Every year, the same thing happens. Brands wait until the week before Thanksgiving to ramp up marketing, and by then they're fighting for attention in the most crowded, most expensive inbox and feed environment of the year. The deals get sharper. The messaging gets louder. And still, growth stalls, because the real constraint was never the offer. It was the size of the audience already primed to act when an offer landed.
For rewards program results during the holidays, the same holds true. Meaning, your Black Friday - Cyber Monday (BFCM) revenue ceiling is set by how many people are already installed, enrolled, and ready to shop the moment the weekend hits, not how many people see your ad the day before Thanksgiving.
The users who convert during Black Friday weekend are, overwhelmingly, users who were already active before it started.
That reframes the whole planning cycle. Instead of asking "what's our BFCM offer," the better question is "how do we grow our logged-in, active user base right now, well before the BFCM discounting even begins."
Treat It Like a Relaunch, Not a Campaign
A single burst of pre-holiday marketing won't move the needle enough. What works is a sustained push, over several weeks, to bring in new users and re-engage the ones who have lapsed. Think of it less as a seasonal promotion and more as a full relaunch of the program, timed so that by the time Black Friday deals go live, your audience is already secured.
This isn't a new idea. Retailer know the same about email lists and loyalty programs: the list you build in September is the list that converts in November.
The difference is that many companies still treat BFCM prep as a two-week sprint instead of a multi-week campaign, which leaves real revenue on the table before the season even starts.
Why Timing Beats the Offer
It's tempting to assume the winning move is a better discount or a flashier promotion. In practice, when marketing starts matters more than the offer. Competitors and partners alike tend to campaign too close to the holiday, and too infrequently.
That gap is the opening. Planning & launching your rewards program’s adoption & reactivation promotional plans weeks earlier than feels comfortable is a real competitive advantage.
What to Watch Before Revenue Shows Up
Revenue and transaction volume are the scorecard everyone looks at, but they only tell you how the season went after it's over. The number worth tracking now is install-to-first-purchase velocity: how fast a new user moves from installing to earning their first cash back.
That's the early signal that tells you whether the relaunch is actually working, well before Black Friday weekend arrives.
The brands that start building their rewards program audience now won't be scrambling for revenue when that holiday weekend shopping surge arrives. They'll already have it locked-in.
