Richard Jones is Chief Revenue Officer of Wunderkind, helping brands adapt to modern trends amid any ever-evolving customer landscape.
There’s little room for guesswork in digital commerce. Nowhere is that more apparent than during Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM), the annual battleground where consumer intent meets brand execution at full throttle.
This year, the ability to capitalize hinges on how well companies use identity, AI and behavior to trigger the right engagement at exactly the right time. I’m talking about redefining what performance means in a landscape where attention is scarce, prices are politicized and shoppers are driven by data over impulse.
So, if your strategy still relies on discount-heavy, one-size-fits-all campaigns, here’s your wake-up call. You’re not just leaving money on the table; you’re bleeding potential.
The Loyalty Cliff Is Real (And Steep)
Let’s start with the macro shift. As tariff uncertainty and inflation threaten to increase consumer prices across the board, Americans are becoming increasingly price sensitive, meaning they’re more open to switching brands for a better price.
Behaviorally, that means more abandoned carts and delayed purchases until major sale windows. Translation? Loyalty has a shelf life. And in this economic climate, value wins.
With inflation and tariff-induced price hikes reshaping consumer habits, Gen-Z and Millennials now browse like their Gen-X parents. That means comparison shopping, bookmarking and setting price alerts. Uncalculated splurges have become increasingly rare. Shoppers are budgeting like analysts. And brands that don’t offer a compelling value exchange with transparency, exclusivity and personalization will be ghosted, often without knowing it.
5 BFCM Pitfalls To Avoid That Kill Performance
You’d be surprised by how many brands still stumble at the starting line. Let’s unpack five common mistakes to avoid this season, drawn from post-mortems our company conducted on underperforming campaigns from over 1,000 clients—including big-box, e-commerce and DTC retailers—with data from more than 46 billion events:
1. Starting Too Late
Waiting until mid-November to activate your audience? You’ve already missed peak opt-in season. Our research shows that nearly half of annual email and SMS list growth happens in early November. You need to be acquiring and personalizing today.
2. Using The Same Popups As Last Year
Your email capture is only as strong as your value proposition. Passive overlays and default templates won’t cut it. Dynamic, identity-powered popups based on real-time behavior (cart contents, scroll depth, traffic source) consistently outperform static formats. Using historical data on a given customer, whether that’s first-party data or information gained through identity provider partners, can help serve up the right value exchange offer at the right moment and place on your website for each visitor.
3. Sending Blanket Email Blasts
Not segmenting by behavior, interest or engagement level? Your audience won’t just ignore you. They’ll actively unsubscribe. Adaptive email sequences that evolve based on session behavior are non-negotiable.
4. Underinvesting In Text
SMS is your urgency engine, but it must be personalized. AI should determine which users get messages with video, images and audio via MMS versus plain-text SMS, when to send based on activity windows and how to trigger conversion nudges tied to cart size or product category. After all, not all customers want to watch a video, or may not have the appropriate device to even view it. Others tune out at any text, making video crucial.
5. Treating Identity As An Afterthought
In 2024, one-third of all BFCM revenue came from known users. That number is only rising. Identity resolution is the foundation of your campaign. If you can’t recognize a shopper across sessions or devices, you can’t personalize. Period.
What Worked In 2024, And What’s Non-Negotiable In 2025?
Hundreds of top brands like Harley-Davidson, Perry Ellis, True Botanicals and Kendra Scott have integrated our autonomous marketing platform AI engine into their existing email service provider (ESP) to boost performance across email, text and advertising channels, giving us a clear look into what works and what doesn’t.
Last year’s high performers shared three common traits: They were mobile-first, identity-centric and behaviorally intelligent. Mobile wasn’t just a browsing platform, but one of conversion as well—in record numbers. According to Adobe Business, over half of the total spend between Nov. 1 and the end of the year last year came from mobile. Checkout flows that were fast, responsive and frictionless saw the biggest spikes.
Email and text worked, but only when powered by intent. Abandonment sequences updated in real time. Welcome flows shifted based on acquisition source. Subject lines matched the onsite promotion, not a generic send calendar. In short, campaigns evolved from personalization to orchestration.
Identity went from back-end infrastructure to front-line MVP. The brands that dominated used AI to read session signals and deployed personalized content instantly.
Build Smarter, Not Louder
“Ends at midnight” still converts, but only when paired with relevance. Urgency without identity is noise. The real winners will be those who build before they blast. That means capturing more first-party data, segmenting that data behaviorally and using agentic AI to decide what content to send, where and when.
Own The Site Visit = Own The Revenue
You have a limited time to turn an anonymous visitor into a known user. That moment of arrival is critical, and most brands blow it. Popups should be personalized based on how a visitor entered the site, what they’re browsing and whether they’ve been there before.
Gamified opt-ins still work (scratch-offs, spin-to-wins), but only when layered with identity resolution. Suppress for known users. Tailor for traffic sources. And always pair with exit intent or scroll depth, not just time on site.
Charting The Course Beyond Cyber Week
Don’t think of BFCM as a one-time push. It’s your annual flywheel. Every email opt-in, abandoned cart and known user you re-engage lays the groundwork for higher lifetime value in Q1 and beyond.
Your job isn’t to chase revenue. It’s to engineer it with systems that learn, adapt and scale autonomously.
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