Q4 makes or breaks the year for most eCommerce brands. Black Friday and the holidays are packed into the last quarter, and those weeks often decide the whole year.
For Fillies and Boots, the only Italian brand making made-to-measure calf boots, we designed and ran an acquisition and retention strategy that pushed daily sales past 34,000€ at peak.
Here is what we did, and which of these concepts you can adapt to get the most out of your next Black Friday.
To define the strategy, we started with the data
The first thing we did was analyze the store's history from previous years: what had driven the best results, and where we could improve.
That meant studying the offer and the advertising campaigns, but also the shopping experience on the site.
Because the product is made to measure, we knew there were two fronts to address well before Black Friday:
- Reassure potential customers about taking their measurements, and therefore about the fit of the boots they would receive. A made-to-measure product built on each customer's specifications cannot be returned.
- Make sure customer care could absorb a much higher volume of requests. The previous year, the support team had not been enough for the demand generated.
To handle the first point, we worked on the site itself in the months leading up to Black Friday:
- A dedicated landing page on how to choose the perfect boots for your body type, with explainer videos and step-by-step measurement guides.
- A new free service to book a video call with an expert and take measurements together, for anyone who found the written guide insufficient.
- More proof elements on the product pages, with video testimonials from customers telling their stories. Not being able to wear standard boots is a real problem for far more women than we imagined before starting to work on Fillies and Boots.
For customer care, the internal team organized the onboarding of new people to support customers through the decision phase.
Black Friday: we played early
With the site ready, we moved to the actual planning.
As in the previous year, we wanted to play early and anticipate the offer.
For Fillies, the purchase is rarely immediate: it is preceded by an information phase. So in the months before, we set up lead generation campaigns to intercept both direct and latent demand, giving people all the guidance they needed so we could bring them to purchase once the offer went live.
We brought the start date forward to November 12 and extended the offer until the 21st, a window where traffic costs were lower and the audience was not yet saturated with Black Friday messaging.
In that period every brand becomes a potential competitor: the goal is to get potential customers to buy before they prioritize other discounted products that have been sitting on their wishlists for too long.
A differentiated offer for each objective
Black Friday is the moment to diversify the offer with a genuinely unique incentive.
Fillies rarely runs discounts, so Black Friday was a real opportunity for anyone who finally wanted a boot that fits perfectly. Customers knew it: people who already knew the brand acted fast, even before we introduced any urgency elements.
We built several offers, with an incremental discount on the purchase of multiple pairs. Existing customers redeemed it at a rate that surprised us, which significantly increased average order value.
On top of that, we introduced targeted post-purchase cross-sells: offers shown at the moment of purchase on specific products, unlocking a premium service we knew new customers wanted, based on surveys run in the previous months.
Keyword: social proof
One thing that has always worked for Fillies is sharing content generated by customers, who spontaneously sent dozens of messages, photos, and videos every day, wearing their new boots and telling their experience with the brand.
This created a natural network effect: conversations between customers and prospects started even under the ads, boosting engagement while stacking up proof that answered the objections of potential customers watching.
We used some of this content in Facebook and Google campaigns (with the customers' consent) and repurposed the same material in the email automation flows.
We harnessed the power of urgency
We scheduled specific campaigns for the final days of Black Friday to increase frequency and shorten the time to purchase, which for Fillies is long on average, creating urgency for people still in the evaluation phase.
Beyond urgency, we leaned on another element fundamental to the brand: the presence of the founder herself.
Fillies was born from Livia's personal need, and the strategic decision to put her at the front of the brand's storytelling was the winning move.
Women felt seen and understood. Livia knew exactly how to talk to them in the most natural, genuine way possible. That built a relationship of trust with the people following the brand and removed many of the obstacles in the buying process.
The results: 34,600€ in sales per day
Daily sales peaked at 34,600€. The store's conversion rate grew 49% over the previous year, and acquisition costs came down, driven by a specific, one-time discount.
What made these results possible
- Starting from a data-based strategy and a clear objective, knowing where to focus the effort and how much budget each activity needed.
- Building a shopping experience as custom-fit as the product itself.
- A discount does not devalue the product when it is introduced with a precise logic. We already knew that.
Plan your next Black Friday on your own data
Naniza builds Black Friday plans from your store's data, not last year's guesswork: offer architecture, early-play timing, and the campaigns to carry it. Book a free strategy call before the peak makes every mistake more expensive.
