Tambo’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday Checklist: 10 Top Tips

Retail’s famous Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend is incoming (where did that time go?!) - and we’re here to make sure you’re ready with our Tambo checklist. The following 10 tips are here to help you and ensure all bases are covered, from advertising through to managing your top sellers.

1. Tailored Strategy

What works for one, may not work for all. Use previous analysis and insights from your sales to understand if there are any distinct trends that can help you to implement the right strategy for your promotional setup.

2. Ensure profitability

With overheads rising and margins being squeezed, it's essential to consider profitability when deploying any kind of discount in conjunction with media spend. Before deploying campaigns, consider the TACOS and the trading profit margin of each ASIN after promotional funding and AMS spend have been applied to help inform spending strategies around peak periods.

3. Consider your objective

Profitability is important, however it is not the only objective around peak periods. With the increase in site traffic, your goal around Black Friday could be to deploy a highly competitive discount at a loss, to slingshot your ASIN up the rankings in order to reach new to brand customers and create loyalty. In this case it is important to set a budget and track spend and sales closely throughout the event to ensure it is not exceeded.

4. Optimise your listings with relevant holiday search terms

Get your Amazon listings ready for Black Friday by updating your product titles and descriptions with some appropriate keywords for the holidays. This is one tip you can apply sooner rather than later because Black Friday sales on Amazon begin in early November.

5. Add some festive images to your Amazon storefront

Whether you’re offering Black Friday discounts or not, it’s still a good idea to refresh your Amazon store with a few holiday-themed images to get your customers in the spirit for some Black Friday shopping.

6. Plan “Cyber Monday” after Black Friday

Plan discounts for Cyber Monday too. Buyers will look for bargains on both days so capitalise on the increased searches and draw buyers to your listings with attractive discounts.

7. Double Check Your Listings

Now is as good a time as ever to check that your listings are optimised. From back end keywords to your headlines and bullet pointed descriptions, ensure that your product listings are retail ready for potential consumers.

8. Manage Your Advertising Budgets

Suggested bids from Amazon will be increasing as we head into another sale period. Your budgets can be managed via portfolios and campaigns, and the more granular you are in prepping your ads for a surge in traffic, the more likely you are to avoid those out of budget notifications - keeping your ads live and running throughout the weekend.

9. Prep Your Biggest Sellers

We recommend that any and all sellers should be aware of where their greatest ad revenue comes from. Your biggest sellers - whether newly or based on previous sale periods, are going to most likely spend most of your budget, as well as drive most of the new revenue and therefore should be a focus when it comes to optimised listings and majority budget for promotion.

10. Lead In, Lead Out

Don’t forget that these well known days for sales have been around for long enough now that businesses and marketers alike are prepping for the long run. The days leading up to the big weekend, as well as leading out, are just as important not only for promotion and sales, but for learnings and analysis to inform your next move.