2022 Cyber Monday Strategies & Tips for Small Businesses

This year, online holiday sales are expected to reach up to $267.6 billion—an increase of 10%–12% from last year. And Cyber Monday (the online shopping holiday on the Monday after Thanksgiving) is slated to remain the biggest shopping day of the season, racking up an expected $11.2 billion in sales.

Whether you have a brick-and-mortar store and website or sell exclusively online, adopting Cyber Monday strategies is crucial for driving sales during the holiday season.

Here are seven top small business Cyber Monday strategies and tips for improving the shopping experience and making the most of the annual shopping event:

1. Make a Great Offer for Cyber Monday

First, you need to determine which products to offer and promotions to run. According to Deloitte’s 2020 Pre-Thanksgiving Pulse Survey, better deals and lower prices are the most compelling reasons to shop. Next, free or fast shipping and good return options are what shoppers want.

For Cyber Monday, your best promotional strategy is offering a percentage discount or specific markdowns on particular items. Also, prioritize making life easier for shoppers—be generous in your shipping and return policies.

Shoppers are willing to search around for the best prices, with 83% saying that getting a great deal has the biggest influence on their retailer selection. In other words, small retailers can compete with larger stores by offering competitive prices.

When it comes to the question of which products to put on sale, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Some options include:

• A flagship item (often deeply discounted by up to 50% off or more) to generate buzz and bring in qualified traffic
• Slow-moving items and/or less popular product categories
• Popular gift categories, like clothing, toys, and electronics
• Your store’s entire catalog

Gift cards are a top holiday gift across the board, so another idea is to start with a buy one, get one at a discount gift card offer. Alternatively, you can offer a free bonus card with each gift card purchase of a set value— like a $5 bonus for every $25 card purchased.

There are several different strategies for promotions and offers that any retailer can use. Ecommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, or WooCommerce have built-in features that make it easy to offer one or more of these promotions on your site and push them out across other online sales channels like Amazon and Facebook.

Bundle Deals

Offering bundle deals is one way of increasing your average sales total while also giving shoppers extra value. Try offering themed bundles with related items—these can also function as a mini gift guide. You can also use bundles as a way of pairing popular items with slower-moving inventory to help clear out excess and seasonal products.

Pink Moon offers a bundle deal on skincare items.

Buy-One-Get-One

BOGO or half-off deals are effective because customers can clearly understand the value they’re getting. As previously mentioned, price discounts are the most effective and popular type of sale. Like bundles, BOGO deals are an opportunity to move dated, out-of-season, or dead stock. Customers will be more inclined to purchase these items when they are on sale, even if they weren’t selling well at full price.

Color Camp offers a fourth manicure set for free when customers purchase three.

Free Gift with Purchase

Free Shipping

According to the 2020 Deloitte Holiday Report, 60% of shoppers say free shipping is one of the most attractive promotions. If your store normally charges for shipping, try offering free shipping on certain items or at a certain order price point (such as $25 or $35 orders) as your Cyber Monday promo.

Make the threshold to qualify for free shipping at or just above your average sale. Providing free shipping at a certain order amount will help bump up potentially low-value orders, increase basket size, and increase customer satisfaction.

Learn how to offer free shipping on your orders without sacrificing profit margins.

Spritz Society offers free shipping for orders over $60, and features a visual aid to show customers how close their basket is to reaching the threshold

Get the Timing Right

Create Gift Guides

Choosing the right gift is a common struggle for holiday shoppers. Giving customers some much-needed gift inspiration can help encourage them to buy targeted products and make the overall purchase process more hassle-free.

There are a few ways to approach gift guides. One method is to partner up with other local businesses and feature their products on your site in a gift guide in exchange for a feature on their site. Just make sure you’re not in direct competition and competing for a specific target audience.

You can also try to have your goods appear on third-party publication gift guides. This is typically done by reaching out and pitching your products to be included in their gift guide roundups. To reach a variety of shoppers, try pitching to both local and national publications. This gives you the best chance of getting products in front of more customers.

The Giving Assistant Blog is a trusted source that puts together comprehensive Cyber Monday gift guides.

2. Advertise Effectively

Now that you have a great deal for Cyber Monday, it’s time to develop an effective advertising strategy. To get the results you want, shoppers need to know about your store and your Cyber Monday sale. For online shopping, there are four main advertising channels we’ll focus on:

• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Email

Here’s how to use these channels for you Cyber Monday advertising:

Build a Dedicated Cyber Monday Landing Page

When shoppers arrive on a dedicated Cyber Monday landing page, it shows them they’re in the right place for powerful seasonal deals. Then it guides them toward conversion and promotes targeted offers.

Part of effective Cyber Monday advertising is building a slick-looking and on-brand landing page that pushes shoppers to purchase from your store. To learn how, read our guide to creating a landing page.

Increase Visibility With SEO

Online search is the number-one place holiday shoppers go for gift-giving inspiration—and 67% of customers say they prefer to do their holiday shopping online this year.

But the commerce landscape is highly saturated as well as fiercely competitive, so sellers must take measures to increase their store’s online visibility through search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is a set of practices that improve your products’ visibility and help your store gain more clicks while boosting conversions.

Here are some SEO Cyber Monday strategies to get your goods onto holiday shoppers’ radar:

Sell on Popular Online Marketplaces

It’s much harder for small retailers to rank in the top results of a Google search than large retailers like Target or Walmart—particularly if a shopper just searches for a generic term (like “leggings”).

To combat this, you can add your products to online marketplaces, which receive large amounts of regular traffic and typically rank highly in Google searches. The top online marketplaces in the world sold over $3.23 trillion in 2021 (around 62% of global web sales) according to Digital Commerce 360’s analysis.

Some of these marketplaces include:

• Google Shopping: Create a Google Shopping listing to appear on Google search results and under the Shopping tab.
• Amazon: Having an Amazon seller account is a good way to boost brand visibility and capture sales.
• Etsy: You can sell on Etsy, which appears high on search results for gifts and is a popular shopping site for unique items.
• Walmart Marketplace: Similar to Amazon, you can sell on Walmart Marketplace as a third-party seller.
• NewEgg: Go-to marketplace for new and used hardware and consumer electronics.
• Handshake: A wholesale marketplace, this site is best for unique non-mass-produced products.
• The Grommet: This site specializes in gifts and unique items from independent businesses.
• Bonanza: This is a newer buy-and-sell website that’s a popular eBay alternative.
• Uncommon Goods: Submit your products for approval on this popular gift site.

With Shopify, businesses can manage their Google Shopping listings and Google Ads campaigns directly from their Shopify Dashboard.

Although online marketplaces can help you reach more customers, they host a large number of competitors and rely on search engines of their own. To boost your store’s chances of success on these platforms, make sure you use SEO practices in your marketplace product listings. Read our guide to Amazon SEO to learn how.

Use Ecommerce SEO to Boost Your Site’s Search Engine Rankings

Sell & Advertise on Facebook

If you don’t already have a Facebook business page for your retail store, the pre-holiday season is an excellent time to set one up. It’s simple and can be accomplished in a matter of minutes. Once you have your Facebook business page, you can sell items directly through Facebook. It’s a successful channel to use because it streamlines the sales process by letting customers discover, shop, and checkout without leaving the app. This frictionless model also makes paid ads highly effective.

Before running a paid Facebook ad campaign, the first step is to create regular posts to schedule throughout the week leading up to Cyber Monday. Facebook video posts receive a higher click-through rate (CTR) than other post types.

So it’s a good idea to make a video showcasing your products and deals. To liven up regular in-feed image posts, you can use a free tool like Canva to create professional-looking on-brand posts. To save time and ensure you’re targeting your audience at the right time, schedule the posts directly through Facebook.

Once your page and regular posts are set up, the final step is to advertise. Facebook is a powerful advertising tool, especially for small businesses. It offers an even playing field between big and small retailers for reaching a targeted audience for a relatively small investment.

There are several different ways to advertise on Facebook—you can boost a post or create an ad campaign. Often, the most effective strategy is creating a specific Cyber Monday ad campaign using Facebook Pixel. Pixel helps retarget people that have clicked on your ads or visited your website so that your Facebook campaigns are shown to people who have demonstrated interest.

Facebook Ads Manager lets businesses create ads targeted to specific audiences to increase conversions and store traffic.

Sell & Advertise on Instagram

As a highly visual platform, Instagram is an excellent channel to showcase your products in their best light. Like Facebook, Instagram is also shoppable, making it a great place to convert followers into shoppers.

The first step to start selling on Instagram is to make sure you have an Instagram Business account. You’ll need to connect your Instagram account to your Facebook account and create a product catalog or connect it to an existing online store. Next, create shoppable posts that promote your products and the Cyber Monday deals you’re running.

The final step is to create an advertising campaign. Since Facebook owns Instagram, you create Instagram ads under your Facebook Business Page. Alternatively, if you are using an ecommerce platform like Shopify, you can manage your ads and product catalogs directly through your Shopify dashboard.

Use Email Marketing

Email marketing is a tried-and-true marketing tool for online businesses. According to Litmus email software, email campaigns generate $36 for every $1 spent on a campaign, which is higher than any other channel.

The key to email marketing for retailers is to personalize your campaigns to different audience segments; marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue. Another study found that a segmented email campaign can get open rates as high as 94% and CTRs of 38%.

Many national brands send out their Cyber Monday promotions on the day itself. But attempting this strategy runs the risk of getting drowned out in a sea of other promotions. The solution is to get in first and send out your promotions the night before. You can then create an email sequence and send out a reminder later in the day.

Cyber Monday promotions aren’t exclusively for traditional retailers. Grocery stores, fitness studios, and more can capitalize on the shopping momentum with promotional emails.

An effective strategy for email marketing is to promote a specific deal or product in the email. Then, have the email link to a landing page that is specific to your deal. This helps streamline purchases and make the process easier for shoppers, especially for mobile users.

3. Provide a Great Experience

So you’ve attracted shoppers to your site with targeted advertising campaigns and irresistible promotional offers. What’s next? You need to make sure you’re providing shoppers with an easy-to-use, enjoyable and frictionless shopping experience. Doing so minimizes bounce rate and shopping cart abandonment—which in turn maximizes conversion.

Here are a few simple steps you can take to improve your site’s user experience for Cyber Monday:

• Offer Price Comparison
• Optimize for Mobile
• Prepare for Excess Traffic
• Put Deals Front & Center
• Play Up Your Reviews
• Consider Adding a Chatbot Service
• Upgrade Your Customer Service
• Throw in Complimentary Gift Wrapping
• Extend Your Store Hours

One of the biggest reasons customers prefer shopping online over brick-and-mortar stores is that it makes it possible to easily compare prices.

To improve the user experience and provide more incentive to buy, help your customers out by comparing prices and deals across your site. To take it up a notch, you could even compare industry-wide prices to show how your brand is offering the best value deals on top-quality products.

When shoppers understand your value and feel that your business has their best interests at heart, they’ll be much more likely to convert.

Ecommerce is steadily shifting toward M-commerce (or mobile commerce), with more and more shoppers making their purchases from a phone or tablet. M-commerce revenue reached $3.56 trillion last year—accounting for more than half of total ecommerce sales.

Since the majority of shoppers browse from their phones, it’s important to optimize your site for mobile to provide a seamless shopping experience.

If you’re using one of the major ecommerce platforms, all of the website themes should already be fully responsive for mobile and include a built-in mobile shopping cart. If you’re not, it’s crucial to take the steps to optimize your mobile experience. Here are some tips:

• Test your website with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool. The quick evaluation will report any issues with accessibility, load speed, and more—plus recommendations for fixing them.
• Choose responsive themes and plugins that won’t compromise your site’s mobile-friendliness.
• Improve your site’s load time (if needed) by compressing images, implementing caching, and/or optimizing your code.
• Re-design popups for compatibility with mobile devices. Make sure they’re easy to close and as unobstructive as possible.

All Shopify themes are automatically optimized for mobile, so there ‘s no extra work needed.

If you promote deals, you can expect a spike in traffic on Cyber Monday. And the last thing you want is to lose sales or have frustrated customers because your site crashes.

Ecommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce run on systems that quickly respond and adjust to traffic demands. To be safe no matter what platform you use, though, contact your provider and ask for flexible bandwidth so your site can handle any traffic spikes that come your way.

Shoppers click on your ads to buy the specific deals you’re promoting. Don’t make them hunt for your promotions once they’re on your site—they may quickly lose interest and head to a competitor.

Put your Cyber Monday promotions front and center on your homepage and along top and side banners throughout your site. It’s best to create a landing page for each promotional offer or ad campaign too. That way, you’ll increase your chance of conversions and you can better track campaigns.

Most people (93%) think reviews are important enough to sway their purchasing decision—and reading reviews is a common practice before making even a minor purchase.

Having reviews displayed on your site allows shoppers to see past customers’ positive opinions of your brand; it also reduces the chance of shoppers going elsewhere to check reviews and possibly purchasing from a competitor instead of your store.

Instead of scrambling to get additional online reviews before Cyber Monday, make the most out of ones you currently have. Try labeling certain items as a “five-star product” if they have five-star reviews. Put positive reviews and testimonials right in your product description for promotional items.

If you have reviews on Amazon, Google, Facebook, or even an active Instagram following, use a plugin to display those comments right on your website.

The snack company Good Notes displays customer reviews to help shoppers purchase with more confidence.

Adding a chatbot to your website helps ensure every visitor receives assistance, no matter how swamped your in-house employees are. Chatbots can improve customer service by quickly pointing users to relevant products and company policies. You can also set them up to answer basic questions around shipping or product specs.

One way to quickly add this service to your business is to add a WordPress chat plugin. The key is to choose one that’s compatible with your goals—whether providing more support, driving sales, or handling live chat from multiple platforms.

Gem has an easy-to-use chatbot for customers to ask questions.

Businesses can expect a surge in demand and website traffic on Cyber Monday— which always comes along with an increase in customer service requests, as well.

Customers might want to know more about your product specifics or your returns policy before purchasing, so you’ll need to prep your team with helpful customer service strategies.

You may need to update your refund and returns policy or change delivery timelines for Cyber Monday, so make sure your customer service team is apprised of any changes. If your team needs some inspiration on what to say to customers for different inquiry types, try giving them customer service email templates they can use to build out their responses.

Given the uptick in inquiries, it’s a good idea to increase the number of staff on shift to effectively handle customer demand. If you haven’t already, you might want to implement a customer relationship management (CRM) software to store customer data and provide a central platform to manage and resolve queries more quickly.

Make your deliveries extra special by wrapping them in free gift wrapping. If the purchaser has bought the gift for themselves, they’ll love the feeling of getting a gift in the post. Or, if the item is a gift for someone else, you’ll save them the job of having to wrap it themselves—which is a powerful buying incentive during the hectic holiday season.

Choose wrapping paper that visually matches your branding, but don’t go too commercial and simply include your logo. You want to dress up the item to make it look like a gift from your brand to the purchaser. You can also go one step further and personalize it with a gift tag bearing a custom message.

While Cyber Monday is an online shopping event, some shoppers may discover your online promotions and want to see your products in person before making a purchase—causing a slight uptick in brick-and-mortar traffic.

For that reason, it’s a good idea for brick-and-mortar retailers to extend their store hours and ensure enough staff members are on duty to help customers in person.

Try extending your store hours by a couple of hours in the morning and the evening to give shoppers plenty of opportunities to see your products. You may want to extend your hours throughout the following week too for those shoppers who missed out on a deal.

4. Offer Convenience Services

The rise in contactless experiences during the covid pandemic sparked an enduring demand for convenience services. Even as shoppers are feeling more comfortable returning to stores, options like Buy Online, Pick Up In-store (BOPIS); Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL); and contactless payments are in high demand.

Embrace customers’ preferences and make the shopping experience as comfortable as possible by implementing these services. And make sure to promote them alongside your deals and offers, so interested shoppers will know that the options are available.

Set Up BNPL

Embrace Click and Collect

Engage with customers’ preferences by offering them a variety of different delivery options. By embracing options like click and collect (also referred to as ‘BOPIS’), you’ll show customers you’re willing to make life easier for them and go the extra mile.

Learn how to set up click and collect for your store.

Pzaz shows customers where they can pick up their orders in New York.

Offer Contactless Pay

Cyber Monday is an online event, so contactless payment is a given; however, if you’re also offering some in-store promotions, make sure you have several contactless or NFC payment options like Apple Pay and contactless bank cards.

A Good Company clearly displays their payment options.

5. Close the Sale & Prevent Cart Abandonment

Getting customers on your site and clicking “Add to Cart” is only half the battle. On average, nearly 70% of online retail orders are abandoned altogether. And cart abandonments during shopping holidays tend to be even slightly higher.

Here are a few strategies for reducing cart abandonment rates on Cyber Monday:

Clarify Promotional Pricing

Offer Multiple Payment Options

Be Transparent With Shipping

More than 20% of shoppers abandon carts because delivery options are too slow. Be sure to offer a wide variety of shipping methods: ground shipping, two-day shipping, and overnight shipping with clearly labeled pricing for each.

Even if the faster shipping options are more expensive, it’s better to have them as an option rather than risk losing a sale. Also, be sure to provide estimated arrival dates or at least timetables for when shoppers can expect their order to arrive.

Beauty Pie makes it easy for customers to see when they can expect their order.

Related: FedEx vs UPS vs USPS: Which carrier is best for small businesses?

Establish a Clear & Flexible Return Policy

Baymard’s survey reveals 12% of shoppers abandon carts because of an unsatisfactory return policy. This number is likely even higher during the holiday season when items are being purchased as gifts. It’s crucial to have a clearly stated return policy so that shoppers know what to expect. Include the return policy on your checkout screen and in all digital receipts.

Additionally, it’s worth considering a more lenient policy for the holiday season. If shoppers are buying Christmas gifts on Cyber Monday, the recipient won’t even be given the gift until almost 30 days later. Offer at least a 60-day window to ease shoppers’ minds and minimize customer service issues.

Lusso Cloud makes it easy to start returns directly on their site.

Minimize the Number of Clicks to Purchase

Retarget Lost Customers

6. Earn a Lifelong Customer

Cyber Monday is a great opportunity to get in front of new customers. Ideally, these customers will continue to buy from you long after the holidays are over.

When compared to new customers, existing customers are 50% more likely to try new products and typically spend 31% more on average—so it’s important to hang on to previous customers.

Even if you manage to just hang on to a few of your Cyber Monday customers, the results in time will be well worth the effort.

Here are a few Cyber Monday Strategies to increase customer retention:

• Provide Great Customer Service
• Collect Contact Information for Future Campaigns

Roughly 50% of customers say they would switch to a new brand after one bad customer service experience. Having top-notch customer service is vital, especially for small online businesses where customers don’t see you in person, and you don’t have the credibility of a large brand to stand behind.

Providing accessible & responsive service will help humanize your business and make it more trustworthy. Above all, it’s important to be open, honest, and responsive to customers. Most customers (93%) are likely to make repeat purchases with companies that offer excellent customer service.

Here are some top quick tips for providing great online customer service:

• Be accessible: Have a phone number on your website with real people answering calls.
• Be personable: Have an “About Us” section of your website so shoppers can see the human side of your business.
• Be responsive: Take no longer than one day to answer emails; ideally, answer all customer emails within a few hours.
• Be social: Use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to connect with customers.
• Be clear: Send confirmation emails after shoppers make a purchase detailing their items, costs, and expected delivery date.
• Be thorough: Send another email once the order ships; alerting customers during each step of the process adds transparency and helps build trust.

Keeping in touch with customers allows you to inform them of new products, promotions, or other news they might be interested in.

Most online stores have some type of box or form for customers to sign up for a newsletter. Change up your email sign-up verbiage so that it’s more exciting than “Sign up for our newsletter.” Try something like “Like what you see? Get more great deals year-round.” Or, offer an incentive for signing up, like an additional discount code.

Oat Haus offers 10% off to newsletter subscribers.

Then, of course, follow through with your promise of great deals by sending out emails with additional holiday sales and new year promotions.

7. Prepare for Next Year

Hopefully, by following all of these tips, you’ll experience record-breaking Cyber Monday sales. But—believe it or not—once the holiday season is over it’s already time to start planning for next year. You can never prepare too early. And starting preparations promptly will get you ahead of the competition.

Here are some Cyber Monday strategies to prepare for 2023:

Beef Up Your Social Media Presence

Take the same concepts you used to create your Cyber Monday sales posts and use them to showcase your products year-round. By scheduling your social media posts ahead of time, you can keep an active page by just investing a few hours a week.

More followers on social media equal more eyeballs for your Cyber Monday promotions. So, work on building followers throughout the year so that next year’s promotions have an even greater impact.

Take High-quality Product Photos

Brick-and-mortar stores have the advantage of letting customers feel and test products in person before making a purchase. For online sellers, your product page and photos are all you have to work with. Give shoppers a clear idea of your products and ease any concerns by having high-quality photos that highlight products individually and lifestyle shots that show your products in action.

• Give multiple perspectives: Make sure to offer pictures of all angles of each product so there is nothing left to the imagination and customers aren’t surprised when their order shows up.
• Showcase different sizes: If you sell apparel (which has notoriously high return rates) take pictures of models wearing different sizes so shoppers can get a better sense of how the item will fit.
• Lighting matters: Bright white lighting will help showcase the product accurately.

Huey uses clear and bright photos to display their products from multiple angles.

Gather More Reviews

Online reviews are social proof and help build trust among consumers. Nearly 50% of consumers say they trust the reviews they read online as much as personal recommendations.

Reviews also help shoppers understand what makes your product or service stand out from the competition.

Your website needs genuine reviews to show customers that what you’re selling is worth their money, whether they are buying something for themselves or a gift for someone else.

Noodie displays positive customer reviews across their site.

Here are a few tips to get more customer reviews:

• Offer an incentive like loyalty points or discount coupons to current customers who write reviews. Adagio Teas, for example, rewards customers with five loyalty points for each review written, and it has helped them generate hundreds of reviews per product.
• You can also offer raffle entries to customers who leave product reviews; prizes may include gift certificates or bestselling items in your store.
• Use a customer loyalty program like Podium that makes it easy for employees to ask customers to leave reviews.

Cyber Monday Sales Trends

As you review our seven tips and plan your Cyber Monday strategies, keep in mind recent trends that can inform your decisions.

Every year since 2009, Cyber Monday sales have steadily increased on both mobile and desktop devices. Plus, the general trend toward online purchases has been accelerated as a lasting result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year, rising inflation and supply chain crunches are expected to impact Cyber Monday for consumers and retailers alike. Consumer Price Index is up 7.7% over 2021, causing significant increases in the cost of goods.

But according to the NRF, total holiday sales for 2022 are projected to grow 6%–8% over the previous year, reaching up to $960.4 billion. This means consumers will still be on the hunt for holiday gifts, but deals will be the top driver behind their purchase decisions.

Additionally, like its sister shopping holiday Black Friday, Cyber Monday is increasingly expanding beyond just a single day. Some retailers, particularly those with both brick-and-mortar and ecommerce operations, are effectively merging the two events into one long sale. For other online retailers, Cyber Monday is evolving into a weeklong sales event, known as Cyber Week.

Bottom Line

Standing out from the crowd on Cyber Monday isn’t always easy, especially as a small business. You need to have clear Cyber Monday strategies and make your offers irresistible to your target audience.

Effective advertising, compelling deals, and a smooth shopping experience are all essential components of a successful Cyber Monday. Approach Cyber Monday with a step-by-step strategic approach and see what results you can drive.

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