Better late than never! On October 7, Motion hosted Make Ads That Convert, a free virtual event on creative strategy for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Four sessions, one theme: BFCM isn’t a creative reset, it’s a creative amplifier. Here’s our TL;DR.
Black Friday Has Stretched
Daniel Rivera, Sr Director of Growth Creative Strategy at The Absorption Co., opened with a reminder that Black Friday is no longer one weekend. Early November is list-building. Late November is deal hunting. Mid-December brings shipping-deadline pressure, and “Q5” (December 26 to January 1) is treat-yourself time. Build your strategy around what your customer is prepping for, then show up when they need you most.
Know Who’s Buying
Winning isn’t just a discount. It’s knowing who’s buying and how they shop. Daniel, who previously worked at Bespoke Post, shared how the brand found that women were buying its subscription boxes as gifts for the men in their lives. So they tested gift guides and price-shopping ads built around that buyer’s habits and purpose. Know who’s buying, and make it easy for them to say yes.
Different Creative, Different Behavior
Daniel also showed how creative type shapes what shoppers do. In his example, catalog ads drove the highest AOV, while offer-only BFCM ads drove the most clicks and new customers. Neither one wins on its own. Balance the offer with what you’re actually selling.
Layer Black Friday On Top
Viti Videtta, Senior Creative Lead at Happy Mammoth, made the case for adding Black Friday to your strategy instead of replacing it. Keep the mechanism, add the momentum. Sometimes the best BF creative is just a badge on a current winner. And your highest-intent days are for scaling winners, not discovering them.
Diversity Beats a “Black Friday Aesthetic”
Viti’s second point: don’t become a different brand for a weekend. When your ads match everyone else’s feed, they’re easier to ignore. Mix sale-native, feed-native, and brand-native creative so you still look like you.
BFCM Is Won in October
Black Friday needs more creative than any other time of year, so the volume has to be planned early. Erin Reamey, Senior Manager of Creative Performance at Dose, walked through the one tracker her team uses for every planned ad: weeks across the top, SKUs down the side, every concept numbered. BFCM is won by the system you build in October.
Match Landing Pages to Ad Angles
Sofi Vila, Marketing Strategy Manager at Dose, took the conversation past the click. Meta uses your ads for targeting, so your landing page has to carry the same message. Her advice: build two or three angle-specific landing pages for your hero SKUs. For a lower-lift win, add a countdown timer and a promo banner under the nav.
Steal the Thinking, Not the Ad
One more from Daniel that we loved: don’t swipe, filter. When an ad works, reverse-engineer why it works for your customer instead of copying it. Savannah Sanchez, founder of The Social Savannah, also shared a deck of top BFCM ad formats, a good place to start that filtering.
The Real Takeaway
BFCM isn’t a creative reset. It’s a creative amplifier. Every speaker came back to the same idea: know your buyer, keep what already works, and build the system early enough to scale it when it counts. Thank you to all the speakers for sharing so openly. So, which one are you putting into your BFCM plan first? If you want a second set of eyes on your plan, get started with your audit and let’s dig in.