Four weeks to Black Friday: a checklist for brands

Short answer: Black Friday falls on Friday 27 November 2026 this year, and Cyber Monday on 30 November. With four weeks to go, the priorities are: getting the site ready for heavy traffic, producing the landing page and ad creative early, warming up your email and SMS lists, preparing compliant discount pricing, and making delivery and returns messages clear.

November is no longer about a single day but a whole month. In a period that starts with 11.11, peaks on Black Friday and closes with Cyber Monday, competition and ad costs reach their highest levels of the year. That’s why the brand that wins isn’t the one with the biggest discount, but the best prepared one.

Week 4 (today): infrastructure and measurement

• Test your site speed. Google’s Core Web Vitals thresholds: the largest content element should appear in under 2.5 seconds (LCP), the page should respond to taps in under 200 milliseconds (INP), and content shouldn’t shift while loading (CLS below 0.1). Most campaign visitors arrive on mobile, so measure on mobile.
• Talk about capacity. Tell your hosting or e-commerce platform provider about the traffic increase you expect, now. Check your payment provider’s limits for campaign days.
• Verify tracking. Place a test order to confirm that Analytics, Meta Pixel / Conversions API and Google Ads conversion tags send the purchase event correctly. Your answer to “which channel brought what” after the campaign depends on today’s setup.
• Set a code freeze date. Make it a rule not to make major changes to the site in the week before the campaign.

Week 3: offer, pricing and stock

• Clarify your offer. Percentage discount, discount at checkout, free gift, free shipping threshold… Choose one clear message for each product group.
• Follow pricing rules. In Türkiye, under the Price Label Regulation, the pre-discount price in a sale must be the lowest price applied in the 30 days before the discount, and the sale price and pre-discount price must be shown together. Raising prices just before the campaign to display a “discount” is both a legal risk and a reputational one.
• Stock and supply. Plan stock for your expected best-sellers, what the page will say when they sell out, and alternative product suggestions.

Week 2: creative and the landing page

• Publish the campaign page early. Putting a “coming soon” campaign page live now gives search engines time to index it. If you use the same address every year (e.g. /black-friday), you also keep the link equity from previous years.
• Multiply your ad creative. Because the campaign window is short and intense, the same creative wears out very quickly. Prepare several images and short video variations for each main message, and don’t forget the vertical (9:16) format.
• Prepare audiences. Build separate audiences for visitors from the last 90 days, cart abandoners and past customers. On campaign day, send the first message to the warmest audience.

Week 1: communication and final checks

• Warm up your email list. Emailing for the first time on campaign day increases the risk of landing in spam. Build sender reputation in the final weeks by sending regular, useful content. In Türkiye, make sure the consents of people you send commercial messages to are registered in İYS (the Message Management System).
• Make delivery and returns clear. Last order date, estimated delivery time, return conditions… Most customer service questions during the campaign are about these. Put the answers on product pages and in the cart.
• Prepare customer service. Set up ready answers for common questions and a staffing plan for WhatsApp and social media messages.
• Place one last test order. On mobile, with different payment methods, end to end.

After the campaign: make the gains last

The new customers you win on Black Friday are your most valuable audience for December and beyond. A thank-you email, usage tips and a well-timed second offer turn one-off buyers into returning customers. Record the campaign data (which product, which channel, which message) for next year’s plan.

In short

The November campaign is won in October, not November.

Testing the infrastructure early, preparing compliant offers and prices, multiplying creative and warming up communication in advance make every unit of your ad budget work harder.

For campaign pages, ad creative and performance advertising, write to us.