No matter the industry, size, customers, or competitors, almost every ecommerce brand has one major opportunity in common: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. When it comes to Thanksgiving weekend - also known as Cyber Weekend or simply BFCM - customers expect to see the best deals of the year on beauty, apparel, toys, technology, and more.
BFCM can be a challenging time for many brands with the amount of planning and decision-making required to create a successful holiday shopping experience for their customers. However, with a strong marketing tech stack in place, brands can leverage BFCM to drive more engagement, sales, acquisition, and retention than at any other time of the year. What do brands need to know to build their best tech stack for the biggest shopping event of the season?
Black Friday and Cyber Monday mark two of the most important dates in just about every ecommerce brand’s calendar. For customers, it’s the perfect time to save big on holiday gifts and other purchases they’ve been anticipating. As for brands, it’s the ideal opportunity to accelerate growth and drive acquisition, sales, and retention.
Ever since the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924, the Friday after Thanksgiving has marked the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season. Brands offer huge savings to acquire and retain customers, drive sales and revenue, and end the year “in the black” - hence the name Black Friday. The term Cyber Monday, on the other hand, was coined by the National Retail Federation in 2005, who noticed recurring spikes in ecommerce traffic and revenue on the Monday after Thanksgiving.
Between the COVID-19 pandemic and economic inflation, many ecommerce brands have experienced significant ups and downs in recent years. BFCM gives them the chance to overcome these obstacles and ultimately accomplish their goals.
BFCM is one of the busiest shopping events of the year, even more so than other important occasions like Boxing Day, back-to-school season, and the week leading up to Christmas. Customers often wait and save up for BFCM to take advantage of what they expect to be the best possible deals.
Historically, BFCM has been the perfect opportunity for brands to acquire new customers and strengthen relationships with existing customers on the hunt for deals. Brands must create an offer that meets shoppers’ expectations and develop a strategy and tech stack that prepares them for it, including ways to drive repeat purchases and customer retention long after BFCM is over.
This year, Thanksgiving falls on November 23rd, meaning Black Friday is November 24th and Cyber Monday is November 27th. There are several key statistics that ecommerce brands need to know in preparation for BFCM:
Brands also need to be aware of major BFCM 2022 trends that may affect their approach to BFCM 2023:
In summary, brands need to be customer-centric, mobile-optimized, and fully equipped with an effective BFCM strategy and marketing tech stack that makes the most of paid advertising, social commerce, and email marketing from start to finish.
A marketing tech stack is a group of tools, applications, and platforms that brands use to manage their business. They help optimize tasks, automate workflows, reduce manual workloads, and assist brand owners and managers in making business decisions. Tech stacks consist of a front-end and a back-end, where front-end applications help brands build their online storefront while back-end applications help brands deliver information to their customers.
Creating the right marketing tech stack for your brand, especially in advance of a major sales event like BFCM, can be overwhelming due to the number of categories and options available. However, there are a few best practices brands should keep in mind to ease the decision-making process.
One of the most important aspects of any strong ecommerce tech stack is the ability to add, remove, and swap different tools and integrations on demand. Brands should be able to replace or remove apps without causing significant disruptions to themselves or their customers. For example, they need to be able to easily migrate their data between different platforms or build automations that work seamlessly with their existing tech stack.
Brands also need to strike a balance between finding an all-in-one solution and having several isolated solutions at once. With an all-in-one solution, they may find themselves getting locked into an ecosystem that’s hard to move away from and may not have all the specific features they’re looking for. On the other hand, having dozens of separate components can be hard to manage and merge into one integrated system.
They should consider looking for tools that offer a few different solutions that are designed to work together and have specific features that fit their needs. For example, Stamped’s Full Suite provides solutions for both loyalty programs and customer review management. Stamped integrates seamlessly with popular tools in multiple categories, from ecommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce to marketing solutions like Klaviyo, Gorgias, and Attentive.
⚙️ To learn more, visit our integration directory for a complete list of our tech partners.
Ecommerce tech stacks also need to be able to grow with your brand. Otherwise, brands may find themselves switching and upgrading more often than they would like, which requires time and resources to scope, onboard, and implement into their existing tech stack. This is especially important to consider before BFCM, as brands typically experience surges in traffic, orders, and customer support requests during the sales period.
Brands should look for apps and platforms with flexible pricing options that allow them to upgrade with ease at their own pace. Pricing plans are often based on factors like the number of customers, orders, and messages. For example, Stamped’s Reviews and Loyalty pricing plans are based on the number of monthly review requests and the number of monthly orders, respectively. Brands can also request a custom quote to get a plan that works specifically for them. This means brands only have to pay for what they need.
To learn more, visit our Pricing page to get a complete overview of our pricing plans.
Most importantly, brands need to build their tech stack based on what works best for them, rather than simply going with what their competitors are using. They should fully evaluate each tool based on whether it addresses their business needs and contributes toward their business goals.
To start, brands need to run a cost-benefit analysis to determine if their desired tech stack fits into their budget. This includes whether they need to pay for a more expensive plan to get access to desired features and if the increases between pricing plans match the scalability rate of their brand. They also need to consider extra costs like adding more users and setup, training, and licensing fees.
Next, brands need to strike a balance between complexity and functionality. As mentioned previously, an all-in-one platform may seem convenient and cost-effective, but may lack the features and attention to detail necessary to accelerate business growth. On the other hand, a wide variety of tools can increase operational costs and create confusion or even frustration, especially when trying to get them to work together. Brands should focus on the most important tools needed for their day-to-day operations, then slowly add on from there, rather than try to build their entire tech stack all at once.
Finally, brands need to ensure compatibility across their tech stack to allow information and processes to flow effortlessly between them. This usually translates to a combination of direct integrations, where apps are designed to work together and facilitate data sharing, and third-party services, which bring different tools together. Brands should be able to create an interconnected ecosystem that reduces manual workload and chances of user error.
BFCM can be stressful for brands of all shapes and sizes, but it doesn’t have to be. With careful planning and intentional decision-making, brands can build connections with new customers and strengthen relationships with existing ones. This means having a unique BFCM offer, an omnichannel marketing campaign, and a comprehensive tech stack in place.
With Stamped, brands can build an effective reviews strategy and loyalty program in preparation for BFCM and beyond. Reviews help brands win customer trust and drive new business, while loyalty programs lead to repeat purchases and increases in lifetime value.
To help you get ready for BFCM, we're offering three months free on a fifteen-month term for Stamped Reviews, Loyalty, or Full Suite to help you boost sales and drive retention this upcoming holiday season. Don't miss out - this offer is available until September 15th for Business and Professional plans only.