Maximize BFCM ad revenue with Klaviyo’s ad integrations
There are so many places you can seek out new customers for BFCM: from search engines and social platforms to owned channels like email and SMS. However, operating across a fragmented mix of platforms and channels can be challenging.
The problem:
Most 3rd-party ad platforms don’t have access to the depth of transactional and behavioral data that lives within Klaviyo. They offer targeting based on broader interests and demographics, skipping the deeper personalization that really moves the needle when it comes to acquisition and re-engagement. On top of that, directing paid acquisition campaigns at your existing email, text (SMS and RCS), and WhatsApp subscribers isn’t the most effective use of your ad budget and the messaging may not align with their stage in the customer journey.
The solution:
Luckily for you, Klaviyo integrates with key 3rd-party ad platforms including Google, Meta, TikTok, and Pinterest. This allows you to sync your Klaviyo segments to these platforms as custom audiences that you can target directly or create lookalike audiences that closely resemble these subscribers. The Klaviyo data you trust + the power behind the world’s biggest advertising engines = higher return on ad spend (ROAS), less wasted ad budget, and more warm leads in your audience this BFCM. Ditch manual exports and imports and save time with always up-to-date audiences, too.
In the sections below, you will learn how to
- Create Klaviyo segments to use as custom and lookalike audiences.
- Evaluate example ad strategies that use Klaviyo’s advertising integrations.
Create key segments to use as ad audiences
Before you start mapping out your ad strategy, think about your target audience and where they spend their time searching for and learning about new products (e.g., a brand with a primarily younger audience may lean into TikTok, and those with a female audience may identify Pinterest as a key advertising channel). You may also want to prioritize channels where you’ve seen high ROAS before.
Note: Our Meta integration covers Meta properties like Facebook and Instagram, while Google Ads covers all of Google’s available channels (Google Shopping, YouTube, Gmail, etc.).
Enable the advertising integrations you want to use by following these guides, if you haven't already:
- Getting started with Google Ads
- Getting started with Facebook Advertising
- Getting started with TikTok Audiences
- Getting started with Pinterest Audiences
Once you’ve completed these preliminary steps, you can start thinking about which new and existing segments to leverage as custom and lookalike audiences during BFCM. Review the examples below for inspiration.
2 months from BFCM: Use lookalike audiences to acquire new leads
September and October are great times to grow your list ahead of BFCM. Adding new contacts to your email and text messaging lists will grow your engaged segments and give you more people to market to. You may even convert some of them before the big weekend, increasing the chances they’ll choose your brand again.
But how do you ensure you’re targeting your ads to people who have the highest likelihood of choosing and loving your brand? Enter lookalike audiences. Google, Meta, TikTok, and Pinterest all allow you to use existing Klaviyo segments to build lookalike (‘actalike’ on Pinterest) audiences for your acquisition campaigns. Here are some sample segments that make great lookalike audiences in the run-up to BFCM.
- People who have purchased from your store in the last 90 days (you can refine this to include a specific collection or product, depending on your ad strategy).
- People who joined your VIP segment within the last year.
- People who shopped during last year’s BFCM sale.
1 month from BFCM: Re-engage lapsed customers and subscribers
1 month out is a good time to try re-engaging lapsed customers or subscribers. If you cleaned your list in preparation for BFCM, you now have the opportunity to re-engage some of those suppressed profiles through a timely and relevant ad, reminding them of your brand at this crucial time of year, and encouraging them to subscribe to your list so that they don’t miss out on your BFCM deals. Here are some sample segments that it’s worth your while to re-engage.
- People who shopped during last year’s BFCM sale, but haven’t purchased since.
- People who have received but not engaged with your email, text (SMS and RCS), or WhatsApp messages in the last 180 days.
Make sure you monitor your performance closely when targeting these groups, and pivot your strategy if you don’t see the results you’re expecting.
During BFCM: Convert low-hanging fruit
The cost of advertising usually increases steeply over the Black Friday weekend. During this busy and expensive period, it makes sense to fully fund ad budget against audiences who have already shown the clearest signs of intent - those who just need a little extra push to encourage them to convert, like the segments below!
- Window shoppers: those who have browsed on your site within the last 72 hours but haven’t checked out yet.
- Cart abandoners: those who have abandoned a cart within the last 72 hours but haven’t checked out yet.
During and after BFCM: Exclude BFCM purchasers
We’ve all experienced it: you’ve just bought something from an online store, and they continue to target you with acquisition-focused ads that clog up your Instagram feed a week later. Not only is this a frustrating customer experience, it’s also a waste of marketing dollars for the brand.
Once someone has bought from you over BFCM, you can exclude them from your ongoing campaigns. To do this, create a Klaviyo segment that acts as an exclusion audience.
- People who have purchased within the last week/72 hours/during the date parameters of your BFCM promotions (choose whichever is the most applicable to you).
Build audiences to acquire and re-engage customers
Browse through the gallery below to see how these brands used their Klaviyo data to deliver personalized experiences to shoppers across different advertising platforms.
Turn one-hit wonders into repeat purchasers
The Bola’s Baked Goods team knows that a lot of people order their famous Thanksgiving pies when they’re half-off during BFCM sale, and freeze them for Christmas. They want to re-engage these past shoppers, many of whom did not opt into email marketing.
As a result, they build a segment oflast year’s pie shoppers, sync them to Facebook as a custom audience, and target them with a Facebook lead ad that specifically calls out this year’s upcoming deals on pies.
This ad reminds pie lovers to shop again and encourages them to join the Bola's Baked Goods email list. Doing so will introduce them to Bola’s other products, and increase their likelihood of becoming repeat shoppers (without the Bola's Baked Goods team putting paid ad spend towards them each time!).
Re-engage the unengaged
SWAK wants to expand their engaged segment ahead of BFCM, so that their pre-BFCM marketing campaigns reach a wider audience. That said, they still need to maintain their stellar deliverability.
Their current engaged segment incorporates those who have been ‘Active on Site’ within the last 30 days, so SWAK’s goal here is to get more people browsing. They target their 180-day unengaged segment with compelling video ads on Instagram and Youtube to showcase their latest product offerings.
Acquire new customers that look like recent purchasers
Nani knows where to find new customers ahead of BFCM: #SkincareTok. They’ve partnered with a skincare influencer to create a sponsored post where she evangelizes for their brand.
To ensure they get the best ROAS possible on the ad, Nani builds a Klaviyo segment of people who have purchased from them in the last 90 days. They sync this segment to TikTok and then generate a lookalike audience of those who closely resemble these recent shoppers. They will then target their ad to appear specifically to this lookalike audience, cleverly combining Klaviyo’s transactional data and TikTok’s powerful demographic targeting.
Convert window shoppers and cart abandoners
Beantown Coffee has aggressive sales goals to hit over the BFCM weekend, so they’re going hard on retargeting recent window shoppers and cart abandoners who haven’t bought from the brand before.
They build these segments, sync them to Facebook custom audiences, and target them with Facebook collection ads to remind them of the products they’ve browsed or abandoned, stressing that the brand’s tasty deals won’t last beyond the weekend.