20 Nov New to Black Friday? Your guide to balance budgets, acquire markets and build loyalty

Balancing Budgets Between Warm and Cold Audiences

When it comes to Black Friday, having a solid plan for your ad budget is everything—especially when it’s time to decide how much to spend on warm versus cold audiences. Black Friday is an incredible opportunity to bring in new customers and re-engage those already familiar with your brand.

It’s the perfect moment to focus on acquisition marketing—getting new customers through the door and turning them into repeat buyers. But it’s also prime time for targeting warm audiences: website visitors, past purchasers, and anyone who’s interacted with your social media content recently. These are the people who already know you and are most likely to convert.

Balance Your Budget:

Most of the year, you probably favour cold audiences, allocating about 70% of your total daily budget to acquisition goals (new customers).  On Black Friday, depending on your overall goal, this might change. Consider:

〰️ Want to clear stock fast? Focus on warm audiences with a 50/50 or 60/40 split in their favour. These are the people that are poised to buy.

〰️ Looking to expand your customer base? Go hard on cold audiences with an 80/20 split. Bring in new customers now and nurture them into loyal buyers, but don’t forget about your warmed up folk!

(oh, and if you haven’t mentioned you’ll be having a sale? consider excluding those who just bought from you in the last 3-4 days. “refund the discount” culture is growing. Don’t ask me what I think of this cultural shopping shift [dislike]).

Don’t Just Sell—Nurture Relationships

Attracting new customers is just the start. Black Friday should be the beginning of a relationship, not a one-off sale. If you only show up in their inbox when you’ve got a sale, you’re training them to wait for discounts. Instead:

〰️ Create loyalty perks: Offer discounts for future purchases or give them early access to upcoming products.

〰️ Build trust and connection: Use email campaigns or social media to tell your brand story and stay on their radar year-round.

Warm Audiences: Your Secret Weapon

While you’re chasing new customers, don’t forget the people who’ve already shown interest in your brand. Think about the “looky-lous”—the people who’ve visited your website, watched your videos, or engaged with your posts but haven’t purchased yet. Platforms like Meta let you retarget these audiences up to 365 days after their initial interaction (see massive detailed retargeting list below!).

Black Friday is your chance to pull them back in. Use tailored offers and strategic retargeting to nudge them toward making that purchase.

Load Your Campaigns Early to Avoid Delays

Here’s a tip you’ll thank yourself for later: load all your campaigns into Meta early—like, right now. Black Friday is one of the busiest times of the year for ad approvals, and Ads Manager is notorious for glitches, bugs, and delays during this season. Don’t risk your campaigns being held up or rejected last minute.

By setting everything up ahead of time, you can:

〰️ Avoid approval bottlenecks: Meta’s review process takes longer during the holiday season, so give yourself a buffer.

〰️ Test for system issues: Early setup gives you time to troubleshoot bugs or errors that might otherwise derail your launch.

〰️ Adjust and refine: Loading campaigns now means you have time to tweak targeting or creative if needed, without the pressure of a looming deadline.

Think of it like packing for a big trip. You wouldn’t wait until the morning of your flight, so why leave your campaigns to the last minute? Get ahead of the chaos so your ads are ready to go when it matters most.

Balancing your budget between warm and cold audiences is key to Black Friday success. By knowing when to go hard on acquisition and when to lean into your loyal base, you can make the most of this shopping frenzy while building long-term relationships with your customers. And remember—preparing early is just as important as the strategy itself. Don’t let avoidable delays or glitches get in the way of a successful sales campaign.

Here’s your detailed retargeting list

Not just for Black Friday, but these audiences can – and should – be tapped into all year ’round.

Website Traffic Retargeting – up to 180 days
〰️ Retarget users who visited your website, specific product pages, or abandoned their cart.
〰️ Target time-based actions such as top % of people who spent time on your website

App Activity Retargeting – up to 180p days
〰️ Retarget users who installed your app but didn’t purchase.
〰️ Engage users based on specific in-app actions, like watching a video or completing a level.

Customer List Retargeting – no time limit
〰️ Upload your email lists to create a custom audience (ethics, people, ethics and legalities top of mind, always!)
〰️ Match data to retarget customers based on email, phone number, or other identifiers.

Engagement Retargeting – up to 365 days
〰️ Target users who watched a specific percentage of your videos.
〰️ Retarget people who liked, commented on, or shared your posts.
〰️ Include those who opened or completed a lead form.
〰️ Re-engage event RSVPs or those who interacted with your event page.
〰️ Target Facebook and Instagram page followers
〰️ Consider people who have browsed your IG and FB shops, or engaged with your catalogue
〰️ If you run instant experience ads (collection format), you can retarget people who have opened or engaged with these
〰️ You can even target people who have saved your posts

Messenger Retargeting – up to 365 days
〰️ Reach users who’ve started a conversation with your business through Messenger.

We’d love to know if you learned something or discovered a new strategy for Black Friday, or any tome of the year to grow your product based brand! head to the group to share or ask the questions on your mind! Join Meta Ads Made Easy