What You Need to Know About Black Friday 2021 – Insights and Analysis

The dust of Australia’s biggest spending spree is starting to settle, and, as expected, it was an economic force. As has been the trend of recent years, this newest Black Friday surpassed its predecessors. Although the excitement’s over for most, this is our favourite part. Unify’s approach involves continual improvement through data-driven insights. Our specialists have been evaluating the various areas of our clients’ campaigns – the wins and losses, the strategies, the ROAS. Let’s delve into a few of these insights with Unify’s Performance Director, Oliver Notley.

Those who started their sales early were rewarded.

“A consistent factor of success, across most of our campaigns, was a company starting their sales early – by at least a week. We saw clients benefit from the universal lead up to Black Friday. Shoppers were eager and motivated, so companies that got up and running earlier capitalised on that eagerness.”

Strategic preparation was vital.

“Clients that proactively planned for Black Friday – seeing the merit in creating a strategic build-up to their sale and creating awareness – were heavily rewarded for their efforts. We implemented lead generation strategies for some clients at the beginning of November. We followed this up with countdown emails to subscribers, building anticipation and awareness before starting the sale early, giving consumers a chance to purchase before spending their allocated funds. Finally, we increased budgets for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This is a critical aspect – businesses who placed trust in us to spend more in their campaigns reaped the rewards.”

It’s still about the consumer experience.

“While Black Friday always comes and goes in a blink of an eye, a well-rounded customer experience is still essential to maximising your results – namely, taking your target audience on a journey. That’s why those clients who started campaigns early, building up to the sale, experienced the greatest return.”

Were there any particular industries that capitalised on Black Friday the most?

“Black Friday can reward all companies, but those who tend to do the best sell non-essential products, meaning that it’s not a critical need, it’s a want. An example can be drawn between two of our clients, one in the food industry and one in the technological sector. The client in the food industry didn’t see much of an uptake over the four days of the Black Friday weekend, but our technology client had a fanfare. That’s because people tend to view these sales as a chance to indulge, harbouring less guilt because of the discounts.”

You have to play ball, or you’ll pay the price.

“Finally, what I spoke about in our previous Black Friday blog was present again – Black Friday forces companies to put together attractive deals because the dip in sales you’ll experience otherwise is significant.”

How can an elite digital marketing strategy help your business?

Take the example of Unify’s client from the retail industry. In 2019 their Black Friday total sales – just the Friday alone – was $270,000. In 2020 Unify got the opportunity to partner with the company and put together a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, leading to a revenue of $630,000 for the same day a year later. Then, analysing the data we attained from 2020, we increased total sales for the day up to $1.3 million this year; Black Friday to Cyber Monday was $2.2 million.

November has a month on month increase in revenue of 195.99% and an increase year on year of 56.41% – these statistics demonstrate just how influential Black Friday is for a business.

The great and powerful thing about digital marketing is its reach – it’s everywhere. If you have an effective strategy and methodical implementation, you can increase awareness relatively quickly, and by reading the data, improve your audience targeting. Continually building on this is a major reason why you’ll see more money coming in.

What did Black Friday look like for a company selling an essential product?

Adaptability is critical to success. As mentioned, each industry and company is different, with some favoured more by sales events like Black Friday than others. We knew that for our food industry client, they wouldn’t be at the forefront of consumers’ minds over the four days of Black Friday to Cyber Monday, with their product seen more as a necessity than an indulgence. Wanting to still maximise a motivated audience, we launched their Australian and the United Kingdom Black Friday campaigns early – on November 18.

This strategy paid off, with Australia having a record day in revenue. The United Kingdom brought in their sixth biggest revenue day in their history. For November, the Australian market yielded a staggering 826% increase from November of 2020.

No time to rest…

Hopefully some of these insights you can implement for your own business for the next sales period! Facebook have declared Boxing Day through to January 7 as the fifth quarter. So what have you got planned for this sale event?

We love chatting strategies and ideas, so drop us a note if you want to boost your business with profitable growth.