MENGENAI EPISOD INI
Most brands think the holiday playbook starts on Black Friday. It doesn’t — it starts right now, in the two or three weeks before it, and if you get this window wrong, there’s no fixing it once Cyber Five hits. In part one of this two-part holiday series, Brett sits down with three OMG Commerce department leads — Nick Flint (retention), Bill Cover (Google/YouTube), and Trenton Bodenbach (Amazon) — to break down exactly what to do in the pre-peak window across email/SMS, paid media, and Amazon.
Inside the episode:
- Nick’s “go broad, then suppress” play to win back lapsed subscribers and cut your Klaviyo bill at the same time
- The one landing page trick that turns email-only subscribers into SMS subscribers before Black Friday
- Bill’s budget pacing formula — normal spend in October, 2x ten days out, 4x during Cyber Five — backed by a $28M ad spend data set showing YouTube pulling almost 40% share of spend in October alone
- Why Trenton calls it “death by stockout,” and what analyzing 35 brands across Prime Day and Big Deal Days revealed about forecasting Cyber Five growth
- How Groove Life cut its Amazon ad budget, shifted the money to YouTube and Meta — and watched Amazon sales go up anyway
- The low-cost checkout tweak (hint: it’s not a discount) that got customers ordering more during the holidays
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Sponsored by OMG Commerce - go to https://www.omgcommerce.com/contact and request your FREE strategy session today!
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Chapters:
[00:00] Intro: Pre-Cyber Five plays with Nick Flint (retention), Bill Cover (Google), and Trenton Bodenbach (Amazon)
[01:13] Email & SMS: Why retention is one of the biggest holiday profit levers, plus a quick caffeine detour
[02:13] Dialing in your audience: Win back lapsed subscribers with a broad send, then suppress bots and dead profiles to cut Klaviyo costs
[03:31] Growing your SMS list: Collect phone numbers through an early-access landing page, and set expectations for new subscribers
[05:05] Prepping popups & flows: Match the welcome, abandoned cart, and abandoned checkout flows to your Black Friday offer, then move customers from “zero to one” and “one to two”
[06:32] Amazon & Fall Big Deal Days: Why October’s deal event works as a bellwether for the “holiday 60”
[08:42] Death by stockout: What data from 35 brands shows about Prime Day vs. Big Deal Days vs. Cyber Five, and why giftable brands see 7–8x growth
[11:03] Forecasting inventory & profitability: Using deal-day data and last year’s numbers to plan Cyber Five margins
[13:52] Building a brand on Amazon: Sponsored Brand Video, new-to-brand customers, and why some brands cut Amazon ads and saw sales rise
[18:59] Google promos & Merchant Center: Getting promo dates, discounts, and codes exactly right so your listings show deal annotations
[21:06] Budget & campaign structure: Normal spend in October, then about 2x budget in the 10 days before your promo starts
[25:12] Media mix data from $28M in Google spend: YouTube’s share of spend peaks in October and bottoms out during Cyber Five
[27:49] Reading the 10-day lead-up: Comparing Shopping, PMax, and Demand Gen before Cyber Five, since Google can’t be adjusted on a dime
[30:16] Final tips & wrap-up: Offering gift wrapping at checkout, and a preview of part two on the during and after periods
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Connect With Brett:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebrettcurry/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQmbMwBW8LYDfFAqNqlgTGw
Website: https://www.omgcommerce.com/
Request a Free Strategy Session: https://www.omgcommerce.com/contact
Past guests on eCommerce Evolution include Ezra Firestone, Steve Chou, Drew Sanocki, Jacques Spitzer, Jeremy Horowitz, Ryan Moran, Sean Frank, Andrew Youderian, Ryan McKenzie, Joseph Wilkins, Cody Wittick, Miki Agrawal, Justin Brooke, Nish Samantray, Kurt Elster, John Parkes, Chris Mercer, Rabah Rahil, Bear Handlon, JC Hite, Frederick Vallaeys, Preston Rutherford, Anthony Mink, Bill D'Allessandro, Stephane Colleu, Jeff Oxford, Bryan Porter and more
