The best Black Friday marketing strategy is not the biggest discount. It is buying customers. Know your real margin before you touch a single price, or you are gambling, not discounting. Use the day everyone is already shopping to win first-time buyers cheaply, then turn them into repeat customers with email, content and a brand they trust. Protect your numbers, build your list, and play the year-long game instead of chasing one revenue spike. This is the V8 Media Black Friday episode with Jandre and Magriet, written out with the Rand math and the real trends, from the team behind R2+ billion in client sales.
Most business owners treat Black Friday like a gold rush.
Slash prices, blast ads, watch the orders roll in. That worked five years ago.
Not anymore. The day got crowded, ad costs went up, and margins got squeezed thin.
We pulled this apart on the podcast with Jandre and Magriet. Watch the full chat below.
This is the written version, with the real numbers and a few hard opinions, so you can plan your next Black Friday properly.
How has Black Friday actually changed?
It used to be easy money. Run a few ads, drop your prices, sit back.
Those days are gone.
Today every brand in South Africa is shouting the same week. Everyone has a "deal". Shoppers are numb to it.
It is brutal. More brands. Same eyeballs. Ad costs through the roof. And to cut through, you slash deeper, which wipes out the profit you were chasing. You end Black Friday busy and broke.
The money is still huge, though. South Africans spent more than R30 billion on Black Friday 2024 across just three banks, according to BankservAfrica data. FNB customers alone spent more than R3 billion in a single day.
So the demand is real. The problem is everyone is fighting for it at the same time, with the same blunt tool: price.
Here is the shift in plain terms.
| Old Black Friday | New Black Friday |
|---|---|
| Cheap ad space, low competition | Ad costs spike as everyone bids the same week |
| A discount alone got attention | Every brand has a deal, so price alone is invisible |
| Goal: make money on the day | Goal: win customers you keep all year |
| One-day revenue spike | Brand, list and loyalty that pay off for months |
If your only plan is "discount harder than the next guy", you have already lost.
What is the smartest Black Friday strategy then?
Stop thinking of Black Friday as a profit day. Start thinking of it as customer acquisition.
That one reframe changes everything.
The smartest operators treat the day like paid sampling. You break even, or make a little, to get your product into the hands of thousands of new buyers who would never have tried you otherwise.
The profit comes later. Order two, three, ten. Full price. No ad spend. That is where the money actually lives.
So stop staring at the profit on that one order. Look at lifetime value instead, which is the total a customer spends with you over time.
Picture it in Rand. You sell a R600 product at near break-even on Black Friday. You gained nothing that day. But if one in three of those buyers comes back and spends R600 again at full margin, you just bought yourself a profitable customer for the price of a discount.
That is the game. Use the noisy day everyone is shopping anyway to fill the top of your funnel cheaply.
We dig into exactly what makes those buyers come back in what drives repeat purchases.
How do you protect your margins on Black Friday?
Acquisition thinking does not mean burning cash. The numbers still have to work.
The trap is a hollow victory. Big sales volume, zero profit, and an exhausted team in December.
So before you cut a single price, know your numbers cold.
- Know your true margin. Cost of goods, packaging, courier, payment fees, ad spend. All of it. If you do not know your real margin, you are gambling, not discounting.
- Run the worst case. Model what happens if ad costs jump 40% and your discount has to go deeper. If that still does not bankrupt you, you are safe.
- Pick your customer. Quality beats quantity. A deal-hunter who buys once and vanishes costs you money. Aim your offer at the kind of buyer who fits your brand and comes back.
- Set a floor. Decide the lowest price you will go to before the frenzy hits, and do not break it at 11pm because a competitor went lower.
And remember, you are heading straight into a tight South African December. Give away margin now and it hurts twice.
Most owners only learn their real margin after Black Friday, when the profit they expected is gone. Do the maths first. Our breakdown of how much profit the average ecommerce store makes is a good gut check.
And watch your ad costs like a hawk during the week. This is where a lot of margin quietly disappears. If you are running Meta Ads or Google Ads over the peak, keep a tight eye on cost per purchase, not just total spend, because both platforms get more expensive when every brand is bidding at once.
Why does brand beat discounting?
Nobody remembers the exact percentage off. They remember whether they trusted you. That is it.
That is the whole secret most owners miss.
Look at Apple. It barely discounts on Black Friday. A small gift card, maybe. Yet people queue up, because the brand is so strong a tiny perk feels huge.
Now picture a no-name brand. It can slash prices in half and still struggle, because nobody trusts it yet.
Same discount, completely different result. The difference is brand equity, which is just the trust and recognition you have banked over time.
A strong brand needs a smaller discount to get the same sale. A weak brand has to bribe people with deeper cuts, which destroys margin.
So brand-building is not a luxury you do "once you have money". It is the thing that makes every future promotion cheaper and more profitable.
This is the exact tension we cover in branding vs sales campaigns when starting a new business. Black Friday is where the gap between a known brand and an unknown one shows up in your bank account.
What are the Black Friday consumer trends you need to know?
You cannot plan a strategy if you do not know how people actually shop the day.
Here are the trends that matter, pulled from South African bank data and global retail reports. The years differ, but the direction is the same.
| Trend | The number | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Shopping is mostly on phones | About 55% of US Black Friday online sales came from mobile in 2025 (Adobe Analytics) | Test your mobile site and checkout first, not last |
| People buy fast, in bursts | US shoppers spent about $12.5 million online per minute at peak in 2025 (Adobe) | Your offer and site must load fast and be dead simple |
| Sales come in sharp hourly spikes | SA transaction volumes jumped 75% in a single hour versus the day before in 2024 (BankservAfrica) | Keep a strong push ready for the peak hours, do not run out of steam |
| Card and digital rule | 84% of SA Black Friday 2024 transactions were card payments (BankservAfrica) | Make digital payment smooth and trusted at checkout |
| AI is starting to drive sales | AI influenced about $22 billion in global Black Friday 2025 sales (Salesforce) | Make sure your product info is clear enough for AI tools to recommend you |
South Africa hit record online numbers in 2024. Online shopping volumes were up 27% on the day before, per BankservAfrica's payment data, even in a tight economy.
The takeaway is simple. People are shopping on their phones, fast, late, and increasingly with help from AI. Build for that, not for a desktop shopper with all afternoon to browse.
Free reach matters too. Your reels and posts can warm people up before the day, which is exactly what we cover in how to use Instagram and TikTok to generate sales for free.
Tactics or strategy: which comes first?
Most owners drown in tactics. They tweak ads, swap creatives, send more emails, panic over every little step.
Tactics without a strategy are just random puzzle pieces with no picture on the box.
Jandre calls it thinking outside-in. Start with the big picture: who do you want to be in the market, and what do you want this Black Friday to do for you? Then pick the tactics that fit.
Inside-out is the opposite, and it is where people get stuck. You start with the tactic ("let's do 40% off and send five emails") and hope it adds up to something. It rarely does.
Outside-in is calmer too. Every small decision lines up behind one goal, so you stop reacting to every competitor and start running your own race.
Pick your goal first. Win 2,000 new customers? Grow your email list by 5,000? Clear dead stock without trashing your brand? Then build the offer and the ads around that.
Why does your energy decide the outcome?
This one sounds soft. It is not.
Your emotional state on Black Friday drives your decisions, and bad decisions cost real Rands.
Panic makes you slash prices at midnight, fire off desperate emails, and chase every competitor down a hole. Calm makes you stick to your plan and your floor.
Black Friday is loud, fast, and built to make you panic. The skill is not avoiding that. It is making the call anyway, with a clear head.
When it gets loud, step away. Take a walk. Come back and make the call with a clear head instead of a racing one.
The owners who stay calm make better numbers. The ones who panic give away their margin and call it a "strategy".
How do you turn one-day buyers into lifelong customers?
This is where the real money lives, and where most businesses drop the ball.
Black Friday brings in a flood of bargain hunters. Your job is to keep some of them.
So capture the relationship, not just the sale. Get them on your email list. Get them following your content. Put a card in every parcel with a reason to come back.
Your email list is the cheapest marketing you own. You already paid to acquire those people, so emailing them again costs almost nothing. We break down how to do it in how to build and monetise an ecommerce email list fast.
Then use content to stay in their world. Reels, stories, behind-the-scenes, useful posts. Not "buy now" every day, but enough that they remember you in January when the discount is gone.
When you make your next offer outside the Black Friday noise, that trust means higher conversion and far less price resistance. You sell at full margin to people who already like you.
That is the funnel. Wide at the top with a great Black Friday deal, narrowing into loyal customers who buy again because they want to, not because it is cheap.
Why is Black Friday really a year-long play?
The day is over in hours. The effects run for months.
New customers you win in November show up as revenue in your Q1 and Q2 next year.
The brand awareness you build lowers your ad costs later, because warm audiences are cheaper to convert than cold ones.
The email list you grew becomes a free sales channel you can tap any time you like.
So stop fixating on the return on ad spend for that single day. Think about the lifetime value of the customers you just bought.
That is the mindset shift the whole episode is built on. Black Friday is not the finish line. It is the start of a relationship.
Plan it that way and a stressful, low-margin day becomes the best growth move you make all year. For a deeper prep checklist, our episode with Gilbert Kumpukwe on how to prepare for your best Black Friday ever pairs perfectly with this one.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Black Friday marketing strategy for a small business?
Treat Black Friday as customer acquisition, not a profit grab. Know your true margins first, then use a strong offer to win first-time buyers cheaply on the day everyone is already shopping. The profit comes later, from repeat orders at full price. Capture every buyer onto your email list and into your content so you can sell to them again without paying for ads. Protect your numbers, set a price floor, and build a brand people trust so you need a smaller discount than your competitors.
How much do South Africans spend on Black Friday?
South Africans spent more than R30 billion on Black Friday 2024 across just three banks, according to BankservAfrica data reported by Daily Maverick. FNB customers alone spent more than R3 billion in a single day. Online shopping volumes were up 27% on the day before, and 84% of transactions were card payments, showing shoppers strongly prefer digital. The demand is enormous, but so is the competition, which is why a discount alone is no longer enough to stand out.
Should I discount heavily on Black Friday?
Only if your margins can take it and you have a plan to keep the customer. Deep discounts win the first sale but destroy profit if those buyers never return. The smarter move is the smallest discount that still feels compelling, backed by a brand people trust, so you protect margin. Strong brands like Apple barely discount and still sell out, while unknown brands have to cut deeper. Always know your true margin and set a price floor before the day.
How do I stop Black Friday from wrecking my profit?
Run the numbers before you run the sale. Calculate your real margin including cost of goods, packaging, courier, payment fees and ad spend. Model a worst case where ad costs jump and discounts go deeper. Set the lowest price you will accept and stick to it. Aim your offer at quality customers who fit your brand and return, not one-time deal-hunters. Watch cost per purchase on your ads daily, because Meta and Google both get more expensive when every brand is bidding at once.
What are the biggest Black Friday consumer trends right now?
Shopping is mostly mobile, with about 55% of US Black Friday online sales coming from phones in 2025 (Adobe Analytics). Buying happens in fast bursts, with US shoppers spending around $12.5 million online per minute at peak in 2025. Sales come in sharp hourly spikes, with SA transaction volumes jumping 75% in a single hour versus the day before in 2024 (BankservAfrica). Card and digital payments dominate at 84% of SA transactions. And AI is starting to drive sales, influencing about $22 billion in global Black Friday 2025 purchases (Salesforce).
Is Black Friday worth it for my business?
Yes. But only if you stop measuring the day and start measuring the year. The customers you buy in November are your cheapest Q1 revenue. The email list you build costs you almost nothing to market to in January. Low margin on the day, high return over twelve months. That is the trade. Stop chasing the profit on Black Friday itself and start measuring lifetime customer value, and a low-margin day becomes the cheapest way to fill your funnel for the year ahead.
Key takeaways
- Reframe Black Friday as paid customer acquisition, not a profit day. Win buyers cheaply, then profit from repeat orders.
- Know your true margin and set a price floor before you discount. South Africans spent R30+ billion across three banks on Black Friday 2024 (BankservAfrica), but ad costs and deep discounts can leave you with volume and no profit.
- Brand beats discounting. A trusted brand needs a smaller cut to sell, like Apple. An unknown brand has to bribe with deeper discounts that kill margin.
- Build for how people shop: mobile-first (about 55% of online sales), fast, late, and increasingly via AI tools (Adobe, Salesforce).
- Capture every buyer onto your email list and into your content, then play the year-long game on lifetime value, not one-day ROAS.
Want us to run your Black Friday so it actually grows your business?
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