Push Notification Ideas & Best Practices for eCommerce Black Friday Promotions

Black Friday (and the days around it, from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday) are the most important days of the year for eCommerce brands.

US shoppers spent $9.8 billion online on Black Friday last year, and $12.4 billion on Cyber Monday. In total, eCommerce brands generate nearly $40 billion over Cyber Week.

There’s a lot of competition between brands for their piece of the pie, and push notifications are your secret weapon to stay ahead of the pack. Read on and we’ll explain why, and give you some ideas to help craft a winning Black Friday push notification campaign.

Why Push is the Best Marketing Channel for Brands on Black Friday

Let’s touch on a few reasons why push is so powerful for eCommerce brands, particularly during the holiday season.

Push notifications are cost-effective

Cyber Week is super-competitive, with any brand that cares about getting sales likely running a promotion.

That means the cost of paid traffic channels like social media ads are through the roof.

Push notifications are the opposite. They’re virtually free to send, and yet more likely to be seen than an ad on Facebook or Instagram (which your target might just pass over in a scroll-enduced fugue state).

You can afford to run bigger promotions

One of the difficult parts about Black Friday is running promotions that actually capture attention.

Everyone’s running some kind of deal, and recent surveys show that consumers expect a minimum of 30% off for most product categories for Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales.

If you’re paying for super expensive ads as well, you may not be able to justify offering a big promo as well. But if you have the ability to drive ‘free’ traffic, you may be able to offer massive discounts that separate your brand from the competition.

Push notifications bypass crowded email inboxes

Email is another way to promote your deals for little to no cost. And while email marketing is effective, and worth doing, you’re also contending with massive competition here, and getting visibility during promotional periods is tough.

Your customers are going to have inboxes full of promos from every brand they’ve ever given their email to. Most people aren’t going to patiently look through every single email.

Push is a way to bypass the inbox and get your message straight to the source, landing on your user’s lock screen, where there’s likely to be a lot less competition for attention.

Recipients are already warmed up

Push notifications generally have better engagement and conversion rates than similar channels, largely because recipients are more familiar with your brand.

If you’re messaging them regularly, they’re used to seeing your messages, and the big offer you send them on Black Friday will come with more trust attached.

Compare that to a Black Friday email you get from some brand you bought a pair of shoes from 12 years ago, and who you forget about until their once-annual Black Friday promo comes around.

People are simply more likely to buy from a brand if that familiarity is there.

Push notifications are flexible and easy to personalize

It’s important to personalize your communications, from the content to the timing, to stand out from the hundreds of brands who send the same, boilerplate promos during this time.

Push notifications make it super easy to inject personalization, play around with copy, send different variations to different segments, and make your customers feel unique at a time when many other brands are doing the opposite.

Best Practices for Black Friday Push Notification Campaigns

Sending push notifications alone isn’t enough to make your Black Friday campaigns a success.

It’s important to follow some best practices, and put some thought into your campaigns, to maximize engagement.

Here are a few things to take on board.

Utilize urgency

During Black Friday/Cyber Week, you have urgency built in – whether you’re running a one-day promotion for Black Friday, or a promotion that ends at midnight on Cyber Monday.

Make sure you highlight this in your push messages. Urgency is a proven psychological tactic that increases conversion rates. If shoppers know that the amazing deal they’re looking at will only be around for a short time, they’re more likely to give in to FOMO and take action.

Personalize and segment

Don’t fall into the trap of sending mass-produced push messages that look like they’ve been copied and pasted from chat GPT.

Data shows that personalized push notifications have 4x higher reaction rates. Some ways you can personalize your push notifications is to inject the recipient’s name into the message, or mention some product they purchased in the past.

Additionally, you should segment your push notifications to ensure everyone gets a message and a promotion that’s relevant to them.

Send multiple messages

With all the noise during Cyber Week, don’t be surprised if your first message gets lost in the shuffle, ignored, or the customer just forgets to click it.

You’ll want to send multiple messages, to keep reminding customers of the great deal you’ve got going on.

You don’t want to overdo it and send a constant stream of messages every few minutes, but as long as you’re not going overboard, at least one notification a day (or three messages for a one-day sale) is recommended to ensure you get your customer’s attention.

A/B test before to find out what works best

When it comes to timing, the type of content, specific copy variations, A/B testing can uncover a wealth of insights as to what works best with your audience.

But you don’t want to be testing this during Black Friday. The best brands test this well in advance, and come to Cyber Week with a playbook of tactics and techniques that deliver results.

Run tests well ahead of time, and use the results from these tests to craft your campaign.

Keep copy short, use emojis

It’s not unique to Black Friday or Cyber Monday, but as always with push notifications, short and sharp copy is the best.

You need to capture the reader’s attention and imagination in just a few words.

Emojis are useful too – they’re shown to increase reaction rates by 20%, and offer a great way to convey emotion in a small space, as well as making your messages stand out more.

Learn more: check out our Ultimate Guide to Push Notifications for eCommerce for more best practices and real examples of brands who are winning with push.

7 Black Friday Push Notification Ideas

Now we’ve run through some general push notification best practices, let’s look at some examples of push notifications you can send during Black Friday and Cyber Week.

Pre-Black Friday message

It’s a good idea to warm up your subscribers before Black Friday, and let them know something big is coming.

This gets people excited for what’s to come, and allows them to start thinking about what they’re going to buy once the sale starts.

Example message:

• “Stay tuned, {customer’s name}! Our massive Black Friday deal is almost here. 70% off on everything starts Friday 🤯”

First promo message

Once your promo starts, send a message to let your customers know the sale is live.

Make sure to use urgency and personalization!

Example message:

• “{customer’s name}, get it while it’s hot! 🔥 Massive savings store-wide for a limited time only.”

Mid-sale notification

Send another notification midway through the sale (multiple if your sale lasts more than one day), again playing on urgency and FOMO to catch the customer’s attention.

Example message:

• ⌛Time’s running out⌛Use code BFDEAL at checkout to save 70% on EVERYTHING.

Sale ending soon/last chance

Even if you inject urgency into your earlier messages, some people will still leave it to the last minute.

This is your last opportunity to capture the customer’s attention, but it’s also when urgency works the best. 

Example message:

• 🕓This is it! Our massive Black Friday promo ends at midnight tonight 🌙 Your last chance to save 70%!

Abandoned cart notification

On average, 70% of online shopping carts are left abandoned. And with all the craziness going on, all the brands vying for attention, you’re going to have some people fall off before they finish their checkout.

Set up an automatic notification to reach out to abandoned carts and get them to come back and finish their purchase.

Example message:

• 🤔{customer’s name}, did you forget something? Your cart is waiting for you. Finish your checkout now and lock in your Black Friday discount!

Personalized deal notification

Use information you have about the customer, such as items they put on their wishlist, to send ultra-personalized promotions with a much higher chance of getting a reaction.

Example message:

• {customer’s name}, those shoes you put on your wishlist are now 50% off! 😱 

Early access promo

You can also make your app users feel special by giving them exclusive early access to your promo.

This is also a great way to convince people to keep your app installed, and an incentive to convince new people to download your app.

Example message:

• 🤫 Don’t tell anyone. You’re on the exclusive early access list 😶‍🌫️ Get shopping with our massive Black Friday discount now!

Not Using Push Notifications Yet?

As we’ve established, push notifications are one of the most powerful tools for eCommerce brands, especially when it comes to the holiday season.

But for the full power of push notifications – mobile notifications sent to your customers’ lock screen – you need a mobile app.

If you don’t have an app yet, let MobiLoud help you build one.

MobiLoud converts your existing web store into mobile apps, keeping all the features, plugins, integrations and small optimizations that your site relies on for conversions.

We do it with a minimal investment, and little to no overhead, unlike the long and expensive process that is custom app development.

Our apps come with native integrations for OneSignal and Klaviyo, allowing you to set up powerful push notification flows and send customized notifications with just a few clicks.

Check out some of the other high-revenue brands we’ve built apps for.

You can do the same! Get in touch with us now to learn how easy it is, and how to open up the amazing potential of push notifications for your brand.