Rehearse Black Friday next week
🧪 Prime Big Deal Days lands October 6-7 giving you a live-traffic test of your Cyber Week plan before it counts, and more!
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We break down the real strategies, decisions, and plays that actually move the needle in your marketing, and here it for today.
🧪 Use October 6-7 as your black friday dress rehearsal
Adobe expects Prime Big Deal Days on October 6-7 to drive $9.9 billion in U.S. online spend. It calls the event an industrywide moment, with discounts running well beyond Amazon.
You don't need an Amazon storefront to use it. For two days, shoppers arrive deal-ready everywhere, giving you the best live test of your holiday plan before November. You have five days to set it up.
Split-test the offer structure itself
- Set aside a random 10% of your email and SMS list as an unmailed holdout.
- Split the rest randomly into three equal cells.
- Give each cell a different structure at roughly the same cost to you. Cell A gets a percentage off sitewide. Cell B gets a free gift over a spend threshold. Cell C gets tiered savings, such as $15 off $75 and $35 off $150.
- Score each cell on contribution margin per recipient, and compare it against the holdout.
Conversion rate alone will crown the deepest discount every time. Margin per recipient shows which structure actually pays, and that's the one you scale for Cyber Week.
Find your discount floor
Adobe expects discounts of up to 19% during the October event, against up to 30% across Cyber Week. Test that gap by splitting Cell A in half, with 15% off for one half and 25% for the other.
If 15% converts within 10% of the 25% rate, plan Cyber Week near 15% and keep the margin.
If the 15% half collapses, your customers are deal-trained. Spend November on bundles and gifts, which feel generous without cutting your unit price.
If neither half beats your holdout, discounting isn't the lever. Look at shipping thresholds and delivery promises before trimming price.
The 10% tolerance is my working judgment, so set your own before results arrive to avoid moving the goalposts.
Bank the traffic you don't convert
Most October 6-7 visitors won't buy, yet they are your warmest November prospects. Before the event:
- Tag every visitor's landing page, product viewed and offer seen in your analytics and ad pixels.
- Build retargeting audiences by product category instead of one catch-all list.
- Note any page that slows down or breaks under the spike, and fix it before Black Friday.
In mid-November, a shopper who browsed sneakers on October 7 gets a sneaker-specific message, with the offer structure that won your test.
Close: Lock the test plan today
Write down the three offer cells, the holdout size and your success metric before Monday. A test designed in a hurry on October 6 won't tell you anything you can trust.
Partnership with Insense
Your BFCM Creator Calendar is Already Mapped
Still sourcing creators when your Black Friday ads should be running? Every delay leaves less time to test what actually sells before your biggest spending weeks.
Insense’s free BFCM + Q5 Creator Marketing Playbook gives marketers a week-by-week plan from September through January, so every creator campaign starts with a clear deadline and purpose.
Inside, you’ll find:
- A week-by-week August-to-January calendar showing when to secure permissions, test content, scale winning creators, and move into Q5.
- A practical creator scorecard using conversions, engagement quality, and reliability, so November budgets back proven performers over follower counts.
- Q5 action plan covering licence extensions, January creative, and the recommended 10–15% budget reserve for the lower-cost post-holiday window.
You’ll also get benchmarks for creator-handle ads, modular UGC testing, live shopping, hook rates, and creative volume, helping your team set measurable targets before spending rises.
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