Black Friday has often been treated like a sacrificial ritual: slash prices, hold your breath, clear the warehouse? That’s not strategy, that’s surrender. The real opportunity is to ride peak buyer intent and acquire more customers at a lower cost as the path to purchase gets compressed.
In 2024, New Zealand’s online spend reached $94.6 million over Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM), up 7% year on year, driven by more transactions (+11%) but smaller baskets (–3%) (NZ Post). Demand has shifted to volume and velocity. That’s exactly where customer acquisition costs can become more efficient.
Price from acquisition efficiency, not from margin
If you structure your activity smartly, Black Friday can be an opportunity to acquire new customers at a lower cost and, in turn, make your marketing dollars work harder. This gives you room to shape your discounting strategy around the improved acquisition costs rather than delegating the hit to your profitability.
This approach works best for growth-minded businesses that understand the expected lifetime value of their customers and can factor marketing costs into their cost to serve.
Lower acquisition costs are driven by the rapid increase of consumers in-market and ready to buy over a short window. But don’t be fooled, not every Black Friday campaign is guaranteed to deliver those gains. There are some clear considerations you need to give to your campaign approach.
You’re competing for the wallet
On Black Friday you’re not just up against the usual suspects; you’re up against every other claim on the same consumer wallet. Your position should be: why should our category win this consumer’s wallet, and why should our brand be the first and easiest “yes” inside it?
The brands that will win keep this front and centre or have been building their case leading up to Black Friday – not launching the morning of. Haven’t started? Consider getting an awareness campaign up or expanding on your business-as-usual activity.
This is backed by a recent Google study which found that during the peak week of the broader Black Friday period, the ratio of brand to generic searches flipped. In the lead-up, consumers focus on researching product categories they’re interested in. But once the big week arrives, their attention shifts to the brands that have already captured their interest.
With Black Friday falling on the 28th this year, we can expect a repeat of last year’s “Fake Friday” effect (when BFCM landed on the 29th). Many brands are likely to launch their Black Friday campaigns earlier, effectively extending the sales window across November. This trend has created confusion among consumers, with many last year mistakenly believing the Friday before was the real Black Friday.
Whether or not you choose to leverage this and extend your own sale period, it’s important to factor it into your planning. Particularly when determining the right time to shift your messaging from building brand and product value in the market to a more promo-driven focus.
Final thoughts
Resist the urge to place all your chips on hefty discounts. Instead, treat Black Friday as an efficiency play fuelled by peak buyer behaviour. A brief window when friction falls and your marketing can deliver disproportionate performance.
Keep these principles in front of mind:
- Discount from cheaper customer acquisition, not margin. Let improved acquisition efficiency drive your discounting, not the reduction of profit.
- Plan early and harvest the demand you’ve planted. Brands that build awareness and intent before the big week will capture more efficient conversions when demand peaks.
- Anchor in value. Compete on relevance and proposition strength, not blanket discounts. Treat discounts as a cherry on top, enabled by lower acquisition costs.
- Timing is everything. With the “Fake Friday” effect stretching the season, know when to pivot from brand building to promotion and be ready to adapt dynamically if needed.
- Think long term and focus on lifetime value. Do not stop Black Friday at new customer acquisition by initial sale; retention is where efficiency compounds and the true value of Black Friday is realised.
