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Black Friday is arguably the most important time of the year for brands. For most of us it’s make or break on hitting that annual forecast - so we have to get it right.
In a landscape where the buzz of Black Friday is diminishing and customers are overwhelmed with discount messaging everywhere, ‘Search’ is also changing. Yes, I know we’ve been hearing “SEO is dead” for years… but this time the way we used to do SEO actually is, and that means our old Black Friday playbooks are dead too.
A few PLP tweaks and a homepage banner aren’t enough in a world where discovery happens across multiple touchpoints and search exists across an array of platforms, but if this has you panicking - don’t worry, we’ve got the new playbook right here.
As the Search Everywhere® agency, we know a thing or two about, well, Search Everywhere®. So let’s talk through how to take a Black Friday approach that doesn’t just survive the noise, but cuts through it.
By the end of this piece, you’ll have a checklist for creating:
- One strong campaign thread that unites awareness, demand and community
- Social search activations to build buzz and anticipation
- Digital PR hooks to amplify what’s already working
- On-site and social execution that drives sales when it counts
1. Start with a Campaign (Not Just a Discount)
If your Black Friday messaging is just ‘70% off everything’ - rethink it. Shoppers will see hundreds of those everywhere throughout November, discount messages blur together, and discount fatigue is a real thing - it’s basic psychology. Think, The first time you see a "50% off" headline, it feel exciting and you feel urgency, however, if that same "50% off" deal, or variations of it, appear repeatedly throughout the sale period - through socials, e-mails etc, the emotional high inevitably dulls and it becomes boring - there is no more urgency, there is no need to act.
A focus on discount alone hurts your brand too, as the discount will need to be pretty hefty to attract and retain eyes, and even if your discount is so good that it cuts through the noise, you’re risking brand loyalty long term. Shoppers conditioned to expect discounts may shift their allegiance to whichever brand offers the lowest price at any given time, resulting in a lack of long-term customer retention.
The way through? Make your sale an actual campaign - a story people remember. Tap into a cultural moment, community insight, or brand value that makes people stop scrolling. The discount becomes the punchline, not the headline.
Examples worth gleaning inspiration from:
Walmart – Turned TikTok into an AR playground with #UnwrapTheDeals during 2020 when many were at home. Core message: interactive + relevant = sticky.
Patagonia – Flipped the script with “Don’t Buy This Jacket” anti-sale messaging. Putting their values at the heart of their activation. Core message: Staying true to your beliefs increases customer trust for an unforgettable sale.
Google – Used #BlackOwnedFriday to spotlight underrepresented businesses, creating cultural value beyond discounts.
Gymshark - Utilised gym fail moments alongside an opportunity to highlight the positive sale discounts.
The point? Create intrigue, entertainment, relatability, or values-led storytelling. That’s what cuts through.
2. Execute on Social Search
Black Friday discovery doesn’t start on Google anymore (especially not if your audience are Gen Z, Millennial or Gen Alpha). It starts on TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram, it could even be starting within an interaction on ChatGPT. Combine your campaign idea with search-led content to encourage discovery for a memorable campaign before launch.
- Utilise your campaign idea for a community-first moment
- Encourage and interact with UGC, invite stories and participation, make it a two way conversation.
Example: You’re a running shoe brand - your campaign could tap into the elated feeling a runner gets when they cross the finish line.
Overarching campaign: “We know there’s not much that beats the feeling of crossing the finish line, but copping a discount in our Black Friday sale comes pretty close.”
You could:
- Brief your creators and ambassadors to share stories about what it meant for them to cross the line, who they were doing it for, what they had to sacrifice, how hard they trained.
- Encourage community participation - share the biggest sacrifice you made to cross the line, share your story with us on who you did this race for. (You should then be interacting with this content)
- Your paid ads utilise this content - capturing audiences with a relatable, emotive story moment.
Create search content across platforms - Some of those searches that were happening on Google are probably happening elsewhere now. Think about how you can educate and inform your audience, while entertaining through platforms such as TikTok and YouTube.
Quick hack: Consider what you might have written on a blog or PLP before, and translate that into video search content.
Educate and spotlight products you know will be going into the sale beforehand to generate interest before the discount drops.
Example: Your premium running shoe range is going to be heavily discounted? You should be creating search-driven running content featuring these products in the lead-up.
Share teasers on the sale and products alongside campaign content through your creator network.
Example: I just got my hands on [your brand] black friday sale products early and this is what I think
Think of it as the build-up phase: use creators, micro-influencers, and your own team to showcase hero products, create “early access” buzz, and seed anticipation before the discount lands.
3. Amplify with Digital PR
Social conversations don’t need to only live on social media. If you’re creating a community moment that’s got a buzz around it, it’s the perfect time to leverage that. If something sparks, push it further.
Digital PR in 2025 is more than gaining backlinks, it’s about increasing the chances of getting cited in LLM’s - which are more likely to happen even with just a brand mention, so getting your brand mentioned in influential articles in the right spaces counts
Spot the formats and posts that are gaining traction - what is the core message and what is newsworthy?
Spin them into earned PR moments - hook journalists, industry press, or niche blogs through Digital PR outreach.
Package campaign angles into data, stunts, or opinion-led narratives.
Monitor mentions on AI/LLM platforms - has being featured in articles in your space (IE running shoe articles and/or black friday articles for runners) made you more likely to show up in related prompts on AI platforms.
This is how you get your social content working even harder.
4. Conversion
This will happen across both the site, and on social shopping destinations, such as TikTok Shop. This is where you cash in on the buzz. To connect the dots for a Black Friday campaign that actually converts, here’s what you should do:
On socials
- Run a long TikTok live, the algorithm favours longer lives so make it LONG. (we’re talking for 12 hours if possible).
- Plan the Live well in advance - will you be rotating hosts every hour to give them a break? will you be rotating product focus? having structured time for Q&As? ensure it’s organised well in advance to set you up for success.
- Promote products under the £10 mark if possible - encourage impulse purchases via TikTok shop as these are what work best on lives (especially if you are yet to build trust with audiences on the platform).
- Offer exclusive discounts (like TikTok Live with timed offers), give customers a reason to shop from the live, now.
On site
- Intent-lead PLPs - think about the searches you will be driving from your social content - do these have a home on your site? Make the user journey seamless by giving your audience a page to land on that they’d expect.
- Embed your social content on-site - make the journey from social to site feel seamless.
- Sale hubs & price buckets - organise your products into sale specific pages and price/category buckets. Make it quick and easy to navigate and convert.
- Test optimisations - test different SEO optimisations - black friday PLPs, discount added to meta data, pages optimised for product + sale queries. Monitor these throughout the period and amplify what works.
- Freshness - Rotate hero products daily, increase discounts further down the line, introduce codes to reduce fatigue if your sale period is going for a long timeUrgency cues - Countdowns, live deal timers, limited stock flags.
- Community proof - Showcase UGC (“Our customers wearing X”) directly on PLPs or bring some of that well-performing social content onto the site - whether at PDP, PLP or landing page level.
The Search Everywhere® Black Friday 2025 Checklist
✅ One unifying campaign idea (not just a proposition)
✅ Early buzz on social search (creators, UGC, live activations)
✅ PR amplification of what gains traction
✅ On-site conversion flow (price buckets, optimised outlet, urgency, community proof) and TikTok lives.
Put simply: Black Friday isn’t about more discounts. It’s about being memorable, discoverable, and everywhere. That’s the Search Everywhere™ way.
Citations:
C+R Research’s Navigating Deal Fatigue warns that constant discounting can erode loyalty — customers become bargain-hoppers rather than brand loyalists. crresearch.com”
The Psychology Behind Discount Fatigue argues that discount messaging loses potency over time — urgency is dulled, consumers stop caring.
https://www.crresearch.com/blog/navigating-deal-fatigue-strategies-to-retain-customer-loyalty
https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/small-business/google-black-owned-friday-2024/
https://eachandeveryone.co/2020-black-friday-campaigns/
