2025 BFCM RECAP: FOUR THINGS I LEARNED IN THE TRENCHES

Welp…

The BFCM Chaos Cyclone completely swallowed me whole despite my best planning.

Which is why I had a lil hiatus.

But I'm back, and ready to close out 2025 on a high note, babayyy.

Now that the dust has settled from the Black Friday madness, I wanted to share a few things I learned: a few things that worked and some things that didn't.

1. Flexibility beats perfect planning every single time

One client launched a food product during BFCM. We didn't know if packaging would arrive until 5 days before Black Friday. So we prepped TWO versions of everything in Figma and Klaviyo. One with the launch, one without.

Packaging showed up. We pivoted in 48 hours.

Result? $1.5M in total BFCM revenue. The rolls alone did $500K. They expected to sell 3,000 units. We sold 300,000.

Your ability to move fast matters more than your ability to plan perfectly.

2. Live-selling is about to explode in 2026

My supplement client threw out a last-second idea: live webinars during BFCM. Like QVC for DTC brands.

We banged out some quick plain text emails and set up a basic Zoom. He got on camera, educate customers about the products, did a few giveways.

It crushed! We had an almost 30% conversion rate.

Here's why I'm freaking bullish on this: Everything's AI now. Automated emails. AI-generated videos. Polished content everywhere. People are drowning in it.

Live events are at a premium because they're the opposite.

That's what people are craving right now.

Mark my words, this is the next big DTC play.

3. Simplicity beats complexity every time

I knew this going in, but me and one client still got riled up creating an overly complex discount code strategy with almost 10 different codes and discount tiers.

We spent hours building them out, creating the emails, organizing everything.

When the dust settled, only 30% of Black Friday customers used any code at all.

70% just paid full price.

All that complexity didn't drive more sales. We probably could've done better with one or two simple offers and called it a day.

Next year? Maximum two offers. That's it.

4. Free gifts with thresholds are sneaky genius

Look, I know one of the most dangerous things you can do in marketing is assume what works for you works for everyone else. But what I found got me to purchase this BFCM was the free gift over a certain threshold.

A clothing brand I love ran 20% off PLUS free packing cubes on orders over $200.

I absolutely ordered two extra pairs of pants just to hit that threshold.

Here's what's brilliant: The perceived value of those packing cubes is way higher than what they actually cost. But the brand still gets bigger cart sizes even with the discount running.

The free gift isn't replacing the discount. It's offsetting it by pushing people to spend more. The threshold does all the work.

I added $100 to my cart for a gift that probably cost them $10 to source. And I felt like I won.

Alrighty, our regularly scheduled weekly action. We'll keep going from here on out. Catch you further down the trail.

-Ben

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