Your Ultimate Black Friday Affiliate Guide

The holiday season is upon us, and Black Friday is the first in a row of major shopping events that will be happening up until the end of the year.

This is a hot time for virtually every industry and niche. Online shoppers will be looking for exclusive deals and scrolling endlessly, looking to find the products and services they didn’t even know they needed a few days ago.

Black Friday is great for catching the attention of potential customers and loyal customers alike. But if you think that it’s going to be enough to create a couple of special deals and send them to your email list, then we have some news for you.

The holiday shopping season is when all businesses are investing into their marketing, creating limited time offers, and doing everything else in their powers to boost the conversion rate.

What does it mean for you?

• Your customer base and prospects will be bombarded with all sorts of email campaigns, special discounts, gift cards, and other once-in-a-lifetime offers.
• Their attention will be spread among many more brands and options than usual.
• They’ll be more likely to forget about you or drop you down on the priority list.

So how can you dodge all those bullets and make it to their top of mind during this crucial time?

Affiliate marketing and social proof are the answer!

In this guide we will share why affiliate marketing is what you need this holiday season, talk about the ways to optimize and elevate your affiliate program or launch it if you haven’t already, and discuss other tips and tricks to ensure your Black Friday this year becomes the best one yet.

Let’s go!

What is Black Friday, and Why is it Called That?

Black Friday is a shopping extravaganza that started in the US but quickly became an international phenomenon.

Traditionally, it takes place on the first Friday after Thanksgiving, and in 2024, it falls on November 29.

Over the past years many companies chose to extend Black Fridays over weekends and even entire weeks in hopes of maximizing their profits with exclusive discounts and online sales.

Interestingly, the shopping event received its legendary name thanks to the Philadelphia traffic police.

According to Dictionary.com, one year back in 1960s traffic police had to work 12-hour shifts that were utterly terrible due to the chaos and disastrous traffic jams created by shoppers. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Army-Navy football game took place the same day. Imagine the mayhem.

This was when the term stuck, and, if we had to guess, since then, many Philadelphia policemen started calling in sick right before the big day.

Why is Black Friday Important?

In 2023, CNBC reported a 7.5% increase in Black Friday online sales compared to 2022, which totaled to a jaw-dropping $9.8 billion. With 90 million active shoppers out of 334 million that same year, this leaves us with roughly $109 per shopper.

Naturally, you need to take this number with a grain of salt, as some people will be spending thousands while others will only get a $5 product. Still, this is an enormous opportunity for your brand to:

• Make extra sales and help close the Q4 sales targets
• Reward loyal customers with great deals
• Acquire new customers
• Boost brand awareness
• Launch new products or services with a bang

Black Friday is the day for shopping.

In the investing world, missing the 10 best days on the market cuts your end portfolio value in half. For eCommerce, SaaS, and subscription-based services, Black Friday is like one of those 10 days, if not several of them.

When is the Best Time to Plan for Black Friday?

There are many ways to answer that question, but the real best time to plan is the moment you’re reading this guide.

Whether you’re only a couple of weeks away from the big day, it’s just passed, or there are few months ahead – start planning now.

1-3 weeks before Black Friday

If you’re reading this guide only a couple of weeks away from Black Friday, don’t panic! You still have time to select the product lines that will participate in the event, exclusive deals that you’re going to provide, and your channels of communication, such as email campaigns and affiliates.

Tip: This is also a good time to fine-tune your affiliate marketing program. Catch up with your partner network, communicate your plans in advance to them, issue special discount codes that will only be available via your partners, and update your reports. But more on that later!

Right after Black Friday

Black Friday is done, and you can breathe out!

Whether you’ve made the most of the big day or not, now is time to celebrate the results, analyze what went well and what should be improved, and have a look at how your competition and other industries performed.

Right after Black Friday is a wonderful time to get inspiration and ideas from brand around you. That’s when you still remember all the cool ideas you saw while online shopping yourself and simply browsing the internet.

Tip: Brainstorm ideas and save references for later. Schedule Black Friday meetings a few months before the actual event to allow you more time to plan and execute your marketing campaign without stress (or at least with less of it!).

How to Prepare Your Affiliate Program for Black Friday

Once things start to heat up pre-Black Friday, it’s easy to forget about your affiliate program. It’s there, it’s working, it’s alright. Except, you shouldn’t neglect it in your preparations.

Martech Record reports that up to 20% of brands’ sales come from affiliate-related marketing. The number is simply too high to go with the flow and hope for the best.

Here is what you can do to tone up your affiliate program for Black Friday.

#1 Streamline your commission and bonus structure

One of the reasons you may be missing out on affiliate sales is because your commission system doesn’t make sense to your partners.

It’s either too complicated, not enticing enough, or both.

Affiliates need to be given the same excellent customer experience that you provide to your paying leads.

Make sure your commissions and bonuses are straightforward. Check that affiliates know where to track their progress and don’t have any outstanding concerns about payouts.

Tip: Make use of flexible commissions in Tapfiliate. Clients can set up custom triggers that will increase commission or add a bonus once affiliates reach a certain level of sales. Choose from one of the 5 types of commissions, mix and match them to cater to different groups of affiliates.

#2 Think of special bonuses for your affiliate network

Black Friday is the time when all potential shoppers, including your affiliates, want to find a gem offer. Don’t give them FOMO by offering amazing deals to everything but them.

Here is what some of Tapfiliate customers are offering to their affiliates on special occasions, such as this one:

• Gift cards to their online store or the stores of their partners.
• Boosted commission. Either for the entire period or for all conversions above a certain threshold.
• Discounts for their products or services.

If you’re feeling extra adventurous and your budgets allow it, you can ship merch or other goodies to your top or all affiliates as a token of gratitude.

Tip: Think of a special bonus for your super affiliates. It pays off to be generous with people who bring you consistent traffic and the most conversions.

#3 Promote Your Affiliate Program Before Black Friday

Here is what we can recommend if you’re not sure where to promote your affiliate program before Black Friday.

Your affiliate partners’ email list

Start with the basics, remind your current affiliates that you exist. Although we’re sure you are their favorite brand, you’re not the only thing that is happening in their life. Make sure you’re the top-of-mind during this strategically important time, and don’t forget to add a catchy email subject, so they’re more likely to open your emails.

In-platform messenger

If you’re a Tapfiliate customer, you’ve already seen our messenger. Text your partners and let them know about Black Friday specials without leaving the affiliate marketing platform.

New customers

Every customer can become your affiliate partner, too, with Tapfiliate’s automated email invite. You can set up and customize an email to go out to them, highlighting your unique brand, product’s benefits, and all the reasons why customers should join the network.

Your social media pages

Social media is one of the best places to promote your affiliate program. Why? Most of your followers are warm leads. They know your brand, they’re curious about your products and the content you create, and some of them have used your products before. Create social media posts promoting your affiliate program, and set up the ads targeting influencers and bloggers in your niche. Use relevant hashtags to make your posts visible to the right audience. Also, look for influencers who are promoting Black Friday already and offer them the opportunity to join your network. Not everyone will agree, but there will definitely be influencers who will resonate with your brand and want to capitalize on the shopping season.

Paid ads on search engines

There’s nothing wrong with using Google Ads or similar tools to promote your affiliate program. However, please note that it will likely cost you more than the alternatives, but it can pay off if you set them up correctly.

Your website

Have a section on your website where existing and potential affiliates can go to read everything about your program, catch up on the latest developments, and get persuaded to join your network or be more active on it. Make sure your sign-up form is straightforward and can be easily accessed via mobile devices so you don’t miss spur-of-the-moment registrations.

#4 Review your affiliate marketing software

If you don’t have affiliate tracker in place, we seriously recommend you get one! Google Analytics and manual tracking will be the death of you once the number of partners and affiliate income start to grow.

Tip: We wrote an extensive guide on choosing the affiliate program management software with greats tips on making the right, data-driven decision for your company.

If you already have a solution in place, here is what you can do:

• Review your current reports. Do they still make sense for you in terms of corporate goals? Perhaps something needs to be updated to provide you with more details?
• Go through all monitoring and reporting options available to you or talk to the vendor representative. Data is truly king these days, and you might be missing out on great insights.
• See that everything that can be automated is automated. There’s no reason for you to perform manual labor if the system can do it for you.
• Refresh all the templates that you send to affiliates and create additional ones for Black Friday. Those can include seasonal promo materials that will help promote your products, checklists of benefits and other key selling points, and information about additional bonuses for your partners.

Tip: Watch out for fraud during the busy season! Tapfiliate, for instance, supports invite-only affiliate programs where companies can choose exactly who is promoting them, avoiding people will ulterior motives.

Want to check out what Tapfiliate can do for you? Get a 14-day free trial here

#5 Host a call or record a webinar pre-Black Friday

This may seem like a little extra, but a short 20-30-minute webinar on sales strategies and the key benefits of your solutions can make a world of difference.

Direct communication is an excellent opportunity to build rapport, facilitate affiliate loyalty, and answer any questions your affiliates had but didn’t ask for one reason or another.

You can also share affiliate best practices, because some partners will overuse affiliate links or make similar mistakes that will cost them conversions.

Even better if you can encourage affiliates to share their tips, although they can get competitive and not really want to do that. So don’t push them if there’s no positive response once you mention it.

Remember, your affiliates will be bombarded with offers to join other brands’ affiliate programs, so you need to show them that they can make significant affiliate income with you and that it will be a smooth process, too.

#6 Check all affiliate links

Imagine doing all the work only to have a faulty affiliate link ruin everything for you. Click through all links to your partner program, the portal, and anything else that you can verify in advance.

Tips to Managing Your Affiliate Program during Black Friday

You’ve reviewed and elevated your affiliate program right before Black Friday, so you can relax now. Right?

Well, almost.

An affiliate marketing journey is never really over.

Here is what you can do when the big day comes to ensure it runs smoothly.

Keep track of the progress in real-time

That way, if something works exceptionally well, you’ll be able to facilitate the momentum and possibly spread this phenomenon across everything else. Similarly, if something is wrong, you’ll be able to fix it before it snowballs into a disaster and ruins your Black Friday revenue.

Send reminders to non-active affiliates

Once the day progresses and a few hours pass, you’ll be able to spot partners who’ve not yet generated any conversions. Ping them to, hopefully, encourage them to promote you.

Tip: Pay special attention to those idle affiliates who usually generate consistent traffic. They may have a technical problem or an unresolved issue with you that can be fixed and moved out of the way.

Send updates to active affiliates

Keep the momentum going by sending supportive and encouraging messages to your partners. Make sure your check-ins are brief and include the affiliate’s progress on that day. Also, don’t send too many of them, or you’ll appear spammy.

Be responsive during peak hours

You’ll probably have a lot to do on Black Friday, but do your best to be online and respond quickly if affiliates ask something or have a problem. The sooner they clarify something or fix a problem, the more sales they’ll manage to bring in.

I Don’t Have an Affiliate Program Yet. Should I Launch it for Black Friday?

Affiliate program is something any eCommerce, SaaS, or subscription-based service needs. Many other industries will benefit from it too.

If you don’t have one already, launching an affiliate program is a must not only for the holiday season but to maximize your earnings through social proof all year round.

According to Statista, affiliate marketing spending stood at $9.5 billion in 2023 in the US alone. TikTok shop was officially launched in September 2023 and had 100 000 creators join its partner program generating $363 million in the US by January 2024.

The market is huge, and it’s only going to grow the more people become disillusioned with traditional advertisement methods.

Chances are, your major competitors are either already running an affiliate program or are considering launching one. If you don’t act now, you’ll miss out on great affiliates and revenue they could have generated for you.

The Only Black Friday Checklist You Need to Maximize Affiliate Sales

We’ve prepared a checklist to help you navigate affiliate campaigns and strategy in the weeks leading up to Black Friday.

Please feel free to use it to maximize your sales and brand awareness and share it with fellow affiliate marketers!

• Share promo materials and details of exclusive deals with affiliates.
• Remind affiliates about the key benefits and features of your products.
• Review and update the current commission and bonus structure.
• Introduce additional perks, such as double commissions, for overachieving affiliates.
• Share all commissions, bonuses, perks, and other incentives updates with affiliates.
• Check that the affiliate dashboard works accordingly and partners can track their progress.
• Check all affiliate-related links to make sure they work.
• Review current reports and update filters if necessary.
• Set up real-time notifications and custom alerts to stay informed on the big day.
• Prepare or update an FAQ and share it with all partners.

There you go! Once you’ve done everything on the checklist, all that’s left to do is to ensure you are reachable during Black Friday, a couple of weeks prior, and immediately after.

Most likely, your affiliates will have more questions than usual during this period, and it would benefit you to respond to them sooner and more often than you usually do. It will make partners feel loved and supported, and they’ll promote you with more enthusiasm.

General Checklist to Go Through Before Black Friday

Even the best affiliate marketing program in the world won’t help if you make mistakes in other elements of the sales funnel.

Here are some tips that will help you eliminate any friction on the big day.

• Make checkout easy. Remove extra steps, add as many payment options as possible, and allow users to purchase without registration on the website.
• Set up an abandoned cart email to go a bit earlier than you usually would. Remind clients to finish the purchase before Black Friday deals run out.
• Introduce several bonuses to customers purchasing on Black Friday. Try to avoid just sticking a discount on your entire product range. Instead, offer discounts for selected products, a gift with purchase, or an upgrade to a more expensive product or service. Multiple options will ensure more customers find something they like and want, and your affiliate income will jump up. Also, it makes sense to run exclusive discounts or promos for your VIP customers in addition to the standard range.
• Create a plan for when your inventory runs low or sells out if you sell physical products or services with limited availability, such as consultations with an expert. You’ll need a way to notify your affiliates immediately and a backup product to offer instead. Think about it, even if you don’t think you’ll sell out. Even if there is a 3% chance – you need to be prepared for that. Trust us, there were countless retail sales miracles turned disasters when brand owners didn’t think about those things.
• Create awesome content to support your Black Friday activities. The sooner you start, the better.
• Optimize your website for mobile devices. In October 2024, mobile internet sat at 67% of total internet usage. This means your website must be mobile-friendly if you want to succeed during Black Friday and in general.

What About Cyber Monday?

If you want to make money with affiliate marketing, Black Friday is not your only option.

Once Black Friday and Thanksgiving weekend are over, comes Cyber Monday. This can be the final push that will help you get rid of the current stock, maximize your profits for the month, and come into December with impressive turnover and, hopefully, many new customers.

Here are a few ideas for how to prepare your affiliate program for Cyber Monday:

• Think of unique deals through affiliates, such as higher discounts available via their affiliate links or codes.
• Create specific promo materials to support your affiliates.
• Share Friday’s and weekend sales results with affiliates to encourage them to be active during the final push on Monday as well.

Final Thoughts on Black Friday Affiliate Activities

Black Friday will be hectic, no matter how diligent you are.

This is the simple truth that you need to embrace. Our guide will help you get ready and tackle all the crucial aspects of preparing for the big day, but you’ll probably still have to put a fire or two once everything starts.

Remember to keep in touch with your affiliates, support them with tips and promo materials, and handle their issues as a priority.

Suppose you’re reading this a few months before Black Friday – great! You have enough time to think through your strategy, define customer segments you want to target, design exclusive deals, and develop a relationship with potential shoppers.

Same with your affiliates, use all the time you have to attract more partners and build rapport with them while things aren’t so crazy.

Finally, don’t underestimate the importance of proper affiliate marketing software. It is your biggest helper and the best affiliate program facilitator. Make use of reports, dashboards, and automation to free your time for other important tasks.