending Strategy That Works

The three days with the highest click-through rates all came before Black Friday: Tuesday and Wednesday of BFCM week.

Wednesday before Thanksgiving saw the highest average order value, 31.7% above the BFCM average.

What to send when:

Monday-Tuesday: Early bird specials to most engaged segments
Wednesday: Your biggest push (seriously, definitely send an email on Wednesday)
Thursday (Thanksgiving): Light touch, gratitude message with preview
Black Friday: Multiple sends to segmented lists
Saturday-Sunday: Follow-up to non-purchasers
Cyber Monday: Final push

The most active email hour was 9-10 AM ET on Black Friday, with peak orders following between noon-1 PM.

Channel-by-Channel Breakdown

Email Marketing: Your Workhorse

Email marketing (23%) and organic social (21.1%) were the most effective channels during BFCM.

What actually moves the needle:

Subject Lines That Convert

Subject lines containing “BFCM” outperformed those with “Black Friday” or “Cyber Monday” with the highest open rates.

Skip these: “Biggest Sale Ever!” “Don’t Miss Out!” “Last Chance!”

Use these patterns instead:

“Your $487 cart stack is giving you $120 results”
“BFCM: Why your current tools disappoint”
“The real reason premium solutions feel cheap”

Automation Destroys Campaign Emails

Email automations comprised 0.48% of total emails but resulted in 8% of total revenue during BFCM 2024.

Welcome and abandoned cart automations had much higher conversion rates than BFCM newsletters.

Set these up NOW if you haven’t:

Welcome series (triggered immediately)
Cart abandonment (15 minutes, 2 hours, 24 hours)
Browse abandonment
Post-purchase upsell

Segmentation Saves Your Budget

Send more messages to your most engaged subscribers. Use engagement-based data (opens and clicks) to determine send frequency.

Don’t send to people who already bought. Depending on your provider, exclude purchasers from ongoing campaigns.

Real example: Patrick Ta Beauty increased email sends nearly sixfold without raising unsubscribe rates by segmenting audiences and optimizing send times, achieving 8x year-over-year growth.

SMS Marketing: The Closer

Messages sent through SMS platforms were up 74% year-over-year during the Black Friday through Cyber Monday window.

90% of recipients open texts within three minutes. Email can’t touch that.

SMS Strategy

SMS speeds time to purchase, with plenty of shoppers preferring SMS over email.

What works:

Keep it short (obviously)
Make VIP offers exclusive to SMS subscribers
Send follow-up campaigns to subscribers who didn’t purchase yet, which drove a 60% increase during BFCM 2023
Send SMS over MMS for better performance

Critical Timing

Merchants sent 308.9% more SMS messages on Cyber Monday 2023, with push messages increasing 91.3% year-over-year.

40% of shoppers purchase directly from a push notification.

Paid Ads: Where to Spend (And What to Expect)

Meta (Facebook & Instagram)

Still the heavyweight. Meta generated 59.44% of total purchases during BFCM 2023.

The numbers:

CTR: 1.79% (up 13.29% from 2023)
AOV: $100.17 (highest of all platforms)
CVR: 3.62% (dropped 2.69%)
ROAS: 3.19 (down 4.20% from prior year)

Translation: Meta still converts, but it’s getting more expensive. You need killer creative and tight targeting.

Google Ads

23.14% of ad spend went to Google, with the second-highest conversion rate at 7.29%.

The reality:

CPM hit $17.77 across all shops
CPA increased 26.43% to $18.32
CTR dropped 8.90% to 1.33%

But here’s why you still need it: People see your brand on other platforms, then come to Google to search for the product. It’s bottom-of-funnel gold.

TikTok

The wild card that’s paying off.

TikTok’s CTR increased 17.46% year-over-year, with conversion rate jumping 56.41%.

CPA dropped from $24.13 in 2022 to $13.08 in 2023, making it the only platform where customer acquisition got cheaper.

The catch? TikTok ads were 49-53% cheaper than Meta during BFCM, but AOV dropped 14% year-over-year.

TikTok accounted for 7.12% of total purchases, a 135.69% increase over 2022.

Industries crushing it on TikTok: Health & Beauty, Clothing, Jewelry, Home & Living, and Food & Beverages accounted for 80% of TikTok ad spend.

Budget Allocation

Don’t go all-in on one platform. Maintain a strong budget on legacy platforms like Meta and Google, then test growing channels like TikTok carefully while watching profitability.

Smart split based on what’s working:

Meta: 60-70% (for reach and retargeting)
Google: 20-25% (for high-intent searches)
TikTok: 10-15% (for new customer acquisition)

The Omnichannel Reality

The average number of events from integrations increased 60% year-over-year as brands leveraged consumer data to segment, personalize, and convert across all digital touchpoints.

During BFCM 2023, personalized messages with dynamic content earned 17% higher click rates and 40% higher order conversion rates.

Translation: Using one channel is leaving money on the table.

The Integration That Works

68.9% of consumers say email is their preferred channel for BFCM promotions, but they also selected Facebook messenger (17.6%), text messaging (22.9%), and WhatsApp (24.8%).

Run campaigns like this:

Email announcement of sale
SMS reminder 2 hours before it goes live
Push notification when it’s active
Retargeting ads for email openers who didn’t buy
Follow-up SMS to cart abandoners

What Nobody Tells You About BFCM

Mobile Dominates Everything

Mobile accounted for 80% of US traffic and 73% of orders on Black Friday 2024.

Mobile devices facilitated the majority of online sales during Cyber Week.

If your site isn’t mobile-optimized, you’re throwing away 3 out of 4 sales.

The Retention Play

Most brands over-invest in acquisition and under-invest in retention during BFCM. Big mistake.

Retention is the new acquisition for 2025. One-time BFCM buyers are worthless if they never come back.

Set up your post-BFCM retention strategy now:

Post-purchase email series
Win-back campaigns for one-time buyers
Loyalty program enrollment
Product recommendation flows

Loyalty Members Get VIP Treatment

Loyalty members are already your most frequent shoppers. Give them early access to feel the love.

Why? They’ll buy anyway. Give them 24-48 hour early access, and they’ll spend more and tell their friends.

The Promotions That Convert (And the Ones That Don’t)

What Worked in 2024

42% of merchants introduced new strategies: subscription services (30%) and new promotional approaches (25%) including product bundles, earlier sales, and strategic partnerships.

The best-performing discounts were 10-15% or 20-25% off, not the biggest markdowns.

Beyond Discounts

Gift with purchase: Patrick Ta Beauty offered a $96 product bundle for orders over $150 to boost AOV and encourage product exploration.
Tiered discounts: Buy more, save more structures
Limited bundles: Create exclusivity
Early access: Make VIPs feel special

Subscription Play

30% of merchants introducing subscriptions as part of their BFCM strategy for more accessible gifting.

BFCM buyers are perfect subscription candidates. They’re already in buying mode. Offer a subscription option at checkout.

Technology That Gives You an Edge

AI and Personalization

Personalization goes beyond just first name in a subject line. Customize content to fit each segment so messages feel personalized to each customer.

Brands using AI segmentation cut time in half while improving accuracy.

What to Automate

Automated messages accounted for 41% of all email orders from only 2% of email sends.

The automations printing money:

Cart abandonment
Browse abandonment
Welcome series
Back-in-stock alerts

Back-in-stock automations increased 4x year-over-year, welcome series increased 2.5x, and browse abandonment nearly doubled.

The Week-by-Week Game Plan

November 4-10 (3 Weeks Out)

Launch teaser campaigns
Begin early bird promotions
Send VIP early access invitations
Start ramping up ad spend

November 11-17 (2 Weeks Out)

Increase email frequency for engaged segments
Launch SMS campaigns
Release sneak peeks of deals
Test and optimize site speed

November 18-24 (Week Of)

Monday: Early access for loyalty members
Tuesday-Wednesday: Main promotional push (remember, Wednesday saw the highest AOV)
Thursday: Gratitude message with Friday preview
Friday: Multiple segmented sends throughout the day
Saturday-Sunday: Non-purchaser follow-ups

November 25-December 1 (BFCM Week)

Black Friday: Send between 9-10 AM ET for peak engagement
Saturday-Sunday: Continue momentum with flash sales
Cyber Monday: Final push with urgency messaging
Tuesday: Last call campaigns

What to Track (The Metrics That Matter)

Forget vanity metrics. Here’s what predicts success:

Email

Subject lines with “BFCM” outperformed other variations
Automation conversion rates crushed newsletter conversion rates
Wednesday emails generated highest AOV

SMS

98% open rate with 90% opened within three minutes
21-40% conversion rate
$71 ROI per $1 spent

Paid Ads

Meta: Watch ROAS (target 3+)
Google: Monitor CPA and conversion rate
TikTok: Track AOV closely (it trends lower)

Site Performance

Mobile conversion rate (should match or exceed desktop)
Cart abandonment rate
Average order value by traffic source

The Post-BFCM Play Everyone Forgets

BFCM isn’t over on December 2. That’s when the real money starts.

Retention Strategy

Send post-purchase surveys
Enroll buyers in loyalty programs
Launch win-back campaigns for one-time buyers
Collect reviews and user-generated content

Data Analysis

Which segments converted best?
Which channels drove highest AOV?
What creative performed?
Where did people drop off?

Use this intel for your entire 2025 strategy.

Your BFCM Checklist

8 Weeks Out

[ ] Website performance audit complete
[ ] Load testing at 3x capacity done
[ ] Inventory levels confirmed
[ ] Email list warming started

6 Weeks Out

[ ] SMS list building in progress
[ ] Email deliverability audit complete
[ ] Ad creative finalized
[ ] Automation sequences tested

4 Weeks Out

[ ] Promotional strategy locked in
[ ] Ad campaigns launched
[ ] VIP segments identified
[ ] Mobile experience optimized

2 Weeks Out

[ ] All automations live
[ ] Segmentation strategy finalized
[ ] Customer service team briefed
[ ] Fulfillment capacity confirmed

Week Of

[ ] Daily email schedule set
[ ] SMS sequences queued
[ ] Ad budgets adjusted
[ ] Real-time monitoring in place

The Bottom Line

BFCM 2025 isn’t about working harder. It’s about working smarter with data-driven strategies that actually convert.

Some merchants generate 30-50% of their entire annual revenue during BFCM. This is your year’s make-or-break moment compressed into a few weeks.

The brands crushing it aren’t guessing. They’re using proven strategies, starting early, optimizing relentlessly, and treating BFCM like the multi-week event it’s become.

You’ve got the playbook. Now execute.

Ready to Dominate BFCM 2025?

Triangle Direct Media helps e-commerce brands turn BFCM chaos into revenue-generating machines. We don’t do generic marketing advice. We build data-driven strategies that work.

What we do: