Black Friday is the official kickoff to holiday shopping. It’s also a brutal fight for attention. Customers are hit with offers from every direction, and standing out takes more than slapping a discount banner on your site.
The good news? With the right strategy, you can cut through the noise and even outplay the biggest brands. Below, we’ve gathered 8 Black Friday onsite personalization examples that top e-commerce brands have used to drive clicks, signups, and sales when it mattered most, with strategies like:
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Save Abandoned Carts
CLN Athletics ran an exit-intent popup with a countdown timer to stop visitors from leaving. The urgency worked: 33.9% clicked through and many carts were recovered. -
Engage Customers With Daily Activity
Bubbleroom launched an interactive Black Week calendar popup where each day revealed a new deal. It kept visitors coming back and achieved a 70–90% click-through rate. -
Use Early Access to Reward Loyalty
Apohem gave loyalty members exclusive early access to deals, generating over 60,000 clicks. Cellbes did the same and scored a 34.95% CTR. Customers love to feel like VIPs. -
Build Your List with Signups
Nordic Nest used a Black Week signup popup with a clean, minimalist design. It aligned with their premium branding and still captured a 5.23% CTR, giving them a fresh audience to retarget. -
Create Last-Chance Urgency
CLN Athletics ended Black Friday with a “last chance” popup and countdown. It pushed urgency hard and achieved an 11.56% coupon code copy rate in the campaign’s final hours.
These real examples have been used to boost Black Week sales and engage the audiences during the year’s biggest sale.
Pre-launch & Early Access Popups
For many retailers, Black Friday is the starting gun for the holiday shopping season. This means your customers begin preparing and planning their purchases far in advance.
That’s why it makes sense to plan marketing activities that activate your customers before the Black Friday sale officially starts.
Before Black Friday, one goal is to increase identification on your website and collect email addresses.
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Post sneak-peek images of products that will be discounted on social media
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Send email campaigns to your existing database that help customers prepare. For example, you could create shopping lists based on personality types, put together a guide, or encourage customers to create a wishlist on your site ahead of time.
- Launch one or more onsite campaigns to identify visitors and gather email addresses, to then retarget.
Apohem Black Week Early Access Popup
Apohem used a Black Week early access popup to give loyalty club members the chance to see promotions before the general public. This made visitors feel like VIPs, rewarding loyalty while driving traffic to their campaign. The design emphasized exclusivity and generated more than 60,000 clicks.
Cellbes Black Week Early Access Popup
Cellbes launched an early access popup to let loyal members in on Black Week deals before anyone else. This kind of messaging works especially well with long-time customers who value exclusivity, and managed to generate a 34.95 percent CTR.
8. CLN Athletics Black Week Early Access Popup
CLN Athletics used a Black Week early access popup to grow their list and warm up audiences before the sale period. The popup was designed with clean visuals that made the offer stand out clearly. By promising early access, it increased the incentive to sign up quickly. The result was an 8.35 percent response rate.
Black Week Signup & Offer Popups
During Black Week, customers are not only looking for deals, they’re also planning their purchases and comparing where to shop. This makes it the perfect time to capture their interest and grow your email list.
The goal is to make it easy for visitors to sign up so you can keep them updated with offers throughout the week. By collecting more subscribers, you also build a long-term audience you can market to after Black Friday.
Examples of activities
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Show signup popups with exclusive discounts for new subscribers
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Run onsite campaigns that highlight member-only perks, like loyalty points or free shipping
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Send tailored email updates to new subscribers during the week to keep them engaged and coming back
Bubbleroom Black Week Signup Popup
During one of the busiest retail weeks of the year, Bubbleroom ran a signup popup to help subscribers keep track of the Black Week deals. This built their list and ensured their most loyal customers were kept updated. It gave them thousands of new contacts to market to during and after the event. More than 4,500 people signed up through this campaign.
Bubbleroom Black Week Calendar Offer
During Black Week, Bubbleroom created an interactive calendar popup where each day revealed a new deal. The approach kept visitors coming back daily to check what was next. This not only boosted engagement but also helped distribute traffic across the entire campaign period. The design was fully on-brand and the result was an exceptional 70–90 percent click-through rate.
Nordic Nest Black Week Signup Popup
Nordic Nest ran a signup popup during Black Week which encouraged unregistered users to become members. The design was minimalist, aligning with their premium aesthetic, while the message focused on exclusivity and special offers. It captured a 5.23 percent CTR, providing Nordic Nest with a large base to retarget during the campaign.
Last Chance & Exit-Intent Popups
The worst thing that can happen on Black Friday is that your site crashes…
But the second worst? Abandoned carts.
According to Statista, about 70% of all visitors abandon their carts. It’s a struggle for every e-commerce business.
It’s impossible to completely stop abandoned carts, but it’s definitely possible to reduce the risk.
How? By having a high identification rate on your web traffic.
When you know who your visitors are, you open up the possibility to market to them based on their behavior.
Let me explain.
If you don’t know who your visitors are, you can’t market to them.
It’s not enough to have a big email database. Even if someone is in Mailchimp or Rule, you don’t know what that person does when they visit your site. There’s no connection between their inbox and your site – unless they’re identified.
To save a cart, you need to know who the person is. Once you do, you can start showing exit-intent messages, sending abandoned cart emails, suggest products to add, and personalize every step of their journey on your site.
CLN Athletics Black Week Exit-Intent Popup
CLN Athletics used an exit-intent popup during Black Week to save visitors who were about to leave. The campaign targeted identified visitors with products in the cart and used the Deadline component, which adds a countdown timer and FOMO to make the offer even more exciting. The campaign delivered a 33.9 percent click-through rate, proving how powerful exit-intent triggers can be.
CLN Athletics Black Friday Last Chance Offer
At the end of Black Friday, CLN Athletics created a last-chance popup reminding visitors of deals expiring the same day. The message created urgency and emphasized limited time left to buy, by using a countdown. The campaign achieved an 11.56 percent coupon code copy rate, helping maximize the final hours of sales.
Wrapping Up
These strategies prove that Black Friday success isn’t about shouting louder than everyone else. It’s about timing, exclusivity, and smart design choices that turn attention into action.
From abandoned cart recovery to early access offers and last-chance reminders, each of these approaches shows a different way to maximize results during the busiest shopping week of the year.
Use them as inspiration for your next Black Friday campaign. Make every click count!