The brands I work with started planning this Black Friday in June. We tested offers in July (Christmas in July is real, and it works), and by September their audiences were warm and their tracking was clean. That's why a few of them can calmly skip Black Friday this year.
If you're reading this in November without that plan, you're in the majority. Black Friday is Nov. 27. You have 18 days, and you don't need a bigger discount. You need to know where your store is losing money before the traffic shows up.
If you're under $5 million a year, you can't afford to sit this one out. Under $1 million, your upside is the biggest it will be all year, and so is your risk, because every dollar you spend this month has to work.
Run This Five-Minute Test First
Pull last month's order count from your store. Then find the same number in GA4, your email platform and your ads manager. If they don't agree within a few orders, start with Move 1. One store I rebuilt had analytics that saw 36% of its orders, so every budget decision there was a guess.
Move 1: Make Sure Every Order Gets Counted
In every store I've worked on, whatever I was hired for, fixing the store itself made the biggest difference. If your tracking is broken, you can have your best Black Friday ever and still not know what caused it. That revenue won't repeat next year, it won't carry into January, and you'll be back to running flat offers all year.
This week, check two numbers: how many full carts become orders, and how often desktop shoppers buy compared with mobile. For one founder, 35% of full carts became orders, and desktop shoppers bought at 1.1%, less often than phone shoppers. After we rebuilt her cart with tracking wired in, 51% of carts became orders by week three. Desktop shoppers more than doubled to 2.6%, and sales per 1,000 visitors went from 13 to 28 on the same traffic.
If your numbers don't match, that's your leak. The Revenue Fix is 90 minutes with me. We find the leak and fix it live, and your tracking shows real data before the call ends. Book it before the traffic arrives.
Move 2: Email the Customers You Already Have, This Week
If you're established, this is the most important thing you can do in the next seven days. Tell your existing customers whether you're doing Black Friday or sitting it out, and use that email as an excuse to clean your list. Finish your welcome series and cart reminder before any Black Friday ad goes live.
One brand's welcome email sat in draft for three years, and it made a sale two days after it went live. A medspa I worked with made $9,900 from emails to existing customers from Black Friday through December 2024, with $0 in ads. A retail brand saw 16% more returning customers, with average order value up 6%.
Ads follow the same rule: Black Friday clicks are cheapest from people who already know you. For one brand, past visitors cost 81 to 89 cents a click, 57% to 75% less than new audiences. Give those people a deadline and they'll act on it.
If your list is small, run a signup offer today. Every address you add before Nov. 27 can get your Black Friday email. One store added 3,000 new emails in a month at $3.97 a lead, and a retail brand added 5,710 signups in a single fall.
Move 3: Trade the Discount for a Value Add
Stop giving discounts and start adding value. That could be time with you, an extra product, first access to something new or a gift card. A $200 gift card was another medspa's top December seller.
One brand I worked with sold a 365-day supply. We didn't discount it for Black Friday. We built it into the overall plan, and six months into the next year it was still the top-selling offer and the top funnel for repeat business. A discount ends with the sale, while a value add keeps selling for months.
You still need urgency. My best flash sales had a deadline and a reason to buy now: one lifted sales 188% in 2020, and another lifted orders 98% in 2022. A deadline creates that urgency without a markdown.
Black Friday Is How You Learn What to Do in Q1
The money in November matters. The data matters more, because it tells you which channel to push harder in Q1, the scariest quarter for an early-stage brand. Q5, the quiet stretch between Christmas and mid-January, is where you act on what you learned before your competitors notice the year has started.
That only works if the numbers are right. Once the system was running for one established store, its October orders and revenue grew 281% year over year. Everything runs in cycles. Once you see your business that way, or have someone beside you who does, your revenue becomes predictable.
Find Out Which Move Is Yours
I built No More Discounts from playbooks I've developed with 250+ brands over the last 15+ years. Answer nine questions about your store, and in a few minutes you'll get three moves that protect your margin this Black Friday, chosen for your store instead of the general version above.
Ready to Put Your Moves in Place?
Under $1 million: The Consulting Hour. Bring your three moves to 60 minutes with me, and leave with a plan to carry them out yourself before Nov. 27. I won't build anything; you leave knowing exactly what to do and in what order. The last two founders who booked it made new sales within hours of our call. It's $500.
$1 million and up, one leak: The Revenue Fix. In 90 minutes with me, you pick the leak, I fix it live, and your tracking shows real data before we hang up. It's $2,500, with no discovery call.
$1 million and up, all three moves: The Holiday Revenue Build. I fix your cart and product pages, build your holiday offer and email sequences, and reconcile your tracking, all live by Nov. 20. It's $7,500 and open to six stores only, and sign-ups close Friday, Nov. 13.
Claim Your Holiday Revenue Build
I'm Vix Reitano, founder and CEO of Agency 6B. Reply with your cart-to-order rate and I'll tell you where I'd look first. See the research that built this post on Our Work and here for our Black Friday e-comm results.