Black Friday Part 4, The Mom Test and 8 More Tips That Actually Work

Your website's gonna get rammed on Black Friday. Are you ready? While most eCommerce brands focus on creating killer offers and acquisition strategies, they miss the operational details that make or break Black Friday success. Matt Edmundson, host of the eCommerce Podcast, has spent years learning these lessons the hard way through his own eCommerce ventures and working with Digital Davids who face down the retail Goliaths every November.

This isn't another list of generic Black Friday tips. These are battle-tested strategies that emerge from the reality of what actually happens when your traffic spikes, your customer service gets flooded, and 70% of your sales happen on mobile devices that weren't properly tested. Matt's approach centres around one simple principle: if your mum can't understand and use your Black Friday offer, your customers probably can't either.

The Philosophy Behind Black Friday Success

Before diving into tactics, there's a fundamental mindset shift that separates successful Black Friday campaigns from the disasters. Most brands treat Black Friday like a sprint, a frantic 24-hour dash to maximise sales. But Matt challenges this thinking entirely.

"Black Friday now lasts two weeks," he explains. "It's the week before and it's the week after, right? Starting with Cyber Monday, the week after going through. So you've got this two weeks. You've got a week either side now of Black Friday where you can run offers, where you can engage audiences."

This shift from viewing Black Friday as a single event to understanding it as a two-week marketing opportunity completely changes how you plan, execute, and measure success. Instead of cramming everything into one overwhelming day, you can build anticipation, test systems, and create multiple touchpoints that guide customers through their buying journey.

The Mom Test Framework

At the heart of Matt's approach lies what he calls "the mom test", a deceptively simple but powerful validation method that prevents most Black Friday disasters before they happen.

The Concept
Send your Black Friday landing pages, offers, and purchase flows to someone like your mum, someone who isn't your ideal target market but represents the average consumer's technical ability.

Why It Works
"My mum is not the most technically savvy person on the planet, so if she can navigate it, I know other people will be okay with them as well," Matt explains. The mum test reveals the gaps between what you think is obvious and what actually makes sense to real customers.

What to Test
- Can they understand the offer without asking questions?
- Can they complete the purchase process on mobile?
- Do they know what to do next at each step?
- Are the terms and conditions clear?
- Can they find shipping and returns information easily?

The Hidden Benefit
Beyond preventing confusion, the mom test dramatically reduces customer service load. "What can I do to minimise the load on customer service?" Matt asks. "If you've done Black Friday in previous years, think about what, go talk to your customer service team. What are the problems that we experience on Black Friday? What are the common questions?"

The Nine Essential Black Friday Tips

Building on the mom test foundation, Matt shares eight additional strategies that address the operational realities of Black Friday success:

1. Site Speed: Your Hidden Conversion Killer

"This is one of those things that SEO guys go on about all the time. It affects your SEO massively," Matt notes. But during Black Friday, site speed becomes critical for a different reason: your traffic is about to explode.

Use Google's site speed checkers to test both desktop and mobile performance. Fix anything slowing your site down before the traffic surge hits. Remember that frustrated customers don't wait for slow pages to load; they go to competitors.

2. Customer Service: Plan for the Flood

Your standard Monday-to-Friday customer service hours won't cut it during Black Friday weekend. "You're gonna want customer service staff to man the emails, the live chat, and the phone over the weekend," Matt advises.

Leave customer queries until Monday, and people feel forgotten. Come in Monday morning to hundreds of emails, and you're already behind. Plan for weekend coverage during peak trading times, especially for live chat, where immediate responses can save sales.

3. Be Creative with Paid Media

"It is gonna be expensive. Yes, it is. Every man and his dog is gonna be wanting to do paid media throughout Black Friday weekend."

Instead of joining the bidding frenzy, get creative:
- Run acquisition campaigns early to build your email and SMS lists
- Test ad creative now while it's cheaper
- Focus on remarketing to warmed audiences rather than cold acquisition
- Consider switching off Facebook ads and investing in other channels

4. Social Media: Build the Anticipation

Your social media profiles offer a unique opportunity to build buzz without competing in expensive paid channels. Start building anticipation in late October, funnel followers to your email list, and consider giveaways to boost engagement.

Matt's warning about giveaways: "You will get freebie hunters, and their email addresses aren't always great. So you might want to do things like double opt-ins just to confirm email addresses."

5. Mobile: Where 70% of Your Sales Happen

"70% of sales on average on Black Friday weekend are gonna happen on a mobile device."

This isn't just about having a responsive design. Test everything:
- Your mom needs to complete the entire purchase on her phone
- Test on both iPhone and Android
- Check tablets and different screen sizes
- Ensure checkout flows work perfectly on mobile

6. Cart Abandonment: Thursday's Big Challenge

"Cart abandonment is gonna be a massive issue, much bigger than normal, especially on Thursday."

Thursday before Black Friday sees particularly high abandonment rates as customers add items to carts but wait to see what Friday brings. Combat this with:
- Clear messaging that current offers are genuinely good
- Email capture for abandoned cart sequences
- Segmented campaigns for cart abandoners
- Landing page copy that addresses "waiting until tomorrow" fears

7. Think Two Weeks, Not Two Days

This mindset shift opens up massive opportunities. Matt's team once ran "12 Days of Christmas" campaigns, offering different deals each day to keep customers engaged throughout the extended period.

"Think of Black Friday as two weeks. Plan for that in your marketing. It's not just a one day event or two day event."

8. Create a Year-Round Black Friday Page

Instead of creating new landing pages each year, SEO experts now recommend maintaining permanent Black Friday pages that get updated with fresh content.

"Have a permanent year-round Black Friday landing page," Matt suggests. "So when you come to your next Black Friday, it's the same page. It's the same URL, it's already indexed by Google. The search engines are loving it, and you're just gonna put some fresh content on there."

The Reality Check: Planning vs. Execution

These tips work because they address what actually happens during Black Friday, not what we hope will happen. Your site will get more traffic than usual. Your customer service will be overwhelmed. People will abandon carts at higher rates. Mobile traffic will dominate.

The brands that succeed are the ones that plan for these realities rather than hoping they won't occur. They test with people like their mums. They staff customer service for weekends. They optimise for mobile because that's where the sales actually happen.

Your Black Friday Action Plan

Ready to implement these strategies for your Black Friday campaign? Here's your step-by-step approach:

1. Run the Mom Test
Send your current landing pages and offers to someone who isn't technical. Can they understand and complete the process without asking questions?

2. Audit Your Technical Foundation
Check site speed on both desktop and mobile. Fix any issues now, before traffic spikes.

3. Plan Your Customer Service Strategy
Schedule weekend coverage for peak Black Friday trading hours. Brief your team on common questions from previous years.

4. Test Your Mobile Experience
Complete your entire purchase process on different mobile devices. Fix any friction points.

5. Set Up Your Two-Week Campaign
Plan content and offers for the week before and after Black Friday, not just the day itself.

The Two-Week Opportunity

At the risk of repetition, reframe Black Friday from a single day of chaos into a two-week opportunity for sustainable growth. This shift allows you to:

Build genuine anticipation rather than just shouting about discounts. Test and optimise your systems before peak traffic hits. Create multiple touchpoints that guide customers through their decision-making process. Reduce the pressure on any single day while maximising the overall opportunity.

As Matt puts it: "You've got a whole lot of stuff there that I can take advantage of, right? So think about that in your marketing, in your emails, on your website. What can you do to take advantage of it?"

Building Systems That Work

These nine tips work because they are built on understanding how customers actually behave during Black Friday, not how we wish they would behave. They account for the technical realities, the operational challenges, and the mobile-first world we're selling into.

The mom test isn't just about simplifying your offers, it's about building empathy for customers who don't live and breathe your business like you do. The two-week approach isn't just about extending your promotional period; it's about creating sustainable systems that don't rely on a single day going perfectly.

Most importantly, these strategies recognise that Black Friday success isn't just about having the best offer. It's about having systems that work when everything gets overwhelming, processes that function when traffic spikes, and customer service that maintains relationships when things inevitably go wrong.

Your website's gonna get rammed. But with the right preparation, that's exactly what you want.

Today's Guest

Today's guest: Matt Edmundson
Company:Aurion
Website:https://aurioncompany.com/
LinkedIn:https://linkedin.com/in/mattedmundson