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BFCM prep — housekeeping, offer, homepage and email plan (CTC checklist)

CTC's Black Friday/Cyber Monday checklist for seven-figure brands, least to most impact — billing limits and 90%+ match rate, a simple 20%+ site-wide offer, AOV bundles when BFCM cohorts have poor LTV, a whale bundle (a $1,000 bundle for a $50-product brand), the homepage as the landing page, and the email/SMS cadence through the free-shipping cutoff.

Updated 2026-10-24·1 source·bfcmblack-fridayoffersdiscountshomepageemailsmsaovbundlesecommerce

BFCM prep: housekeeping, offer, homepage and email

TL;DR

  • Order of impact (least → most): housekeeping → offer → email/SMS → landing page → creative (see How many Black Friday ads to make — CTC's BFCM creative volume research).
  • Housekeeping: ad account billing limit above expected spend, Commerce Manager up to date, pixel/CAPI match rate ≥90%, domains allow-listed.
  • Offer: ≥20% off, simple, ideally site-wide. Under 20% “people don’t care”, because they get 10% just for an email. No tiers, no maths for the shopper.
  • If BFCM buyers have poor LTV, sell bigger bundles (gifting-themed) up front instead of chasing subscriptions. Make sure a low-ticket product at a deep discount still earns money per order.
  • Build a whale offer. Joy has sold $1,000 bundles for brands with $50 products. Run an early VIP sale for top customers.
  • Run ads to the homepage with a countdown timer, sticky bar, slashed prices in a contrasting colour and ≥3 product blocks. Turn off evergreen first-order pop-ups.

Details

Scope. Joy Sharma’s checklist is for new-customer revenue. Returning revenue is largely set by who you acquired earlier: “half of your Black Friday is built 60 days before”.1

1. Housekeeping. Get your rep to raise the ad-account spending limit. Check Commerce Manager, that events fire, a >90% match rate, no blockages, and that domains are allow-listed.1

2. Offer.

  • At least 20%. Below that it doesn’t register, since a 10% sign-up discount is already standard.2
  • Keep it simple. Joy’s anti-example is “10% off the first $50, 20% off $50–100”. In the most demanding market of the year, give a “stupid simple” offer that looks really good.2 Host Richard Gaffin adds the CTC heuristic that Black Friday is for customer volume and Cyber Monday for bigger carts.3
  • Check your cohorts. BFCM-acquired customers often have different LTV from evergreen ones. If they’re worth ~$10 a year in margin, don’t sell subscriptions. Sell more stock up front and make the year’s money at once. Raise AOV until the order is profitable after the discount.24
  • Lean into gifting bundles if your product isn’t a natural holiday purchase.2

3. Email and SMS. At least 3 a week pre-sale, daily in BF week, up to 3 on BF/CM, a 2-day extension, then a free-shipping-cutoff sale. Time sends to your peak revenue hours. Full plan: How many promotional emails to send — campaign cadence tied to the marketing calendar.56

4. Landing page = the homepage. Demand is “through the roof” and everyone searches your name, so CTC runs most BFCM ads to the homepage. A dedicated BF collection page is a later refinement.7 Set up:89

  • a countdown timer on top, plus a sticky announcement bar (e.g. “up to 40%” if one product is discounted more deeply)
  • a BF hero image, with bestsellers right under it
  • at least three buy blocks: bestsellers, highest-AOV items, highest-margin items
  • slashed prices in a different colour (no fake “raise then slash” pricing)
  • BF-specific bundles, plus a whale bundle

Turn off the evergreen first-time-customer discount pop-up.10

Whales. Founders underestimate how rich their best customers are. A $50-coffee brand likely has buyers for a $1,000 product, or an annual subscription paid up front at a big discount. Give them first access with an early VIP sale.911

Media buying. Richard notes that CTC normally lets the algorithm work, but in BFCM it adjusts budgets manually hour by hour around demand peaks. Joy warns listeners not to copy that without experience, because it can burn money.1213

Disagreements / caveats

See also

Footnotes

  1. The BFCM Prep Checklist: From Least to Most Impact @ 01:59 — Joy Sharma ↩ ↩2

  2. The BFCM Prep Checklist: From Least to Most Impact @ 03:31 — Joy Sharma ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  3. The BFCM Prep Checklist: From Least to Most Impact @ 05:03 — Richard Gaffin ↩ ↩2

  4. The BFCM Prep Checklist: From Least to Most Impact @ 06:01 — Joy Sharma ↩

  5. The BFCM Prep Checklist: From Least to Most Impact @ 06:53 — Joy Sharma ↩

  6. The BFCM Prep Checklist: From Least to Most Impact @ 07:53 — Joy Sharma ↩

  7. The BFCM Prep Checklist: From Least to Most Impact @ 11:28 — Joy Sharma ↩

  8. The BFCM Prep Checklist: From Least to Most Impact @ 12:30 — Joy Sharma ↩

  9. The BFCM Prep Checklist: From Least to Most Impact @ 13:22 — Joy Sharma ↩ ↩2

  10. The BFCM Prep Checklist: From Least to Most Impact @ 15:00 — Richard Gaffin ↩

  11. The BFCM Prep Checklist: From Least to Most Impact @ 14:09 — Joy Sharma ↩

  12. The BFCM Prep Checklist: From Least to Most Impact @ 10:25 — Richard Gaffin ↩

  13. The BFCM Prep Checklist: From Least to Most Impact @ 11:28 — Joy Sharma ↩