By this time next week …

Black Friday, Cyber Monday will be in the books.

So to be as helpful as possible, we’ve consolidated every holiday tip and tactic we’ve shared into a single checklist.

We also have the top five headlines from this week in consumer news with links + summaries.

Connor MacDonald CMO, Ridge

The Right Post-Purchase Matters Beyond AOV Lift

Everyone knows post-purchase upsells boost AOV. We use them even smarter.

Real example …

Someone buys a wallet, we show them our tracker card. Perfect complement. They just invested in a premium wallet — of course, they want to protect it.

• Right offer
• Right time
• Right discount

Post-purchase converts 10-15% when the offer’s actually relevant. At tens of thousands of orders during peak?

That’s massive.

Same with rings. Same with luggage.

But here’s the real win …

When they return in Q1, they’re not just buying another wallet — they’re buying into the full Ridge ecosystem.

Ridge runs our post-purchases with Aftersell.

Custom funnels based on what someone bought, cart value, product category. Dead simple to set up, no dev work.

During peak, this clears slow inventory, boosts discovery on new lines, and maximizes AOV all at once.

What’s your post-purchase strategy for the next 30 days?

The Operators Every Single One

Your Not-Too-Late Black Friday + Cyber Monday Checklist

No time to waste. Let’s get right into it.

Here is every holiday tip from the last few months. Or, rather … every tip you can still put to use.

If you’d like them all in a single Google Doc, please let us know.

☐ Create a plan. I’m sure you have one.

☐ Put your plan on a shared calendar that runs throughout Q4 to the end of the year.

• Every email + SMS (send more)
• Product or variant drops
• Multiple holiday offers
• Bonus flash sales or incentives
• Existing customer exclusives
• High-to-low AOV for acquisition
• Channel-specific shipping cutoffs

☐ Be willing to change the plan when you’re not hitting targets.

☐ Create two contingencies. One +20% above your forecast and one -20% below. Define exactly how much you will push in or pull back + when your team should be ready to adjust.

☐ Last year’s best-performing ads might also be this year’s best performers! Same with your evergreen winners.

☐ Run them all with and without your BFCM offers.

☐ Do not turn off your evergreen creatives.

☐ Adjust your channel efficiency targets down until Black Friday. The delta between 1DC vs 30DC is typically 40% — but it more than doubles in the days before Black Friday.

☐ Also look at how much 1-30 day delta changes during and after BFCM, then adjust ROAS goals — i.e., your ROAS target probably needs to be higher than usual.

☐ But be wary of falling too far behind efficiency targets leading into BFCM. Know your lower limit. Pull back or adjust.

☐ Retighten your targets during the weekend between BFCM. It’s really, really easy to overspend.

☐ If you sell international, pull last year’s data. You can probably keep budgets higher outside the US during the weekend.

☐ Check your spend caps on your Meta account. We had a year where we spent to the cap, and things just stopped. Our rep needed to do an emergency increase.

☐ Don’t cap Google spend on key brand and non-brand terms.

☐ Don’t bid on stupid searches like “black friday sale.” We once saw a brand spend ~$120k with essentially $0 return.

☐ Set up seasonal bid adjustments in Google to auto-account for the increase — even that is probably not enough if things are performing well. Be ready to increase more!

☐ For large spend increases, have clear revenue expectations.

☐ Set up a form of reporting to see how you’re pacing hourly YoY for both spend and revenue.

☐ Northbeam often reports ROAS a few hours quicker than Google or Meta; better for intraday reporting.

• Homepage
• Banners
• Landers
• Collection pages
• Every PDP
• In the cart
• At checkout
• Post-purchase

☐ Use a countdown timer.

☐ Update your messaging over the weekend.

☐ Update it again on Cyber Monday.

☐ Put your primary holiday offer into your pop-up.

☐ Then add it to your welcome email and SMS flows.

☐ Do the same thing with your abandoned cart and checkout automations.

☐ Sort your collections by availability. As you lose size coverage or variants, demote products.

☐ Send more emails.

☐ Send a lot more emails on the big days themselves. Whatever you are planning, 2–3x it.

☐ Exclude recent purchasers.

☐ Don’t exclude recent purchases if your offer or your products change (i.e., new drops).

☐ Reactivate your unengaged subscribers before Black Friday with plain-text emails and offers.

☐ Keep deliverability high by encouraging replies to win free products or unlock exclusive offers.

☐ Send more plain-text emails. Especially “from the founder” plain-text emails.

☐ Send more SMS.

☐ Avoid MMS as much as possible.

☐ Do not text images (MMS) during peak moments.

☐ Remove images from your text welcome flow.

☐ Don’t send SMS on the hour.

☐ Choose weird times, like 11:19am.

☐ Use ringless voicemails by recording a 30-second message and sending it to all active SMS subscribers.

☐ Create one mega, ultra, everything bundle. Put it towards the bottom of your homepage or landers. You never know.

☐ Get out your credit card

☐ Open two incognito browsers

☐ Pretend to be …

Buyer 1: Shop for yourself

☐ Use Safari on desktop

☐ Start with a Meta ad URL

☐ Landing page → purchase

Buyer 2: Shop for a gift

☐ Use Chrome on Mobile

☐ Start by Googling your brand

☐ Homepage → purchase

For both buyers (Incognito)

☐ Click every banner & bar

☐ Close then reopen popups

☐ Subscribe to your email

☐ And to your text marketing

☐ Use a discount code

☐ Purchase your product x2

☐ Open your receipt emails

☐ Check for text receipts

Pay close attention to …

☐ Banners

☐ Popups

☐ Countdowns

☐ Reward offers

☐ Chat bubbles

☐ Support widgets

☐ Collections by availability

☐ PDP prices

☐ Add-to-cart prices

☐ In-cart upsells

☐ Shipping dates

☐ Gift options

☐ Post-purchase

☐ Meet as a team early on Black Friday (5am PST) and then every 2-3 hours after to adjust budgets.

☐ Make time for personal check-ins with your direct reports. Do the same with your teammates. Schedule Slack reminders.

☐ Be intentional about celebrating.

☐ Compliments live in the details — call out specific people who did specific things.

☐ Spend time with your friends and family on Thanksgiving (at least for a long lunch break).

☐ Be clear with your friends and family about your boundaries during BFCM; tell them when and when you won’t be available.

☐ Bring your wins home with you. Bring your losses, too.

☐ Let your significant other and your children know when your stress level gets to a 7 out of 10.

☐ Give your grace.

☐ Give your coworkers grace.

☐ Drink water. Stay hydrated.

☐ Eat regularly. Don’t skip meals.

☐ Be sure to visit all of our sites and buy, buy, buy! In alphabetical order …

• Jones Road
• HexClad
• Lomi
• Pela Case
• Simple Modern
• Ridge

THE FEED

​Black Friday Just Got Wild​

​What DTC Can Learn From Enterprise Media With JMo (From VaynerMedia)​

The Trends

Curated by the editor of CPG Wire, this week’s five biggest consumer-news headlines.

1. Perelel Secures $27M To Scale: PR Newswire​

Perelel, a prenatal vitamin brand that evolved into a comprehensive women’s health company, secured $27M in growth funding. Prelude Growth Partners led the round. Unilever Ventures, Willow Growth, and Selva Ventures also participated.

Perelel stands out in a crowded category by focusing on clinical efficacy and community. In addition to backing Perelel, Prelude raised $600M for Fund III earlier this year.

2. BERO Approaches 8-Figure Milestone: Inc. Magazine​

BERO, the premium non-alcoholic beer brand co-founded by actor Tom Holland, is approaching eigh-figures in annual revenue after launching in October of 2024.

In addition to approaching eight figures, BERO is now the number two non-alcoholic beer at Target and a top seller on Amazon. Veteran John Herman co-founded the brand alongside Holland.

3. Suja Life Files For IPO: Twitter​

Better-for-you beverage company Suja Life confidentially filed IPO paperwork with the SEC. Paine Schwartz Partners, a private equity firm with $6B under management, acquired Suja Life in 2021 when the company was approaching $200M in annual revenue. In 2022, Paine Schwartz bolted on Vive Organic and created a giant in the functional shot category. Meaningful Partners is a co-investor in Suja Life alongside Paine Schwartz.

4. Anheuser-Busch Courts BeatBox: WSJ​

Anheuser-Busch is reportedly close to acquiring RTD coctkail brand BeatBox for around $700M. BeatBox, which launched in 2011 and is based in Austin, is best known for its high ABV cocktails and colorful Tetra-Pak packaging.

The company was on pace to do $175M in sales in 2024 and will eclipse $250M in 2025. For Anheuser-Busch, purchasing BeatBox will significantly expand its RTD cocktail portfolio.

5. Monogram Capital Secures $350M: PR Newswire​

Los Angeles-based Monogram Capital secured $350M for its third fund. The consumer-focused private equity firm is an investor in OLIPOP, Ellenos, D.S. & Durga, Koia, 4th & Heart, Archer, and a number of other brands.

Jared Stein and Oliver Nordlinger co-founded Monogram Capital in 2014. The firm now has $1.75B AUM.

One more nudge to let me know if you’d like each and every one of those checklist items dropped into a Google Doc.

Just hit reply with …

See you on the other side.

With thanks and anticipation,
Aaron Orendorff 🤓
Chief Content Officer

Disclaimer: Special thanks to Aftersell by Rokt for sponsoring today’s newsletter.

​Read online | Unsubscribe​