7 - BFCM Campaign Structure: Hype, Testing & Scaling

Q4 2026 WORKSHOP - DAY 1

BFCM Campaign Structure: Hype, Testing & Scaling

1. 3 ways to structure your BFCM
2. How to Create Hype
3. When to Test
4. When to Scale

3 ways to structure your BFCM

1. OPTION 1
   Black Month: Your Black Friday starts on November 1st and you run a discount the whole month.
   
   1st-15th: Testing
   15th-20th: Building Scaling Campaigns
   20th-26th: Scaling the scaling campaigns

BFCM: Hyperscaling

2. OPTION 2
   10 days of Black Friday.
   From the forgotten Friday (20th) to Cyber Monday (30th).
   
   1st-20th: Hype
   20th-23rd: Testing
   23rd: Build Scaling Campaigns
   23rd-26th: Scaling the scaling campaigns
   BFCM: Hyperscaling

3. OPTION 3
   5 days of Black Friday.
   From Thursday 26th to Cyber Monday (30th).
   
   1st-25th: Hype
   Thursday 26th: Launch Black Friday
   BFCM: Hyperscaling

Build scaling campaigns on Saturday based on Friday data.

Mixed Options:

1. October 15th - November 10th: HYPE
2. October 15th - October 31st: Halloween Sale
3. Nov 10th - Nov 19th: Early Black Friday
4. Nov 20th - Nov 26th: Black Friday
5. 27th-30th: BFCM push
6. Dec 1st - Dec 6th: Cyber Week
7. Dec 1st-7th - Dec 20th: Christmas Sale
8. Dec 26th - January 15th: New Year Sale

1. October 15th - October 31st: Halloween Sale
2. October 15th - Nov 15th: Early Black Friday
3. Nov 15th - Nov 26th: Black Friday
4. 27th-30th: BFCM push
5. Dec 1st - Dec 6th: Cyber Week
6. Dec 7th - Dec 20th: Christmas Sale
7. Dec 26th - January 15th: New Year Sale

How to Create Hype

The goal of this period is to:

• Introduce the brand to strangers, so they want to buy our product during BFCM
• Remind to our clients/subscribers/followers that we exist and we are doing Black Friday

We basically want to create “future demand”.

From October 15th to November 26th, millions of people will make themselves this question:

• “What should I buy this Black Friday?”

And then they’ll go ask Chat GPT, their friends, or they will follow social media recommendations.

Our goal is to get into their consideration list BEFORE Black Friday.

Spending around $10k/day, you will be able to reach 300-500,000 people.

What’s the quality of these 400k users? How many of them have seen you now for the first time?

Create Desire on Strangers (Campaigns and Ads)

Campaign Types

1. Lead generation campaign to create a VIP list of “Early Access”
   Can I retarget them? Yes, both ads retargeting and sending lots of emails
   Short-term benefit? Build up my email list
   → Takes 1 year to make this effort profitable
   
   Native form $0.6-$2 CPL
   Website form $2-$4 CPL
   
   
   

Chat GPT Prompt to calculate the profitability of this campaign assuming certain metrics:

"If my CPL = €0.7  

And I capture 10,000 leads  

ASSUMING: Email open rate: 30%  

ASSUMING: Email CTR: 7%  

ASSUMING: Website conversion rate from email: 6%  

AOV for Black Friday: €90  

Then how much revenue do I generate, and what is the ROAS?"

Or alternatively: "In a lead generation campaign, pre-Black Friday, to build a VIP database,  

ASSUMING: Email open rate: 40%  

ASSUMING: Email CTR: 10%  

ASSUMING: Website conversion rate from email: 10%  

AOV for Black Friday: €100  

What should my maximum cost per lead be if I want a ROAS of 3?"

**Include that you’re sending 10 Black Friday emails

2. Video Views Campaign
   Can I retarget? Yes
   Short-term benefit? No
   If you make REALLY good brand videos, it’s a great strategy
   
   How qualified is someone after watching my video?
   → Emotional connection with the brand
   → 3rd person giving validation to the brand
   → Authority
   → (...)
   → Introduce the products
   → CTA: check them out on IG or check their site … (learn more)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. VISIT INSTAGRAM PROFILE (traffic)
   Can I retarget? Yes
   Short-term benefit? Followers on IG
   Strong engagement signal to Meta.
   
   
   
4. VIEW CONTENT (Conversion)
   If you normally pay $1 CPC, this will cost you CPC $0.25,
   The goal is to flood the website with a lot of traffic so a lot of people discover you.
   
   Let’s say, you amplify your top of funnel audiences, you would not reach these people if you optimize for purchase.
   
   

My advice is spending 5-20% of your daily budget in a combination of view content and visit IG profile.

These 2 can build great retargeting audiences.

Create Desire on Strangers (Campaigns and Ads)

About the ads:

VIDEOS

• “If I could only buy one thing this Black Friday…”

• “My Black Friday wishlist.”
• “What I'm buying this Black Friday.”
• “The best thing you can buy under $100 this Black Friday.”
• “I bought this last Black Friday. One year later…”

STATICS

• “My Black Friday Wishlist” → Pinterest-style collage of 3–5 products
• “The #1 item on my Black Friday list” → Product/model lifestyle shot
• “Things I’m waiting until Black Friday to buy” → Multi-product collage
• “The best [category] under $100” → Product + price anchor
• “Save this for Black Friday” → Aspirational product shot
• “Black Friday Gift Guide” → 4–6 products by recipient/type
• Creator / magazine recommendation → “The [product] I recommend buying this Black Friday”
• Bestseller / social proof → “30,000+ customers can’t be wrong”

When to Test and When to Scale

The challenge here is that we need 2 things that are opposites:

• I want to test from Nov 1st to Nov 20th,
• But the real demand starts on Nov 20th,
• So I’m testing with unqualified buyers
• So the testing information is "conditioned"

But there is no alternative.

My advice is testing from November 1st to November 23rd.

Maximum November 23rd.

It’s important to distinguish 3 phases:

• Testing
• Building and warming up the scaling campaigns
• Hyperscaling

So, testing can be just an ABO campaign.

Then building and warming up can be 5 CBOs.

Then hyperscaling is just taking the 3 best CBOs to the moon.

Green: Hype

Orange: Launch

Red: Horizontal scaling