Does your BFCM offer bring customers back in January?
Flat discounts pull in buyers who don't come back. Here's the alternative
I posted something on LinkedIn last week that got more DMs than anything I've posted in months.
Almost every DM asked the same question:
Which BFCM offer should I run?
Quick version if you missed it.
There are two broad ways to structure a BFCM offer.
Earned offers: “Spend $150, get a gift.”
Now the customer has to make a decision: Do I want to spend enough to unlock the reward?
Simple offers: “25% off everything.”
There’s almost nothing to think about. It removes friction and makes the purchase decision easy.
So which discount converts better?
Most brands spend months planning how to win a BFCM order, and zero time planning how to make it worth more.
The discount gets the traffic in the door. But if you push that expensive volume through a tech stack built for a slow Tuesday, you're leaving pure profit on the table.
The brands that actually maximize BFCM margins run a tech audit in September. Here is what they look for:
1. Grow the order pre-checkout. Does your cart dynamically bump AOV before they even start to pay?
2. Personalize the funnel. Are your upsell offers adapting to the buyer, or is everyone seeing the exact same generic popup?
3. Deepen the commitment can a one-time buyer upgrade to a subscription with just one click?
4. Monetize the confirmation page. Is that post-purchase attention generating real revenue?
That’s the exact playbook behind Rokt Aftersell’s new Aftersell Lab. They just dropped six major releases across cart, checkout, and post-purchase to plug these specific revenue leaks.
September is for testing systems. November is for running them.
See what they’ve built, test it now, and get the entire Aftersell platform for $0/month:
Two Offer Families, Two Jobs
Every offer creates a different kind of acquisition filter.
An earned offer adds a condition, like a free gift once they cross a threshold.
That extra condition can change the customer you acquire.
Their basket gets bigger, and they see more of your catalog while looking for items to hit the threshold. Your per-item price stays exactly where it was.
A simple offer removes all of that friction.
25% off sitewide is understood instantly.
That's valuable during BFCM, when shoppers scroll past 40 brands shouting numbers. They get it in under a second, and that speed is the whole point in a crowded feed.
The problem is the middle, an overcomplicated discount structured like these:
- Spend $75 and get 15% off- Spend $200 and get 30% off- Some SKUs don't qualify...
See how you've created a comprehension cost?
Now the customer has to figure out the offer before they can decide whether or not they want it.
Earned Customers Come Back Faster
Across the accounts we run, brands that execute earned offers well see their new BFCM customers come back sooner and buy again more often than the ones who came in on a flat discount.
And there are a few reasons I think it happens.
1. Self-selection. Someone willing to spend $100 to unlock an offer has already shown more intent than someone who clicked a 25% off banner.
2. The basket. They saw more of your catalog. Every product they like can create future purchase opportunities.
3. The price anchor. A customer who got $25 off after spending $100 never saw the product itself marked down 25%. Full price can still feel like the normal price when they come back in January.
Outside data backs up the downside. Customers acquired through promotions tend to show weaker LTV, and the discount from a first purchase can become a lasting price anchor.
What we're seeing in accounts fills in the upside. Earned structures pull in the stronger cohort.
Your Business Model Picks The Offer
Before you decide what to discount, decide what kind of customer you're trying to get.
Think about two customers who both cost you $30 to acquire.
Customer A buys because your entire store is 25% off.
Customer B spends $100 because that's the threshold needed to unlock $25 off.
They both generated a first order.
But they didn't necessarily behave the same way.
That’s why I keep coming back to two numbers: repeat purchase rate and LTV.
RPR tells you whether people come back.
LTV tells you how much that behavior is worth.
Here's what that looks like in practice.
Skincare Brand: with Strong RPR and LTV
A customer buys a cleanser during BFCM.
They can come back for moisturizer, serum, sunscreen, refills, etc.
If an earned offer attracts a customer who buys a larger initial basket and then comes back three more times, the business has plenty of opportunity to recover the acquisition cost.
Furniture Brand: Weak RPR
Someone buys a $2,000 chair… and they probably aren't buying another chair in January.
Even if an earned offer somehow produces a “better” customer, there's much less opportunity for that customer to compound into additional revenue.
The stronger your repeat purchase behavior, the more interesting earned offers become.
But there's one big qualifier here:
You have to be able to execute the earned offer.
A confusing earned offer is worse than a clean simple one.
And yes, the LTV play comes with a trade-off. Earned customers can cost more up front because you're betting they're worth more later.
So the ideal earned offer is often earned in mechanics but simple in communication.
“Spend $100, get $25.”
The mechanic is earned, and the customer reads it in one glance.
The customer still has to hit a threshold, but there's almost nothing to explain.
Commit to One This Week
Pull RPR and 12-month LTV for last year's BFCM cohort, the same January check from the scorecard issue.
Put yourself on one side of the chart honestly and lock your offer family now.
You don't want to be debating earned vs. simple while the creative team is already building November emails.
Could a great brand break this rule? Of course.
But this is where I'd start in every account we run.
Are you confident in your current structure and plan for Q4? There's still time to get things corrected to ensure you have a record breaking Black Friday. Every brand we onboarded during Q4 last year is still a client today and they're growing more profitable then ever.
Book a call and let's see how we can help get ready 👉 book a call with me.
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