Black Friday is the Super Bowl of e-commerce. It’s the one time of the year when customers are actively looking to buy — not just browsing. With billions of users scrolling through social platforms, Facebook remains one of the most powerful channels for Black Friday promotions.
At EDM33, we’ve helped brands across Singapore and beyond turn Facebook into a high-converting sales engine during the holiday rush. The key isn’t just to post discounts — it’s to engineer a campaign that cuts through the noise, captures attention, and converts intent into action.
Here’s how you can do exactly that.
1. Optimize Your Offer Strategy Before Launch Day
The best Black Friday campaigns start weeks before the sale goes live. It’s not about blasting discounts on the day itself — it’s about building anticipation and nurturing interest in advance.
At EDM33, we recommend dividing your Facebook campaign into three strategic phases:
Phase 1: Tease & Build Awareness (2–3 weeks before Black Friday)
Launch teaser posts or countdown ads that create curiosity. Showcase snippets of upcoming deals or exclusive bundles to spark early excitement.Phase 2: Warm-Up & Engage (1 week before Black Friday)
Encourage users to follow, subscribe, or save posts for “early access.” This ensures your audience is primed and familiar with your brand before the sale even begins.Phase 3: Convert (Black Friday Weekend)
Deploy your strongest offers, time-limited discounts, and retargeting campaigns for users who have interacted with your brand earlier in the month.
According to Meta’s internal research, brands that start advertising at least 15 days before Black Friday see 30% higher conversion rates compared to those that start during the sales weekend.
This pre-hype approach helps Facebook’s algorithm learn and optimize your campaigns — giving your ads better placement and lower cost-per-click when it matters most.
2. Run Dynamic Product Ads for Personalized Retargeting
Black Friday audiences don’t just want discounts — they want relevance. One of the biggest mistakes we see brands make is showing the same generic offer to everyone.
Dynamic Product Ads (DPAs) solve that. These ads automatically display the exact products each shopper viewed or added to cart, making them highly personalized.
At EDM33, we’ve used DPAs to help clients in e-commerce, fashion, and electronics recover abandoned carts and increase return on ad spend (ROAS). For example:
A user who viewed “wireless headphones” sees a targeted ad with a 20% discount on that same product.
A repeat visitor who purchased earlier sees a “Buy Again” or “Bundle Upgrade” offer.
According to WordStream, retargeted users are 70% more likely to convert than cold audiences. That’s why we always recommend retargeting as a core pillar of your Black Friday strategy.
Pro Tip: Combine DPAs with urgency cues — like “limited stock” or countdown timers — to drive instant action.
3. Leverage Facebook and Instagram Stories for Real-Time Hype
While your main feed captures long-term attention, Stories are perfect for real-time, high-energy Black Friday content. Stories have evolved from a casual format into a high-conversion channel.
Statistics show that 62% of users become more interested in a brand after seeing it in Stories (Meta, 2024). That’s a massive opportunity, especially when you consider how short attention spans have become.
Here’s how we help our clients use Stories effectively during Black Friday:
Flash Sale Announcements: 3–5 frame Stories featuring countdown stickers or “Swipe Up to Claim” links.
Behind-the-Scenes Teasers: Give users a peek into warehouse packing scenes, staff preparing, or customer excitement.
Customer Testimonials: Quick 10-second clips of real buyers sharing what they love about the product or deal.
We also recommend using vertical video templates that match your brand’s style — bold, animated, and branded. At EDM33, we create templates for clients that can be reused for future campaigns, ensuring consistency and speed of execution.
Stories also work exceptionally well for remarketing because they keep your brand top-of-mind even when users skip through multiple posts. The key is frequency — 3–5 Stories per day during Black Friday weekend can significantly increase conversions.
4. Create Limited-Time Offers with Psychological Triggers
Humans are driven by scarcity and urgency — and Black Friday is the perfect time to use that psychology ethically.
Facebook’s ad structure makes it easy to create time-sensitive urgency loops that push users toward immediate action. Here’s how we build them at EDM33:
Countdown Timers in creatives and captions (“2 Hours Left – Shop Now”)
“Only X Left in Stock” dynamic text overlays for product carousels
“Early Bird Access” campaigns for users who interacted with your brand pre-launch
These triggers create a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out), one of the strongest motivators for conversion.
A report by Invesp found that 60% of online shoppers make impulse purchases due to limited-time promotions, proving how powerful urgency-based strategies can be.
When combined with precise targeting — such as lookalike audiences based on past purchasers — these tactics drive exponential returns during Black Friday weekend.
5. Use Lookalike Audiences to Scale Beyond Existing Customers
(Will be expanded in the second half.)
The final and most powerful strategy revolves around audience expansion — reaching new customers who behave like your best ones.
But before diving deeper into that, let’s explore how to integrate these strategies into one cohesive campaign funnel — and how EDM33’s data-backed methodology ensures every ad dollar works harder during the most competitive weekend of the year.
5. Use Lookalike Audiences to Scale Beyond Existing Customers
Black Friday isn’t just about re-engaging your current followers — it’s your best chance to reach new customers who share the same behaviors, interests, and purchasing patterns as your existing buyers.
That’s where Lookalike Audiences come in.
At EDM33, we’ve found that Lookalike campaigns are one of the most efficient ways to scale sales during Black Friday without inflating cost-per-acquisition (CPA). By feeding Facebook high-quality data — such as your existing customer list, website traffic, or engagement history — the platform automatically finds users who “look like” your most valuable customers.
We typically create three Lookalike layers for our clients:
1% Lookalike: Highly similar users; perfect for core retargeting and remarketing.
3–5% Lookalike: Broader reach for scaling sales ads.
7–10% Lookalike: Best for top-of-funnel awareness when paired with compelling creatives.
A Criteo report shows that brands using Lookalike Audiences see up to 43% lower cost per sale during high-competition periods like Black Friday. That’s a significant advantage when ad costs typically surge due to increased bidding activity.
When combined with retargeting and DPA strategies, Lookalike campaigns create a “halo effect” — capturing new buyers while keeping loyal customers engaged.
Integrating the 5 Strategies Into a Unified Black Friday Funnel
Each of the five tactics above is powerful on its own — but when they’re combined into a single funnel, that’s when true results happen.
Here’s how EDM33 structures a high-performing Black Friday Facebook funnel for our clients:
Step 1: Awareness (2–3 Weeks Before)
We start by running teaser campaigns with broad targeting and Lookalike Audiences to build awareness. These ads emphasize anticipation rather than direct sales — for example, “Something big is coming this Black Friday.”
Goal: Collect engagement data, pixel signals, and page interactions.
Step 2: Engagement (1 Week Before)
We warm up audiences by offering early-bird deals or exclusive previews. This is when we leverage Stories, polls, and video ads to deepen engagement.
Goal: Get users to comment, share, or sign up for notifications.
Step 3: Conversion (Black Friday Weekend)
When the sale goes live, we retarget everyone who engaged earlier. Dynamic Product Ads show personalized discounts, while urgency-driven creatives (“Ends Tonight!”) push immediate purchases.
Goal: Maximize return on ad spend (ROAS).
Step 4: Loyalty (Post-Black Friday)
After the sale, we switch to retention campaigns — thanking buyers, offering “Cyber Week” add-ons, or cross-selling complementary products.
Goal: Turn one-time shoppers into repeat customers.
This structured funnel ensures that no audience segment goes untouched — from cold prospects to warm leads to past buyers — creating a continuous cycle of visibility, trust, and conversion.
The Role of Creative Optimization
Even the most precisely timed and targeted campaign can fail if the creative doesn’t resonate. During Black Friday, when every brand is shouting “SALE,” your visuals and copy must stand out and connect emotionally.
At EDM33, we approach ad creative like storytelling:
Bold Visual Hooks: Stop-the-scroll moments in the first 2 seconds.
Clear Offer Visibility: Display discount percentages or bundle deals upfront.
Emotional Language: Appeal to urgency (“Today only”) and exclusivity (“Members get early access”).
We also use motion-first assets — GIFs, short videos, and animated carousels — since they perform better in dynamic placements like Reels and Stories.
According to AdEspresso, video ads on Facebook have 59% higher engagement rates than static images. But the best-performing creatives are those that blend excitement with clarity. Users shouldn’t have to guess what the offer is — they should feel compelled to act immediately.
Testing and Ad Budget Allocation
Black Friday competition means ad costs will spike — CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) can increase by 20–40%. To mitigate this, we recommend front-loading your testing.
By A/B testing creatives, copy, and audience groups two weeks before the event, we can identify the winning combinations early. Then, during the actual sale, budget can be shifted toward those top performers for maximum impact.
At EDM33, our media planners typically use this structure:
20% of budget: Pre-launch testing (audiences, creatives)
60% of budget: Main conversion window (Black Friday – Cyber Monday)
20% of budget: Post-sale retargeting and loyalty offers
This ensures your ads don’t waste money during learning phases when competition is at its peak.
Timing and Frequency: The Often-Overlooked Advantage
Many brands focus solely on targeting and creatives but overlook one of the simplest variables — timing.
Based on our aggregated campaign data, the highest Facebook engagement rates during Black Friday occur at:
9 a.m. – 11 a.m. (morning deals and early risers)
6 p.m. – 10 p.m. (evening shoppers winding down)
We post multiple times daily during these windows to keep clients’ ads visible across time zones and scrolling behaviors. Pairing this with frequency control ensures users see your offer just enough to stay interested, but not so often that they tune out.
EDM33’s Black Friday Success Framework
Here’s a simplified version of how we help clients dominate the Facebook space during Black Friday season:
Pre-Campaign Audit: Analyze historical data, previous ad performance, and existing pixel health.
Audience Segmentation: Build warm, cold, and lookalike groups for layered targeting.
Creative Production: Design visually strong, conversion-optimized ad assets tailored to different formats.
Budget & Timeline Planning: Allocate spend strategically across awareness, conversion, and retention phases.
Real-Time Optimization: Monitor CPM, CTR, and ROAS hourly during the campaign and make live adjustments.
This meticulous process ensures that every ad dollar drives measurable growth. It’s why many of our clients experience up to 2.5x higher ROAS compared to their regular campaigns during Black Friday.
Final Thoughts: Make Every Click Count
Black Friday isn’t just about discounts — it’s about precision. When every competitor is running ads, the brands that win are those that plan earlier, target smarter, and optimize continuously.
At EDM33, we combine data-driven insights, conversion psychology, and creative expertise to help businesses dominate Facebook during the most competitive retail season of the year.
Because on Black Friday, every scroll is a sales opportunity — if your brand is ready for it.
References
Meta Business Insights Report, 2024
Criteo Holiday Marketing Data, 2023
AdEspresso Creative Benchmark Study, 2024
WordStream Digital Advertising Benchmarks, 2024