Black Friday is coming. Here are 3 steps to help you get ready!

Nearly everyone loves a bargain, and even more so as the build-up to the Christmas season approaches.
The excitement of grabbing a bargain has made Black Friday the global phenomenon it is today and thus presenting a great opportunity for your Brands.

As an advertiser, taking full advantage of this phenomenon is not only an opportunity but also a challenge. So, for that very reason, we are going to offer you a series of tips and tricks aimed at helping you make the most from your affiliate campaigns during these all-important dates.

Black Friday 2019 starts 29th November and, as it has become customary, lasts until the 2nd December, where it joins forces with Cyber Monday. Some advertisers even extend their campaigns beyond these dates, sometimes for a week or more, hoping to maximise their sales.

Whether your campaign lasts 3, 7 or 15 days you need to take the following steps into account.

Useful tips to optimize your affiliate campaigns for Black Friday 2019.

Start by planning. Divide your campaign into 3 phases and get yourself organized.

1. Before Black Friday:

Launching a last-minute offer can get you more sales than normal but it won’t have any effect on your conversion rate. Ideally, you need to plan ahead.

• Prepare everything

The best preparation you can do is to have all the offers and discounts ready at least a month beforehand, so that the agency who manages your campaign, or the networks with whom you collaborate, can distribute your offers amongst their publishers at the right time. This is probably something you’re used to doing all year round, but since we’re talking about these really special dates, give your campaign a twist. Offer above and beyond what you normally offer the rest of the year, create something that is genuinely unique. How to do this?

Spread your wings: dare to go one step further than last year. Set your budget and try something new, for example, visibility packets offered by publishers can make your offers stand out above the rest.
There is a great diversity of proposals, choose one that suits your needs and budget, then run with it and hopefully you will see some very good results.

Be ingenious and aggressive: reach all your potential customers through all the possible channels within your grasp. Don’t limit yourself to just offers and discounts, for example, complement these actions with powerful display campaigns. To do this, it is essential that your banner designs are novel and attractive, that way the uniqueness of your offer is highlighted.

Create a sense of urgency: the feeling of immediacy is very powerful, so you should make it clear when your campaign ends. Countdowns tend to work really well, especially when the user is really interested, they won’t wait until another day to buy it.

Competitive discounts: in our experience, the offers that work best are those that offer at least a 20% discount. Make the wait for Black Friday worth it, if not you will be sending your potential customers right into the hands of your competitors.

Special incentives: what really motivates the publishers to promote a program, with all their might, is on the one hand, the product or service will have a good conversion rate amongst its users and on the other hand if this happens, the publishers seeing their work valued through more beneficial incentives.
Budget permitting, don’t skimp on those publishers that can make a difference, apart from doing an excellent job during this crucial period, they will continue to promote your program/s the rest of the year.

These seem small yet insignificant details however, they can help to increase your ROI.

• Optimize your web

During these special dates, you will receive a large increase in concentrated traffic. So, make sure that the user’s experience is a good one, so even if they don’t buy, they will return again at some point. Take a good look at the following:

Speed: if your webpage takes more than 3 seconds to load, it is under-optimized. Do a test and if you don’t pass, then do everything necessary to reduce that all-important loading time.

Usability: check all the pages load correctly and are functioning as they should, do the same with the forms and the shopping cart. Don’t wait until the launch of a campaign to find out something isn’t working properly.

Design: the key here is visual coherence between the distinct platforms, this generates greater user confidence. Therefore, adapting the home or “landing page” in which your potential clients will be first introduced to the campaign is a “must”.

2. During Black Friday:

In this phase, you have two options: wait quietly to get results or continue being proactive to get the most out of your affiliation campaign.

• Promote your campaign

Do not neglect social networks and do use your existing database to send out newsletters. These are both good channels to build up the hype surrounding your campaign and communicate to your followers or subscribers that you have special offers for them, this will guarantee more and more of them will click on your offer.

3. After Black Friday:

• Analysis

It is essential to analyse the results of your campaign; this will help verify the effectiveness of all your work and how your investment performed. If everything went as expected, you will detect a large volume of traffic and sales during the days that the campaign has been active.
In addition, you will obtain other valuable data to help steer your next marketing actions, such as: which devices have been the most used, in which countries or cities you have sold the most or which pages generated the most interest.

• Draw conclusions

Thanks to this wealth of information, you can draw your own conclusions and above all learn from both the positives and the negatives of your campaign. One thing is for certain, all the data collected will prove to be invaluable with your future decision making.