Plan Black Friday on numbers you’ve actually checked.
A BFCM plan can look fine in a spreadsheet and break on the day, like a purchase event that stops firing at peak. Free calculators for your offer, your payback and your Amazon deals, plus the ten checks to run before you lock it.
Free tools, no email to use themBlended numbers, no attribution guesswork
Start with what a new customer is worth at the offer price. Then check what the same offer costs you on everyone else this month. Selling on Amazon? Price each deal against the sales you’d get anyway. Then plan the creative to carry the spend.
Live
LTV and payback calculator
The CAC each offer can carry once repeat orders come back at full price, and the month you get paid back.
Offers:
percentage off, amount off, free gift
You enter:
AOV, margin, fulfillment, CAC, repeat orders
You get:
12-month profit per customer, stand-still CAC, payback month
Whether a Prime Day or BFCM deal on one ASIN beats the lift event traffic gives you for free, the deepest discount that still pays, and how much stock to send.
You enter:
price, fees, units per day, past event lift
You get:
lift needed, max discount that pays, units to send in
How many concepts, formats and placements your Black Friday budget needs, across video, static and carousel.
You enter:
brand, current Meta spend, target dates, target spend
You get:
a production plan built off your current creative
02
10 checks before you lock your BFCM plan
Unit economics, paid rules, tracking and 3PL capacity. Each one is a way a plan looks fine on paper and breaks on the day.
CHECK 01
Look at profit after ads, not conversion rate.
A promo can lift conversion and drop CPA and still leave you with fewer dollars than a normal week. Discount depth, gift cost and fees eat it.
PullNormal and promo AOV, landed product cost, 3PL fees, payment fees, gift cost, target CPA by tier.TestProfit per order for each offer, then the CPA and order volume needed to beat a normal day's profit after ads.FixIf the CPA you'd need is lower than what you hit at half the budget last promo, change the offer (tiered bundles, higher gift threshold) or cap the spend ramp.
Take returning buyers and subscribers out of the acquisition math.
Blended MER looks great because your best customers buy on the email and SMS pushes. That hides what paid is really costing you for new customers.
PullNew vs returning split, new-customer CAC, first-order profit for each, subscriber promo use, 60 and 90-day LTV by promo cohort.TestJudge paid media on new-customer profit only. Check whether Meta is retargeting your own email list.FixSet scaling rules on new-customer CAC and first-order profit, or a verified 60-day payback. Email revenue shouldn't cover for unprofitable prospecting.
The math falls apart when carts bunch just above a gift threshold, codes stack on auto-applied promos, or the BFCM discount lands on top of subscribe-and-save.
PullOrder value distribution, SKU margins, free-shipping and gift thresholds, subscription discount rules, every active code.TestModel margin just below, at and above each threshold. Then try to stack discounts at checkout on your phone.FixLock discount combinations in Shopify, turn off old flow and affiliate codes for the window, and forecast by tier mix, not average order value.
CHECK 04
Match the unit forecast to inventory and what your 3PL can ship.
A gift or hero SKU selling out, or orders blowing past your 3PL's daily cap, turns into refunds, chargebacks and paused subscriptions.
PullAvailable inventory by SKU, PO cutoffs, gift unit counts, bundle dependencies, your 3PL's guaranteed daily outbound.TestTurn the revenue forecast into daily SKU depletion across the four peak days. Put Cyber Monday volume next to the 3PL's max.FixBuild cart fallbacks for a sold-out gift, move creative off low-stock SKUs, and update shipping-time banners on product pages and checkout.
CHECK 05
Test purchase tracking before the code freeze.
Last-minute changes to a lander, cart drawer or subscription widget are the usual reason purchase events stop firing, report pre-discount revenue or double count.
PullMeta Events Manager (pixel and server events, deduplication, match quality), server tag logs, Shopify net sales vs platform revenue, consent banner behavior.TestPlace real test orders on your phone through every checkout path: one-time, subscription, Shop Pay, Apple Pay, bundle builder. Each purchase should fire once and pass revenue after the discount.FixFreeze theme, cart and checkout scripts seven days before launch. Fix gross-vs-net gaps and agree which report is the source of truth before you scale.
Size how much December you're pulling into November.
Deep multi-pack deals on consumables pull December and January refills forward, and you get a trough after Cyber Week.
PullLast year's Nov, Dec and Jan cohorts, subscriber skip, pause and cancel spikes, branded search share, the post-promo drop.TestCompare the promo spike with the 30 days after it. Separate new households from existing customers stocking up for three to six months.FixHaircut the Q4 forecast for pull-forward. Give subscribers a perk or add-on gift instead of a discount on their base subscription.
CHECK 07
Set intraday rules on the last dollar, not the blended number.
Morning email and SMS sales make blended ROAS look great while the last chunk of prospecting spend quietly loses money.
PullHourly spend and revenue from past promos, click-to-purchase lag, CPA at 2x, 3x and 4x your normal daily spend.TestPlot extra orders and profit against each spend step-up, allowing for same-day vs delayed attribution.FixAgree the rules ahead of time: when to scale 20%, hold or pull back, tied to new-customer CPA at the margin and real-time profit after ads.
CHECK 08
Make sure you have enough creative for the spend ramp.
Tripling Meta spend with a "30% off" sticker on last month's ads drives up frequency and CPMs, and the promo lift fades.
PullNormal vs target daily spend, share of spend in your top three ads, video vs static split, how fast concepts decay.TestCount your distinct angles (problem and solution, founder offer, comparison, bundle breakdown, UGC) and size how many new concepts the budget needs per winner.FixBefore launch week, make net-new offer statics, ugly ads and notes-app callouts, and BFCM versions of evergreen winners in 9:16, 4:5 and 1:1.
Most paid social traffic lands in an in-app browser on a phone. A page that doesn't match the ad, or a code people have to type in, costs you the sale.
PullTop paid social landers and product pages, auto-apply URL parameters, cart progress bars, subscription defaults, Shop Pay and Apple Pay flows.TestTap every planned ad inside Instagram and TikTok on cellular. Check speed, whether the offer is obvious, whether the discount applies itself, and whether express checkout keeps the promo price.FixFix any page where price, bundle or subscription toggle doesn't match the ad. Make every promo auto-apply by URL or cart script.
CHECK 10
Time the post-purchase flow and refills to how fast people use the product.
Deal buyers churn faster, and they cancel when a renewal charges right after they bought a 90-day supply.
Pull30, 60 and 90-day repeat rates for BFCM vs evergreen buyers, first-to-second-charge retention by offer, days of supply per bundle, Klaviyo post-purchase splits.TestMap what happens after each BFCM tier is bought, and when the second charge lands against units bought. Compare promo-cohort LTV decay to evergreen.FixMatch billing intervals to days of supply, build a BFCM-buyer onboarding and second-charge retention flow, and haircut payback forecasts for deep-discount cohorts.
Pull one clean dataset (last year and the trailing 30 days) so finance, growth and ops work off the same numbers. Then put an owner on every fix before the code freeze.
03
Run the checks with Claude
Upload your past promo cohorts, SKU margins and ad exports, and work through all ten with an operator's prompt pack.
The 10-check Claude prompt pack
One prompt per check, written to run against your Shopify and Meta exports.
The BFCM competitor teardown skill
A Claude skill that reads competitors' live Black Friday ads and offers and tells you what they're betting on.
Before you scale
Get the measurement checked before Black Friday.
The free Blindspot audit covers checks 1, 2, 5 and 7 against your real accounts: profit after ads, new vs returning, purchase tracking and the numbers your intraday calls will run on. Every finding sized in dollars, read-only, back in 3 to 5 days.