A Three-Phase Ecommerce Ad Strategy for BFCM

An ecommerce advertising plan for Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) should extend beyond the busiest shopping days, according to Search Engine Journal. Its proposed full-funnel approach divides the period into three phases: building demand before the event, allowing Google to capture sales during the peak, and working to convert holiday visitors into buyers in December. The emphasis is on managing the account across the entire period rather than treating the sale as a standalone campaign.

The first phase focuses on generating demand ahead of BFCM. In this approach, preparation is part of the advertising strategy, not simply a preliminary task before the sale begins. Marketers can frame their plans around what needs to happen before the peak as well as what they want to achieve during it. That distinction puts the period leading into BFCM in the context of the wider sales effort.

During the peak, the focus shifts to capturing sales through Google. Search Engine Journal’s guidance calls for giving the platform room to do that work rather than applying the same emphasis used in the earlier demand-building phase. The change in focus is central to the phased approach: the account has a different job during the main selling period than it did before shoppers reached it.

The final phase extends the plan into December. Instead of ending the effort with BFCM, marketers should consider how to turn people who visited during the holiday period into customers afterward. This gives the post-event period a defined role within the account strategy. It also connects the initial work of building demand and capturing sales with the opportunity to engage holiday visitors after the peak has passed.

What this means for marketers

Plan BFCM as a sequence of connected advertising stages, with a clear objective for each one: demand before the event, sales capture during the peak and conversion of holiday visitors in December. Organizing the account around those stages can help marketers keep the full sales period in view, rather than concentrating all attention on the event week and overlooking the work that comes before and after it.