The Ecommerce Influence Podcast · Austin Brawner

386: We Recap BFCM: What Worked & What Didn't

December 13, 2022·27 min·1 clip

Austin tweeted 'never bet against the American consumer' on November 10th and cites a 78% year-over-year increase in buy now, pay later usage on Cyber Monday.

The weekend sounded crowded. Austin and Lily use Black Friday, Cyber Monday to compare what held up, what got annoying, and what should change before next year. Email still did its job. Lily says showing up consistently helped, though the inbox itself felt heavier and harder to make sense of than usual. SMS is where things get messier. The question is practical: did texts work because they brought in revenue, or were they expensive noise for customers already hearing from the same brand by email? Lily talks about being on plenty of SMS lists, getting hit over and over, and eventually tuning the whole channel out. Austin brings up a client with a blunt read: SMS may be overrated, especially when carriers make more money as brands send more. Audience age matters too. Austin pushes that results probably depend on who buys from you, because consumer age changes how the channel lands. Overlap matters just as much. If the same customers are on both email and SMS, it is worth asking whether email would have done most of the job anyway. Lily pulled back on her own list. She sent less during the four-day crush and saved more messages for December, when SMS might not feel so packed. The takeaway is pretty plain. Keep doing what works, stay steady, and adjust the plan when the channel starts feeling worn out. Austin ends on a human note: the business comes in cycles, and after the holiday push, a couple days off helps reset for next year.

As heard by us

A practical BFCM recap for ecommerce teams weighing email discipline, SMS fatigue, and what to repeat next year.

Austin Brawner and Lily Ackerley use a Black Friday Cyber Monday recap to sort through what seemed to work, what felt overdone, and what merchants can still adjust before year end. The most useful section is their SMS discussion.

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Why you'd press play

You want a calmer read on BFCM from two operators before the holiday season gets louder.

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