Black Friday is not just a high sales period for most brands every year; it is also a major stress test in terms of data, performance, and user experience.

During this period when traffic, competition, and advertising costs soar, the winners are the brands that finish their preparations weeks in advance.

Here are 11 strategic steps that brands must take before Black Friday begins:

1- Analyze Historical Data in Depth: Which campaigns really worked?

It's important not to look at past Black Friday campaigns solely from a sales perspective.

• Which channel delivered the best ROI?

• Where did the average cart value increase?

• Which demographic clicked but did not convert?

This data allows you to define this year's strategy based on evidence, not blindly.
You can review last year's funnel performance (TOFU-MOFU-BOFU) with your data team and take quick action while there's still a bit of time by noting the bottlenecks.

2- Rethink Segmentation and Personalization: The Era of “One Message for Everyone” is Over

Campaigns constructed without segmenting user data are equivalent to burning money, not just during Black Friday but for all periods.

Instead of sending the same message to new customers, existing customers, and users who abandoned their carts; we must perform data-driven segmentation.
Personalize your emails, SMS, push notifications, and social media ads according to these segments.

3- Stress Test Your Website and Infrastructure: Can You Handle Increased Traffic?

If your site crashes on Black Friday morning, it won't matter what your desired advertising budget is; your entire campaign plan will be wasted.
You must test server capacity, CDN structure, cache management, page loading speed, and mobile experience.
Focus on the real user experience, not Google PageSpeed or GTmetrix scores.

4- Start Your CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) Tests Now

Last-minute changes can lead to disaster.
The week of Black Friday is not a time for testing; it is a time for implementation.
You should complete A/B tests in areas such as price, CTA, banners, pop-ups, form design, or product rankings by the end of October or, at the latest, the first week of November.

Optimize the most clicked areas by analyzing user behavior data (session recording, heatmap, scroll map). You don't want your significant discounts to go unnoticed in places where users show little interest.

Most importantly, do not initiate any new tests during the week of Black Friday.
Conducting A/B tests during this period should go through quite complex processes and be subject to very detailed analyses. It is best to avoid risks during this time.

5- Optimize SEO-Focused Landing Pages and Get Them Indexed in Advance

Google does not index pages instantly.
Thus, you should publish your special pages for Black Friday (for instance, "black-friday-discounts", "black-friday-television-campaign" etc.) at least 2-3 weeks in advance.
Make sure you optimize the meta titles, descriptions, and schema markups.
Don’t remove your pages after the campaign is over. If you regularly update them and turn them into evergreen content, you can maintain your page authority and rankings.

6- Plan Your Advertising Budget Based on Time: Be Prepared for Rising CPMs

During the week of Black Friday, CPMs and CPCs can increase by up to 50%.
Plan your advertising budget not daily, but by taking periodical fluctuations into account.

During the preparatory phase, you might focus on “awareness” campaigns, and during the Black Friday week, you can invest in “remarketing”.
Do not see ROAS tracking as a single metric; include long-term metrics like average cart value, repeat purchases, and LTV (lifetime value).

7- Synchronize Your Email and SMS Automations According to Segments

Attempting to send manual messages during the campaign week invites errors.

It is therefore crucial to pre-program your email & SMS automations with triggers such as “campaign launched”, “stock is running out”, “last 6 hours”.

While doing this, you must ensure that the data & CRM integration is flawless.
Because sending wrong discounts to the wrong people can erode trust in your brand.

8- Update Your Feeds and Product Data: Stock, Price, Visual Inconsistencies Cost Sales

Price or stock errors in your Google Merchant Center or Meta Catalog feeds prevent ads from going live.

Therefore, validate all feeds manually at least 3 days before the campaign.
Also, updating the visuals and texts of dynamic ads to fit the Black Friday theme would be beneficial.

9- Plan Your Post-Black Friday Strategy: What is Your Retention Plan for Acquired Users?

Black Friday is not just a “one-day sale”; it is also an opportunity to expand your customer base.
Once the campaign is over, it is essential to plan retention actions such as “Thank You Email”, “special campaign for new customer segment” . Otherwise, you may end up with the high budgets you spent and only users who purchased from you once.
View Black Friday not as the end of a sales marathon, but as the beginning of your loyalty strategy.

10- Update Your Data-Driven Decision Infrastructure: You Can’t Optimize What You Don’t Measure

At the core of all these points is data.
Ensure that your Google Analytics events, Meta Pixel, and other tracking tools are triggered correctly.
Is the UTM structure consistent? Are CRM data flowing correctly to advertising platforms?

Also, don’t just collect data, but integrate it into decision-making processes.
For example, identify segments with “high average cart value + low return rate” and offer special deals.
If data quality is low, the entire strategy will be misaligned. That’s why check your data before Black Friday.

Brands That Prepare Early Win

The success of Black Friday is determined not in the campaign week, but in the preparations made at least 4 weeks earlier.
For brands, it’s not just about discounts; it’s about data-driven decisions, optimized experiences, and sustainable profitability.
In short, "Preparing for Black Friday" is not a checklist, but a holistic performance discipline.