20 Things You Can Do To Improve BFCM Performance Right Now
On top of running our own ads, we’ve been hearing from our referral partners, along with the general Twittersphere that lower ad spend accounts aren’t doing as great as they normally would be at this time on Black Friday.
There are so many reasons things might not be clicking (pun intended) as they normally would be. Perhaps it’s one of the following:
You started your sale early and your bottom-funnel/retargeting audience has already converted
Your deal is good but not great, so people are still thinking about it
Consumers are waiting a bit longer to see all the deals out there and then make a decision later.
Consumers know that Monday sometimes holds even better deals
We’re in the middle of a pandemic and consumers don’t have the cash they normally do
That’s not an exhaustive list, but it’s some potential reasons to consider. Also, keep in mind that CPMs/CPAs are already what the kids say, “HIGH AF,” so know and expect to pay more than you want to for simple reach and impressions than you normally would.
So, what can you do about it?
We decided to make a list of the 20 things you can try right now to improve performance and round out the weekend and Cyber Monday with success.
Change your campaigns back to previous ads that were converting well before BFCM and turn off your BFCM ads (but make sure the sale is easy to find on the website). Many times we are seeing that these campaigns have optimized and can perform much better over brand new campaigns with new creative.
Number 1, part 2: If these campaigns are already on, try layering in the BFCM ads that have already done well/have good social proof to see if you can maximize the learnings of the existing pre-BFCM campaign with the solid BFCM creative.
2. Don’t be afraid to test different optimizations. Conversion campaigns optimizing for clicks/LPV with a higher bid cap can help win auctions and help get lower funnel audiences back to your site more cost effectively.
3. Update middle funnel ads with a 4X5 founder video, talking about the discounts and deals in a very UGC fashion.
4. Change the language on your DPAs to be holiday themed, along with trying holiday frames.
5. Try a collection or a carousel ad in any part of the funnel.
6. Try CBO’ing your segmented middle funnel.
7. Try a static 4X5 image with the deal overlaying on the image.
Try images/videos/GIFs with Instagram Story text overlay (like you’re editing for an organic Instagram Story – makes editing a breeze and looks organic in the feed).
8. Create a lookalike of your purchasers since your sale started.
9. Cut budget to start and scale up if it works. The bigger the budget, the harder Facebook has to work to find people. if your account is struggling, dupe some of the campaigns, start them at a lower budget and then if they perform, scale gradually back up to where you were.
10. Try dynamic creative tests with winning creatives from Black Friday thus far.
11. Try using 4 square images as an unpublished post with copy calling out a limited time offer
12. Try auto-applying the discount code (tip from Ray)
13. Widen out the middle funnel audience much more than you normally would - 180 Website visitors, 180 Add to Carts (no purchase), 365 social engagers, and unengaged email subscribers.
If your 180-day WCA seems to be stalling out, try a 90-day, 25% top time on site
14. If you’re using cost caps, raise the cap since it’s an incredibly competitive (and expensive) time in the auction right now.
15. Test bid caps – take your best performing audience and create a CBO of that audience, with each ad set a different bid cap (1.0 CPA, 1.5 CPA, 2x CPA , 2.5 CPA and 3 CPA). If you are normally not a huge manual bidder but if the account is really struggling, you may be able to identify a bid cap that finds you better people. If you find a winner in that CBO of different bid caps, try to start using it in other campaigns
16. Edit the ad copy to specifically target the audience you’re reaching (i.e. if it’s past purchasers/loyalty, mention ‘stocking up’ or ‘you never can have too many X’ to make it more customized to them as a user.
17. Push urgency in the copy — a lot of people are waiting to see if better deals come up, so encourage them to buy now/sale ends X, especially if your brand’s CM sale isn’t better (or if there isn’t one at all.
18. Test optimizing for 1 day click/view - so many of your conversions are coming in on a 1 day click so it may be a huge optimizer to tell FB to focus on this data over the 7 day window.
19. If you’ve been running videos in IG stories over the last 180 days, create a 50% Video View of all your IG videos and retarget this audience on IG & FB newsfeed. we’re seeing this as a strong MOFU audience
20. (If you can), play around with the offer. Ad buyers always talk about Black Friday/Cyber Monday as a time to “Go big or go home,” and we think that is more the case this year than EVER – more competition, more companies having run more sales all year because of the pandemic, etc. if you can talk to your client about sweetening your offer, DO IT.
BONUS TIP: Check out a bunch more great ideas here.
