8 Strategies to Create High-Value Black Friday/Cyber Monday Offers for Existing Subscribers

During Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM), which happens to be Shopify’s largest eCommerce event of the year, increasing sales from existing customers can be challenging. 

While many brands focus on acquiring first-time customers during BFCM, top-performing Shopify brands will also prioritize offering high-value deals to their existing customers, ensuring strong conversions when the holiday season arrives.

In addition, during large sale periods like Black Friday/Cyber Monday, it can be challenging to retain existing customers and subscribers if they see a better deal or one-time sale offered to first-time shoppers or non-subscribers.

To avoid sale-related churn, ensure that your subscribers – aka your most valuable customers – receive the best deal on your product.

In this article, our retention and subscription experts unpack tested, winning strategies guaranteed to increase AOV and LTV from your existing customers and ensure that your eCommerce business has its most successful Black Friday/Cyber Monday yet.

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How to Boost Subscriber Retention and LTV During Black Friday/Cyber Monday

#1 – Surprise & Delight with Exclusive Banner Ad Deals

Adding a banner ad directly within the Customer Portal is an excellent way to alert subscribers of upcoming or new product announcements and offers. Here, you can alert customers of new one-time add-ons, such as a cross-sell or upsell, or any other number of discounts, deals, and surprises your team may have up their sleeves.

Reward your most valuable customers with early access to BFCM promotions before they hit the general public. Using the banner ad, feature the products with applicable promotional offers, and make sure to link the most popular product to enable that two-click purchase. Then, optimize your upsell carousel to feature all of the products with a special discount so subscribers can quickly add those to their upcoming orders.

Here are a few strategies and examples from some of our favorite brands that leveraged their banner ads to keep subscribers engaged during BFCM last year:

(A) Offer Early Access, Subscriber-exclusive BFCM Deals

Clean Skin Club ran an awesome subscriber promotion for Black Friday/Cyber Monday 2023, offering their most loyal customers early access to incredible discounts. Each discounted product featured in the banner ad is accessible for a one-click add-on via the upsell carousel.

(B) Offer a VIP Loyalty Discount that’s Better than Your Sitewide Sale

During major market-wide promotional periods like Black Friday/Cyber Monday, your customers are likely browsing offers across multiple brands. To keep them in your corner, it’s up to you to surface the most captivating deal. Last year, UCAN offered subscribers 30% off their next order during the entire month of November – an even juicier discount than the 25% listed on their website.

(C) Show Subscriber Appreciation with a Free Gift – No Purchase Necessary

If you don’t want to provide additional or deeper discounts to subscribers during promo periods, we highly recommend offering a free gift with purchase instead. With this strategy, you can delight your subscribers with something to show appreciation and enhance their brand loyalty. Implementing this tactic during sales seasons will strengthen your connection with your subscribers and foster a sense of community, reinforcing a positive perception of your brand.

Last BFCM, Truvani ran an awesome Black Friday promotion that included a free shaker bottle with each new order. For existing subscribers, no purchase was necessary – they could add-on a free shaker bottle to their upcoming order using the Customer Portal banner ad.

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#2 – Promote Exclusive Offers with an Add-on Carousel

Leveraging a dynamic add-on carousel, customers can easily add one-time products to their next shipment, bumping up their AOV and LTV. On Black Friday/Cyber Monday, you can leverage your in-portal Add-on Carousel to feature exclusive deals or limited-time SKUs, and then announce and reinforce these offers with an enticing banner ad announcement.

A) OLIPOP

OLIPOP uses their banner ad to promote the return of their limited-edition, seasonal Crisp Apple flavor. Subscribers could add this limited-time discounted upsell to their next subscription order directly within the Customer Portal in just a few clicks.

In less than a month, OLIPOP saw 30% of Crisp Apple sales attributed to add-ons directly within the Customer Portal – contributing to their overall subscription growth strategy.

(B) Loverboy

This past summer, the Loverboy team implemented some of their summer flavor faves into their Add-on Carousel, including the Spritz Variety Pack, Blueberry Lemon, and more. As a result, the team saw a 248% increase in add-on revenue with these seasonal favorites in the past three months.

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#3 – Unlock Higher AOV with Strategic Cross-sells & Upsells

Too often, subscribers are overlooked when it comes to new promotions. If you’re not considering your subscriber cohort for cross-sells and upsells, you’re missing out on a cost-effective, untapped opportunity to maximize AOV and recurring revenue.

Here are a few strategies your brand can utilize to boost AOV this Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Let’s take a look at a few examples from some of our favorite Stay AI merchants –

(A) MoonBrew

MoonBrew delights subscribers across the customer journey with upsell promotions and gifts across orders using Quick Actions and ExperienceEngine. For example, MoonBrew subscribers can receive 20% off on certain add-on items, such as their MoonBrew Hot Cocoa, as a surprise upsell when they enter their Customer Portal. MoonBrew also surprises subscribers with a free tea storage container that appears as a Promotional Offer Email (once eligible) that alerts them of their special offer and directs them to their portal to redeem it.

These surprise and delight tactics keep subscribers engaged, reduce churn, and have the added benefit of reminding customers about the brand every time they’re in their kitchens – building affinity over time. By A/B testing different offers like this and discovering what’s most effective for increasing LTV, MoonBrew quickly identifies which offers and incentives work best across specific subscriber cohorts. Just 30 days after switching from their previous subscription provider, MoonBrew witnessed an impressive 72% increase in recurring revenue. 

(B) Lifeboost

Our friends at Lifeboost A/B tested upselling subscribers on two different coffee variants – a pumpkin spice blend and an espresso blend. The promotion was a massive success, with Test B, the espresso option, receiving a 45% higher acceptance rate than Test A.

With an advanced promotions builder like Stay AI’s ExperienceEngine, you can test a wide range of discounts, add-ons, and gifts to your subscriber cohorts – including cross-sell and upsell offers. You can either create these promotions manually within the Merchant Portal or leverage our proprietary AI to A/B test several cross-sell or upsell opportunities. Either way you utilize it, ExperienceEngine is built to help you discover the highest-converting offer to share with your wider audience.

(C) Aura Bora

Here, Aura Bora announced the launch of their new Honey Pumpkin flavor, and gave subscribers an upsell option to add it to an upcoming order with a Quick Action CTA:

By implementing these cross-sell flows – in addition to using other revenue-driving features from Stay AI, the Aura Bora team has seen an incredible 128% growth in monthly subscription revenue.

Pro Tip: If your brand has a large product catalog, you can easily use ExperienceEngine’s smart A/B testing capabilities to test several cross-sell or upsell offers to narrow down which offer converts best with your subscribers – and enhance the subscriber experience. For 8 A/B testing strategies that leverage ExperienceEngine, read more here.

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Looking for More Black Friday/Cyber Monday Strategies?

Looking for additional Black Friday/Cyber Monday resources to ensure your Shopify subscription brand is ready to scale this year? We’ve got you covered – our team analyzed 300 #Shopify subscription programs to bring you winning BFCM strategies guaranteed to give you the revenue boost you’re looking for this year, all in one convenient (and free) 2024 Ultimate BFCM Playbook.

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