Quick fixes for your BFCM tactics

Subscribe | Exclusive offer: 14-day free trial of Semrush

Join 9,433 high converters

👋 What’s selling: candified gut health products. BelliWelli is making a killing by promoting icky gut health as “fiber for hot girls”. Built off viral TikTok campaigns, they found their way into Walmart in April this year, helping sales explode to an 890% increase year over year.

TACTICS

Your BFCM playbook

Before we get into trending products, we need to stop you for a second.

Whether you’re running ads or looking for people to do it for you, let’s make sure you maximize your earnings this BFCM.

It’s time for your BFCM tactics’ health check.

The following checklist is built off a BFCM 2024: A Media Buyer’s Blueprint for Success on Meta, by Proxima.

Think Bigger Than The 4 Days Of BFCM

Before: Test ads and hooks in the month leading up to it. 

During: Go hard on the winners during the BFCM weekend.

After: Shift to "gift" messaging for Christmas and lean into urgency. Target low competition, high intent.

Website Checklist

1. Make your offer REALLY CLEAR on your website

2. Quadruple check your checkout flow and discount codes (careful not to make stackable offers)

3. Check that all of your email and SMS automations are updated with your new offer

4. Attach UTMs to all of you ads to track your traffic

5. Test all tracking events to make sure they're firing properly across paid, email, SMS and organic

6. Remove all unnecessary products from your feed

If You’re Not Managing The Ads…

How to find a good agency: Semrush has curated a list of good value, trustworthy service providers so you can hire with peace of mind. 

If You're Managing The Ads…

Schedule your ads ahead of time. Standard approval time is increased because of BFCM ad volume, plus the election. Be sure to run them through review early. You want time to spare in case they get rejected and you have to go through the process again. 

Raise your credit limits. Make sure Meta or Google are approved vendors with your banks, and let the bank know you’ll be paying a lot out to them so they don’t get blocked. 

Next, raise your spend limit on your ad account — talk to your rep. 

Campaign tactics. Proxima recommends cost controls. They allow you to set efficiency rather than spend, which should help you avoid falling victim to overspending for no results. They take a little fine-tuning, so you need to start testing them now and adjust the balance between bid and budget before BFCM. 

Here’s a sample campaign from Proxima to help you get started:

• Campaign type: ASC

• Bid type: Cost Cap

• Targeting: Broad

• Ads: 7-10 top performing Post IDs from L90

• Bid: 25% over target CPA (to get things going, you’ll adjust it down)

Let it run for 3 days. If it doesn’t spend, refresh ads or increase the bid. If you're spending inefficiently, dial the bid back, $0.25 to $0.5 at a time. There’s no science to it, you need to feel it out. 

AD

SEO isn’t for everyone

But those it is for know where to go. 

Growth Memo readers get a double duration free trial of Semrush.

TACTICS

Keurig Dr Pepper Sips Up Ghost in Major Acquisition

Big moves in the supplement world! Keurig Dr Pepper just acquired a 60% stake in Ghost, the lifestyle sports nutrition brand known for its edgy, innovative products and partnerships with favorites like Sour Patch Kids and Warheads. 

They intend to fully acquire the brand by 2028, for a potential $2 billion total. Not a bad exit for an 8 year-old company. 

It’s interesting because there haven’t been any M&As in consumer for a while. This could mean good things for any of you eyeing an exit. 

There are also some good lessons to glean from Ghost’s tactics. 

→ They healthified a “dirty” yet erupting category (energy drinks), allowing them to partner with kids candy brands. 

→ They candified boring categories, like protein powders and supplements, with those same licensing deals. 

→ They got lucky. During their early days, an AB InBev executive came across their brand while shopping. It caught his eye, he cold emails them and they struck a deal to expand their distribution. 

A number of brands are doing extremely well with healthification-candification: Obvi and BelliWelli to name a couple. 

It’s an excellent tactic to revive un-sexy categories. 

Worth thinking about.  

Takeaway: Think about which categories are currently unattractive, or do well but have a big flaw. Those are big opportunities. 

TOOLS

Shopify’s shiny new feature: The Finance Suite

A Shopify-Gallup survey earlier this year found that about 40% of entrepreneurs cite financial risk as a barrier to starting a business. Considering Shopify’s customer-base is mainly small and mid-size, they’ve made a move to facilitate getting over personal finance limitations. 

Their new Finance Suite allows users to borrow money with no credit check or impact on personal finance. 

Which doesn’t stop it from also boasting funding capabilities of up to $2 million. 

“Needlessly complicated finances should not overshadow the dream of running a business,” Shopify said in their announcement. “Entrepreneurs deserve better.”

Takeaway: if financial risk is a big barrier to you starting a business, Shopify might be a good place to kickstart it.

FROM THE DARK SIDE

“Why have all my products vanished from Google Merchant Center?”

“I sell vintage guitars on Shopify, and until yesterday, everything was showing up great on Google’s shopping tab. Suddenly, no matter how specific I search, my listings are MIA. Google Merchant Center says everything’s approved with no issues flagged… but the listings just aren’t appearing. My Reverb listings are still up—could the duplicate info be triggering something?

Just found a new issue: half my products now have ‘policy issues,’ but when I check, Google says there’s nothing wrong. Oh, and Google flagged my used items as ‘invalid for Discover ads.’ Really fun times, Google.”

– u/ShopVintageGuitars

😬

With ❤️,

The Early Checkout Team

At The Early Checkout, we are strongly committed to protecting your privacy and providing a safe & high-quality online experience for all visitors. See our Terms & Conditions here. If you have any questions, reply to this email or visit our Website to view our official policies.