From Awareness to Conversion: 5 Ways to Boost Reach and ROAS on Black Friday

With the number of brands active across both paid and organic digital channels continually increasing, Black Friday 2025 is shaping up to be one of the most competitive shopping events ever.

Climbing ad costs, challenges in capturing consumer attention, difficulty in standing out from the crowd so how do you compete?

Now, businesses need more than catchy slogans, discount codes and ‘biggest offer yet’ headlines. You need a smart, data-driven paid advertising strategy that moves consumers smoothly from awareness to conversion.

Here are five proven ways to use paid media to boost your reach and maximise ROAS on Black Friday 2025

1. Use an Omnichannel Approach to Maximise Reach

Relying on a single platform is risky. Nowadays shoppers move seamlessly between search and social, not to mention the +1 million websites that exist online, so your Black Friday paid media strategy should too.

Combine high-intent and discovery platforms:

• Social Media platforms like Meta, TikTok & Pinterest excel at fuelling inspiration, driving brand visibility and capturing attention.

• Search Platforms like Google & Bing help secure people actively looking for deals.

• Programmatic Platforms like Stackadapt expand reach and retargeting opportunities across the open web by reaching beyond walled gardens like Google or Meta.

  
  

Use consistent creative and messaging across these platforms to reinforce recognition of your brand and build trust. A unified, omnichannel approach ensures shoppers encounter your brand multiple times, which is a key factor in boosting conversion rates and ROAS for Black Friday.

2. Start Early to Build Awareness, Capture Your Audience Attention and Give Your Campaigns Time To Learn

The biggest mistake businesses make during Black Friday? Waiting until the big week to start advertising. The term ‘Black November’ has been gaining popularity in recent years and reflects how many brands are launching activity earlier and earlier to get ahead of the competition and capitalise on consumer interest throughout the entire month.

Starting early not only allows your brand to also compete and capitalise when costs are lower, it also gives your paid campaigns time to gather data and deliver optimally, well in advance of the 28th.

Launch awareness campaigns in late October or early November to capture your audience’s attention and collect data in your campaigns for the ad platforms to use during the key sale period. Try:

• Awareness campaigns - On Meta, TikTok & Pinterest to ensure your brand is at the forefront of customer’s minds and to tease upcoming deals.

  
  

• Demand Gen & YouTube video campaigns - On Google to drive low-cost impressions and clicks

  
  

• Lead generation campaigns - On social channels to collect emails from interested shoppers before promotions go live, use early access or VIP hooks to capture interest.

  
  

Early ads not only warm audiences but can also improve ad performance and reduce your cost per acquisition later when competition and costs surge. By the time Black Friday week arrives, your audiences are primed and ready to convert.

3. Leverage Audience Data To Improve Conversion Rate and Maximise ROAS on Paid Ads 

Data is a secret weapon in paid advertising, one that you can use to your advantage. Tailoring your Black Friday objectives and ads to distinct audience segments results in better campaign optimisation and helps to increase ROAS/ROI.

Segment your audiences based on behaviours and intent:

• Prospecting Audiences - Such as lookalikes, interest-based, or platform algorithmically driven audiences (think Meta Advantage+, Pinterest Performance+ or signal driven audiences in Google Performance Max). Showcase your brand and your overall Black Friday offers to these audiences to drive awareness and build intent. Target these audiences for conversion during the key offer period for low ticket price items 

  
  

• Engaged Audiences - Users who have completed a low intent action such as watching a video, engaging with your organic posts or visiting your website. Target with ‘relationship building objectives’ such as lead generation (signing up to gain early access to deals) or following organic social media profiles

  
  

• High-Intent Audiences - Such as past customers or people who have completed high intent actions such as adding to cart or initiating checkout. Use dynamic ads to automatically show users the products they’ve viewed or similar items, paired with customised offers. 

  
  

Personalised remarketing tailored to each point a user is in their customer journey on platforms like Meta or Google can dramatically lift ROAS.

4. ROAS growth tactics: Create Urgency with Time-Sensitive Paid Campaigns

Scarcity and urgency remain powerful conversion levers. In 2025, shoppers expect deals but they also crave excitement and exclusivity.

Use a strong funnel to build anticipation:

Phase 1: Tease upcoming deals, ensure your customers know when your deals will go live, use countdown timers, encourage them to check in

Phase 2: Launch with bold, diverse creatives, with your special offers front and centre.

Phase 3: Convert with time sensitive messaging (offer ends at midnight!’) - drive FOMO, and include a clear, simple call to action.

5. Optimise in Real Time for Maximum ROAS

Black Friday customers and campaigns move fast, and winners are those who adapt. Monitor your paid performance across platforms throughout the week leading up to Black Friday and through Cyber Monday and reallocate budget toward high-ROI campaigns.

Focus on:

• ROAS and Cost per Conversion - upweight high performing campaigns and downweight lower performing.

  
  

• Minimising Campaign Learning - avoid moving too much budget at any one time - scale budgets by no more than 20% each day to avoid campaigns going back into learning.

  
  

• Creative Diversification: Ensure campaigns are fully equipped with different creatives and creative styles (videos, static, reels, carousels, banners) to attract different types of consumers and drive action.

  
  

• Audience Exclusions: Remove converted users to avoid wasted impressions which will help increase reach and visibility.

  
  

Leverage AI-driven tools within Meta, Google, and TikTok Ads to optimise delivery and creative rotation, as well as for extra personalisation elements for different users. Then, after the sale, analyse which audiences and creatives delivered the highest ROAS to inform your Christmas shopping and festive sale campaigns.

Final Thoughts

Black Friday 2025 success will hinge on how well you plan your paid campaigns, as well as how well you adapt in the moment. By starting early, diversifying channels, personalising your messaging, creating urgency, and optimising relentlessly, your paid advertising can help you boost reach and maximise ROAS, both on Black Friday, and beyond.

Need some support? At SHC Digital we’ve run many successful Black Friday campaigns, and in October 2025 were awarded ‘Highly Commended’ by the Social Media Marketing Awards for our work on Gemporia’s Black Friday 2024 campaigns. You can read more about that here,