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Prepare WooCommerce store for Black Friday & Cyber Monday

Reading Time: 11 minutes

It’s easy to throw up your hands regarding Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) and feel like your WooCommerce store can’t compete against the big corporations with their million-dollar marketing budgets. But you can, and in fact, many shoppers want to buy from lesser-known or locally-focused brands that specialize in certain types of products or niches. 

The key is to give shoppers and visitors something special when they arrive at your online store. 

Give them a great experience. Give an incredible deal. Do something memorable, fun, or extra engaging. Make it clear you offer great customer service. 

When you can get attention in a positive way, consumers will buy — and keep on buying — from your WooCommerce store well beyond Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 

Turn your BFCM customers into repeat buyers with email and SMS marketing

Understanding customer needs on Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Why do most people shop around during the Black Friday sale season? Why don’t they just head down to their favorite store, and buy everything there? What makes them convert and what turns them away? Most Black Friday and Cyber Monday customers have a lot in common, like: 

They’re not sure what they want

Some people go out with Christmas and holiday shopping lists. But many more people go out looking, not sure what they really want. The search, the hunt, is part of the fun. And also part of the reality: some people are hard to shop for. 

Many shoppers don’t have something specific in mind, but they do have a goal of finding a perfect gift for someone they care about. Does your WooCommerce site make it easy for people to explore and find new things they might want?

Prepare WooCommerce store for BFCM

They want an easy experience

One of the main draws of shopping online is its perceived ease compared to going out to physical stores. But is a Black Friday sale a good enough reason to shop online? Some online stores have made people question that. Difficult usability, slow websites, poor shipping experiences, frustrating return procedures — many are finding shopping at physical stores is actually easier.

Your WooCommerce store can deliver on the promise of online shopping by providing a great, easy shopping experience for all your visitors. They expect to find what they want and make their purchases in just a few clicks. Meet those expectations, and you’ll make more sales.

Doing this well can result in a lot more revenue for your business. For example, recovering abandoned carts remains one of the best opportunities to increase revenue. All you have to do is make a priority of setting up abandoned cart email automation, which is easy to do with Omnisend. 

There are numerous reasons why shoppers abandon their online carts, and you can address nearly all of them. Doing so increases the quality of the customer experience because they can easily complete their shopping. 

They’re hoping for special deals or unexpected finds

People love deals. They love finding something new, unexpected, or special that no one else knows about. Discovery is a rush. So is experimentation — buying things they’re not sure about but that look worth a try. This is especially true during Black Friday and Cyber Week, because most people are shopping for someone else. “They might like this,” consumers muse to themselves. 

Discoveries can be actual products, great prices, irresistible offers, surprise perks and bonuses, free gifts, and many other things. What will they discover when they visit your online store? What things will be cheaper on Cyber Monday? 

They feel a mix of emotions

Though shopping can be stressful, people tend to feel a mix of emotions, especially during this time of year. A consumer might feel surprise, annoyance, delight, and overwhelm — all in one shopping experience. 

So, by the time visitors arrive at your WooCommerce store, they’ve probably felt all of these emotions and more at other online and physical stores. 

What can your online store do to make sure they feel only positive, buyer-friendly emotions? 

How to prepare your WooCommerce store for Cyber Monday

There are three main things you can do to get ready for this year. You must decide on your sales and marketing strategy and goals for this holiday season. Then, prepare your website. Last, add the online tools that will enable you to achieve your sales goals. 

And remember — though Black Friday and Cyber Monday are singular days, in the online shopping world, these are really more like weeks. You can start Black Friday deals the previous weekend or on Monday. And you can extend Cyber Monday sales through the whole week. 

1. Decide on your sales approach this year

Here are some marketing and sales strategies and goals to consider for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025:

Feature certain products

What sells the most on Cyber Monday? When visitors arrive on your home page, what will they see? If you are choosing to push one or a handful of products this year, they should see that. 

You can make this year about a few products you know are proven winners, and use that to produce big revenue. This is sort of the one-and-done approach, since many of these customers will probably only buy this product. But this can work if you fixate all your marketing on that product, give occasional flash sales for it, and feature it across your website.

Prepare your WooCommerce store for Cyber Monday

Offer special deals

Another approach is to make the deal the reason to buy from your store. Here are some possible deals you can offer that will motivate more buyers:

  • Free shipping: Works well for you if you offer it for orders above a certain amount
  • Free gift with purchase: Make the gift something you don’t normally sell but that people will want — sometimes the free gift can make the sale
  • Percentage discounts: These are the most basic and are pretty common during WooCommerce Black Friday sales events, so you have to make it big enough to get attention
  • Buy one get one free (BOGO): If your goal is to move inventory, BOGO deals are a great way to achieve that while also delighting shoppers
  • Buy now, pay later: This lowers the barrier to purchasing and can make the difference for a hesitant buyer
  • Contests: Customers enter a drawing when they purchase on or by a certain date — if the contest prize is a good one, this can make the sale, and you don’t have to discount your products at all
  • Flash sales: You can create ultra-time-sensitive sales on your website — especially with popups — as well as with email and SMS marketing

Of course, there are many other special offers and deals you can come up with. For example, if you have a membership or loyalty program, tying that to your Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale can be great for long term revenue and customer loyalty. 

Enlarge average order value

Sometimes, your holiday marketing plans arise from internal sales goals. 

For example, you could prioritize higher average order sizes over greater customer volume. In other words, you’d rather have fewer but bigger orders. These tend to increase profits, and you’ll probably have fewer returns, too. 

If your goal is to increase average order value, you’d want to use a marketing strategy that aligns with that. Offering free shipping above a certain order size is a great one. 

You can also increase the percentage of incentives as order size increases. For example, maybe it’s 10% off orders up to $50, 20% off orders up to $200, and 30% off orders above that. You’ll get many more people adding product purchases to their cart to hit that next threshold. 

You can make this even more lucrative if, instead of a regular price discount percentage, you give flat dollar-off deals. That way, the discount amount will be the same for everyone at each level. For example, if the deal is $20 off orders above $100, the customer gets $20 off whether they spend $100, $150, or $500. But your profits increase, and the actual discount gets lower and lower the more they spend above the threshold.

“Buy now, pay later” offers can also increase average order size because the customer doesn’t have to pay for the whole thing right away. Using “buy now, pay later” is easy through WooCommerce with services such as Klarna and Affirm

Move more inventory

Another sales goal for the holiday season could be to move more inventory. Maybe you have an item that isn’t selling as well and you have a huge supply of it remaining. You could make that a free gift with purchase, or offer it at a steep discount for customers who buy other items or spend over a certain threshold. 

You can also move more inventory with high-percentage discounts on specific items, and more general discounts when customers purchase above a certain amount.

You’ll also move more products simply by featuring them. If you’re offering a deal with any sort of order size threshold, suggest the products you want to move most as the ones to get customers over the line. If you’re doing a “buy one get one free” sale, use that only for items you want to move. 

Gain more new customers and email subscribers

You can also have a sales goal related to future revenue. If you can get customers and even non-paying customers to join your email list, you can continue marketing to all these people well beyond this holiday shopping season. 

How well does SMS and email marketing work? Here’s a report from Omnisend with an array of email marketing statistics. And here are more figures that are specific to Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Omnisend allows you to do this actively and with automation tools. Your email marketing can be working for you round the clock once you get it going, and you can try our free version before you buy. 

Encourage customers and visitors to join your list using special offers and benefits exclusively for subscribers, and you can grow your email list to create more long-term revenue. 

If you already have an email list, you can use your existing one to notify customers about your Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales events. Here’s a list with more Black Friday and Cyber Monday email marketing tips.

Plan customer appreciation events

Shopping becomes a frenzy for some during this time of year. And it’s easy for a WooCommerce store owner to think they have to fight to get their share of all these potential customers flying around the internet. But what about your existing customers?

With an actively engaged email list, you can plan customer appreciation events that reward your existing customer base with great Cyber Monday deals only for them. With this approach, you may earn a large share of your BFCM revenue from your current customers and won’t need to stress so much about attracting new ones. 

You can schedule events that happen only online — such as a special time period when email subscribers can use a particular coupon deal, see a webinar, enter a contest, or get a free gift. In other cases, you may be able to create in person special sales events. 

Then, use email and SMS to notify customers of your upcoming event. 

2. Prepare your website for WooCommerce Cyber Monday Deals

Whatever sales or marketing strategies you end up choosing for this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale on your WooCommerce site, you’ll want to equip your website for this unique shopping season. 

Consumers are shopping for Black Friday or Cyber Monday deals. If they see that kind of language on your website, they know they’re in the right place. Here are a few things you can do:

Temporarily redesign your homepage 

Make it clear from the start that your WooCommerce store has some great Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. Some things you can do:

  • Change your hero image
  • Add graphics and text in prominent places
  • Add a new navigation menu item
  • Add an email opt-in form with incentives to subscribe
  • Use a countdown clock showing an event-ending timer
  • Add a full-screen promo spot featuring your Black Friday sales

Add banners and popups

You may also want to put special banners at the tops of certain pages on your website. These can declare the offers and benefits you’re promoting during the holiday shopping season. 

Popups are also great because you can change them every day without having to alter your actual web pages. You could, for example, offer a different deal every day using a popup with a deadline. They’re perfect for flash sales. If you have an upcoming event or multiple events, popups work great for capturing store visitors and giving them clear and visible event deadlines. 

Your popups can also be used to promote the benefits of joining your email list, and incentivize it with special one-time deals. 

Black Friday popup for WooCommerce store

Change the checkout page and certain product pages

If you’re promoting certain products for BFCM, change the content on those product pages to reflect your special offers. Add new images and graphics. Alter the copy to promote the deals. Change the call to action — including the purchase button — so it’s unique to the limited time offer.

You can also update your checkout page so it reflects any special deals, such as a shipping offer or an email signup offer as part of a purchase. 

3. Add WooCommerce extensions and tools to your site

You’ve seen a few already, but there are tons of other WooCommerce plugins and tools you can start using in your WooCommerce store that will bolster your BFCM marketing efforts. 

Here are a few that could be extra helpful:

Social media marketing extensions

With social media platforms, you can pay for ads or you can post for free on your current channels. These WooCommerce social media extensions can help make this easier and more effective:

  • TikTok for WooCommerce: Create ads, track website traffic and campaign engagement, and showcase your products on TikTok
  • Pinterest for WooCommerce: Present your product catalog on Pinterest and let shoppers looking for your types of products more easily find them
  • Facebook for WooCommerce: Create Facebook and Meta ads, track your campaign traffic, and share your products across the Meta empire

Google Ads

The Google Listings and Ads extension enables you to manage all your Google Ads, including search, YouTube, Google Shopping, display ads, maps, and more, all from one dashboard. You can manage all of the most important aspects of these ads, including bidding and budget, with this extension. 

Coupon extensions

WooCommerce also offers several tools to make it easier for you to provide various types of coupon offers. Each of these enables customers to seamlessly take advantage of your Black Friday sales events.

Perhaps you read the sections earlier about all these special deals you can create but wondered how to implement them on your WooCommerce site. With these extensions, you can do it:

  • Smart Coupons for WooCommerce: This extension enables all sorts of Cyber Monday deals such as buy one get one free, gift cards, free shipping, store credits, and various types of discounts. Smart Coupons is one of their most popular ecommerce shopping tools.
  • Conditional Coupons for WooCommerce: This extension allows you to customize coupons for each customer for various situations. With this one, you can make offers like “save $20 when you spend over $150.” It’s a real-time shopping experience for them, perfect for this time of year.
  • WooCommerce Coupon Campaigns: This makes it easier to track and categorize your various coupons. That way, you’ll always know which marketing campaigns are getting the most response.
  • Gift Cards for WooCommerce: If you want your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals to feature a lot of gift cards, this extension is the one to use. It’s designed to make managing them a breeze.

Email marketing tools

If you’re not yet using email marketing, or if you have an account somewhere but aren’t using it, what you need is a new email marketing platform. Omnisend has a special WooCommerce integration plugin that makes it very convenient to do all your email marketing right in your WooCommerce store.

Cyber Monday newsletter template for Woocommerce store

But it’s so much more than just sending a few emails. The platform includes SMS marketing, email automation, popups, opt-in forms, and all kinds of other marketing tech that you can actually put to good use. Plus, there’s a special migration offer that will save you money, too. 

Remember, with email marketing you can continue engaging your new customers and subscribers long after the holiday season has ended, as well as next year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns. During the year, use these different email marketing campaigns to keep your subscribers happily engaged. 

A multichannel marketing tool

The AdRoll for WooCommerce Stores extension enables you to manage your online marketing efforts across a variety of channels and platforms. 

It includes social media marketing integration, display and online ads, tracking, targeting, and re-targeting, among other things. 

Website performance

There are a number of additional tools that can help your WooCommerce store, beyond marketing.

For instance, site speed is a huge factor in determining how much traffic you get, and how many of those visitors stick around long enough to engage and buy. You can improve your site speed by following best practices and spending money on high-quality hosts. But you can also use tools like Jetpack Boost, which delivers the content on your website more efficiently, so it loads faster. 

Omnisend’s Black Friday marketing hub offers a number of other tips, tools, and strategies you may find helpful.

Get more repeat customers with email and SMS marketing

All of these tools and marketing tips are great, and Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the biggest sales days of the year for many ecommerce businesses. But you still have the rest of the year, and it sure is nice if you can retain a few of the customers and visitors who come to your ecommerce store during BFCM. 

If you can collect their email address or get them to consent to receive SMS marketing, you can extend your relationship into an ongoing one. Then, you can remind customers of how your products and services can meet their needs and solve their problems. Here are a few email templates for Black Friday and Cyber Monday to get you inspired.

Use Omnisend’s marketing automation and an array of intuitive yet powerful tools, and turn one-time customers into loyal buyers.

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Aistė Jočytė
Article by

Aiste is a Jr. Content Marketing Manager at Omnisend. When she's not searching for the perfect synonym or refining her latest copy, you can find her curled up with her cat, binge-watching yet another TV series.