Black Friday and Cyber Monday: your guide to engaging shoppers in the holiday season

Optimize product detail pages

Help drive conversions by optimizing your product detail pages before BFCM. A few best practices:

• Create a strong product title.
• Feature four or more high-quality, zoomable images.
• Include at least three bullet points and list item specifications, anticipating what shoppers might want to know about your product and how to use it.
• Ensure your products with BFCM deals are in stock leading up to and during the event dates.

Drive awareness & engagement with static and video creative

• For static creative, focus on clarity and conveying what’s unique about your brand.
• For online video and Streaming TV creative, introduce your brand early and include your logo.
• As you develop your messaging, experts recommend emphasizing value, no matter price point. ¹

Need help with creative production? Request Amazon Ads creative services.

Review the ad policies during setup

Understanding common reasons why ads get blocked can help you avoid delays. Below are the 5 most common blockers for BFCM creative:

• Price deal mismatch: All prices or savings must be in the same format on the ad creative and landing page. They should also be easy to find on the landing page.
• Product deal mismatch: The product type, version, or image on your ad creative must match what is shown on the landing page.
• Restricted product violation: If the product advertised is restricted, your creative must also adhere to required audience and placement restrictions.
• Responsive e-commerce (REC) ad headline violation: Your custom headline must be grammatically correct and cannot contain a price or deal. (See headline requirements here.)
• BFCM violation: If running off-site on Amazon DSP, BFCM messaging will be allowed only if you have an official BFCM deal linking back to Amazon. However, the BFCM logo can never be used. Review the requirements below and adjust your creative to BFCM best practices.

Use of BFCM messaging

Note that references to “Black Friday” or “Cyber Monday” should not mislead customers as to the duration of the deal. All deals must be live and accurate on the dates that they are running.

For example:

• Offers described as “available on Black Friday only” should only last 24 hours.
• “Black Friday Week” or “Black Friday” can be used to describe an offer lasting approximately seven days, running across Black Friday (November 17–28).
• Note: In Australia, the dates are extended through December 4.
• Note: In Brazil, the use of “Black Friday” on creatives and Brand Stores is allowed from November 6–27. If the term is preceded by a temporal word such as “week” or “day,” for example, the rules below must be followed.
• “Black Friday weekend” can be used to describe an offer lasting approximately three days, running across Black Friday (any three-day span between November 23–28).
• “Cyber Monday Week” can be used to describe any offer lasting approximately seven days, running across or starting on Cyber Monday (November 25–December 4).
• “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” can be used to describe any offer lasting approximately 14 days, running across or starting on Black Friday week or Cyber Monday week (November 17–December 4).
• “11:11,” also known as “Singles’ Day,” is considered a sales event with a lead-up period. Ads may use this to refer to a period lasting approximately 21 days (October 28–November 19). Ads that specify “11:11 only” or “Singles Day only” must only be active on the date of November 11.
• In the UAE and KSA, the term “White Friday” (rather than “Black Friday”) should be used. The start dates are the same as mentioned above but the end date can be carried through to December 7. “Available on White Friday only” can be used to describe any offer lasting 24 hours. “White Friday Sale” can be used to describe any offer lasting approximately seven days, running across White Friday but carrying through December 7.
• All deals advertised should be live at the time the ad is live. Deal teasing is not permitted.

Advertisers are responsible for complying with applicable laws and regulations for use of Black Friday and Cyber Monday in respective locales.

Optimize for click-through

During big shopping events like BFCM, you can help drive engagement with the following actions:

• Select high-quality, large product photos, making it immediately clear what’s being promoted.
• Single-product creative should feature simple and neat composition and product snapshots instead of lifestyle imagery.
• Write straightforward copy to help clarify promoted products.
• Include sharp, vivid visual elements to help your creative pop. Color product images and high background-to-foreground contrast can make your ad more noticeable.
• Help improve brand recognition by displaying a distinct logo that’s familiar to customers.

Promote top deals through REC

During the shopping event, promote your top deals and products through responsive e-commerce creative (REC), which brings you five benefits:

• Multiple products promotion: REC auto-generates ads with up to 20 associated ASINS (individual products) and auto-optimizes by picking the best-performing ones.
• Out-of-stock awareness: This feature automatically skips rendering products that are out of stock. If all products are out of stock, ads automatically pause until at least one product is back in stock.
• Responsive auto-resize: This function shortens the average time spent building creative by 90% and enables automatic creation across 10 sizes.
• Deals-enabled: REC automatically pulls product pricing and information from detail pages and displays associated deals badges (including a BFCM badge) for selected deal types.
• Conversion focus: BFCM badges are also available on REC ads with approved deal types during the event. If the deal changes, discount messaging updates automatically on your ads.

Ensure your Brand Store is ready for BFCM

Follow these best practices that help ensure your Brand Store is ready for shoppers during BFCM.

• Promotional messaging: Make sure your BFCM promotional messaging adheres to ad policies. Note that promotional messaging in your Brand Store is only permitted when used with the Featured Deals widget (FDW). Sales events (e.g., Black Friday, Cyber Monday) should start no more than seven days prior to the event, and be removed or updated within 24 hours of the event date, unless the event is considered to last longer (for example, Cyber Week).
  
  For your reference, approved copy includes:
• “Explore our savings/discounts”
• “Great savings/discounts”
• “[Brand Name] or [Product Name] savings/discounts”
• Holiday/Season special
• Great bundles on products

Copy that is not allowed includes:

• “Today only,” “Hurry,” or other language intended to create urgency or promote a time restriction.
• Specific numerical pricing promotions or savings messages, such as “Save 50% on Product” or “$20 off Product.”
• Pricing claims that are competitive, misleading, or cannot be proven, such as “Best possible price,” “Unbeatable price,” or “Price advantage.”
• Superlatives such as “Save big,” “Huge savings,” “Incredible price.”
• Ads should not include the word “free” or similar if the offer is not available to all customers, or if the ad does not contain all conditions required for eligibility.
• Brand Store layout: When advertising deals messaging, your Brand Store or page must be appropriately titled. It should also contain the Featured Deals widget as the first product selection tile on the page.
  
  Approved layout for BFCM:
• Featured Deals widget (FDW) on top
• Text banner in the middle
• Product grid at the bottom

What to know about each of these elements:

Feature Deals Widget (FDW)

• Must appear immediately under the header with no other elements in between.
• Use “curated set of products” mode to show products featured in your display creative in the first position.

Banner separating deal widget section from other sections within the tab

• Any additional section besides FDW must be clearly separated to avoid confusion.
• The copy of this banner cannot use the word “offer,” as it would be misleading.

Product grid

• Including a product grid in the tab is required to ensure you always have products shown, in case there are no active deals displayed in the FDW.
• The Brand Store page must make clear to customers that items within the product grid do not have deals associated with them by separating the FDW and product grid by a text tile. The text tile must indicate that the below products are not deals and use general messaging to describe the product selection.

3. Placement of deal ASINs: The Featured Deal widget (FDW) shows products with active promotions (including “Subscribe & Save”) and must be used for all deals. Use a curated product list when adding products to the FDW, paying attention to the following:
• ASINs (products) featured in the ad creative must be entered first.
• The ASINs will appear in the order as entered.
• At least four ASINs need to be added to activate the FDW.
• The widget will only show ASINs if they are deals.
• Products will automatically appear in the title, as long as promotions last. When a promotion ends or products go out of stock, they will be removed automatically.
4. Scheduling a separate Brand Store version: Scheduling allows advertisers to choose a launch and end date for a new Brand Store, or a different version of the existing Brand Store. If scheduling a Brand Store version for BFCM, the following conditions apply:
• Sales events should start no more than seven days prior to the event (e.g., Black Friday, Cyber Monday), and be removed or updated within 24 hours of the event date, unless the event is considered to last longer (like Cyber Week).
• Brand Stores cannot be scheduled within 24 hours of the intended start date of the promotion, launch, or seasonable event. Please submit your Brand Store at least 48 hours ahead of the scheduled start date.
5. Multi-brand deals: Multi-brand advertisers who lead with multi-brand deals such as “Shop our skin care deals” may create a Brand Store deals page that contains product category image tiles with text. For example, your deals page could say “Shop [Brand X] for deals for her” as the first component on the Brand Store page above the FDW. Titles must click through corresponding deal pages within the same Brand Store. These corresponding pages must also contain the FDW with the full selection of deals for customers who wish to continue exploring products on that page.

Building on your momentum

Shopping habits don’t end after BFCM. As shoppers continue to spend, keep your brand visible by remarketing featured products to re-engage consumers who viewed your products during BFCM but didn’t purchase. You can also reach new or existing shoppers by promoting complementary products through further campaigns. Finally, we recommend reviewing your BFCM performance to identify your top-selling products, so you better understand audience engagement for future events and campaigns.

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