Why lead generation is smart during Black Month

We all know that Black Friday is known as THE busiest shopping day of the year.

People are more likely to make purchases on this day because they are looking for the best deals. As a result, ads optimized for sales and purchases are most effective on Black Friday.

But these ads don’t have to be your only strategy.

As an eCommerce business, you can take advantage of this opportunity by encouraging customers to sign up for your newsletter as a lead gen strategy before the big shopping month.

This way you get an audience that you own. You can send emails when your Black Friday deals are available, creating an exclusive channel to reach out to buyers in your industry.

The best part? You can continue to market your leads even when Black Friday is over. Knowing the extremely high costs of advertising on Black Friday, lead generation can also be a wise long-term investment. Gather leads and nurture them with email marketing or use them in your more effective -retargeting campaigns.

Black Month is an expensive month for advertisers

On average, advertising on Meta platforms tends to be 19% more expensive in November (also known as "Black Month") than the rest of the year.

This increase in cost is measured by the Cost Per Mille, which is the cost of showing your ad to a thousand people. The increase in cost is because more advertisers join the ad auction to reach buying-ready consumers. The price tends to increase when there is more competition in the auction.

Black Friday is the most expensive day on the year to advertise

Black Friday is the single most expensive day of the year to advertise.

The competition for consumer attention intensifies during Black Week as advertisers bid against each other for ad space.

On Black Friday and the day before, advertising costs peak. The fixed ad space on these days means that competition for ad placements is fierce, driving up the cost for advertisers.

The prices for advertising (CPM) tend to remain stable up until Black Week. However, during Black Week, as the day of Black Friday approaches, advertising costs increase linearly. In other words, the closer it gets to Black Friday, the more expensive it becomes to advertise on these channels.

There is a clear trend of increasing costs for advertising as the highly anticipated shopping day approaches.

Lead generation is most effective - and least expensive - before Black Week

To effectively secure the attention of potential buyers in the lead-up to Black Friday, it can be helpful to use lead generation strategies such as encouraging people to sign up for your newsletter. This allows you to send Black Friday offers directly to interested consumers via email. As well as retarget them with your ads on social platforms.

The data shows that lead generation ads about Black Friday are most effective when run two weeks before the actual day. You will likely see the highest number of leads per impression during this time.

The CPM (cost per thousand impressions) for advertising tends to remain stable before Black Week, so the key considerations when planning your lead generation strategy are:

When will my lead gen ads be the most effective? The answer: two weeks before Black Friday
Are people who sign up for my newsletter two weeks before Black Friday just as likely to purchase on Black Friday as those who sign up one week before?

Here are the key takeaways for successful lead gen during Black Month.

Keep in mind that due to increased competition from advertisers, November (Black Month) is a costly time to advertise.
The cost of advertising escalates during Black Week, with Black Friday being the most expensive day of the year to advertise.
To secure the attention of potential buyers before the ad auction becomes too costly, it can be effective to implement lead generation strategies 1-3 weeks before Black Week.

Dataset

The dataset from this article is based on 37.6M impressions and 772 pieces of individual content on Meta (Facebook) platforms. It takes into account data from all countries and industries, with the campaign objective of Lead Generation. The period is from 1. November 2021 - 30. November 2022.

Numbers are looking at correlation only, not causation. Remember to check your own data: numbers for different brands, industries, and contexts will vary.

If you were intrigued about a specific insight, you can go in-depth into the various dimensions and how data can be segmented in Confect, here.