If Black Friday still feels like a week before problem, here’s your reality check: the brands that win peak trading are doing the work weeks in advance.
Peak season doesn’t reward the brand with the biggest discount. It rewards the brand that’s been building momentum for weeks – the one with warm audiences, approved products, creative ready to go and a list of customers waiting to hear from them.
The sale itself is the easy part. The prep is where it’s won or lost.
Here are five things you should be doing today ahead of the promotional season.
01. Get In Front Of New People Now
Here’s the thing about peak season advertising: everyone wants in, and the auction knows it. As more brands pile in through November, competition climbs – and so do your costs.
Anyone who discovers your brand now, while they’re cheaper to reach, is someone you can come back to with your offers later. Leave it until Black Friday week and you’re paying premium prices to introduce yourself to people who’ve never heard of you.
The audiences you build now are the sales you close in November.
02. Fix Your Product Catalog Issues
Disapproved products don’t show. It’s as simple as that.
If your products aren’t approved and ready to serve, it doesn’t matter how good your offer is – shoppers won’t see it. And once peak season starts, everything slows down. Reviews take longer, fixes take longer, and every day a bestseller sits in limbo is revenue you won’t get back.
Fix it now, while it’s an admin task – not a crisis.
03. Prepare Your Visual Assets Now
Slapping “30% OFF” over your standard product shots isn’t a Black Friday creative strategy. In a feed full of sale messages, it’s going to get lost.
Shoppers scroll past hundreds of offers over peak. The brands that stop the scroll are the ones with creative built for the moment – not bolted on at the last minute. That means imagery and video ready in every format you need, well before the sale goes live.
And with platforms like Meta now leaning on your creative to decide who sees your ads (more on that here), variety matters more than ever.
Your offer gets them to buy. Your creative gets them to notice.
04. Group Your Existing Customers By Buying Habits
Your existing customers are the warmest audience you have. So why send them all the same email?
Someone who’s bought from you five times this year doesn’t need the same message as someone who bought once and hasn’t been back since. Look at who’s bought from you before – and how – then send offers that actually reflect it.
Relevance beats volume. Every time.
05. Build Your Early Access Sign-Up List
Black Friday inboxes are loud. The best way to cut through? Be the email they asked for.
Give shoppers the chance to register for first access to your sale before it officially launches. It builds anticipation, rewards your most interested buyers and gives you a direct, low-cost route to warm customers the moment your offers go live – no peak auction prices required.
By the time your sale launches, your best customers should already be waiting for it.
The Bottom Line
Black Friday isn’t won on Black Friday. It’s won in the weeks before it.
Get in front of new audiences while it’s affordable. Get your catalogue clean. Get your creative ready. Get your customers segmented. And get your early access list growing. Do that now, and your busiest period runs smoothly – instead of running you.
This is the first instalment of our weekly Black Friday series, so keep an eye out for next week’s insights.
And if you’d like an extra pair of eyes on your peak trading strategy, our team is always on hand. Let’s talk.
