4 Tips When Creating Your BFCM Ads

Simple, scrappy tactics to create scroll-stopping ads when time and budget are tight

Author

Brandon Blum
October 26, 2025

This past week, we began creating BFCM / Holiday ads for clients. So I put together a short list of things to keep in mind as you begin working on yours.

First time reading the New Edition Newsletter?

👋 Hey, I’m Brandon Blum. I’m the Founder and Managing Partner at New Edition - a boutique creative agency based out of Brooklyn, New York that helps emerging e-commerce brands create content.

This week's newsletter reveals the four creative shortcuts that separate winning BFCM campaigns from the noise, plus tech recommendations for brands under $10M.

If you need help with your paid ad creative strategy, hit us up! We’d love to see if we can help.

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1. NOW’S NOT THE TIME TO RE-EXPLAIN YOUR ENTIRE BUSINESS

For BFCM ads, I recommend retargeting campaigns (website visitors past 90 days, for example).

Because of this, impressions will be served to those who have already been to your website or Instagram. They may even have already purchased a product.

Create ads with this in mind. The goal should be to make your offer clear and drive urgency, not re-explain every benefit.

👇 HERE’S MY FREE OFFER TO YOU 👇

FREE SOCIAL STRATEGY CALL

Spend 30 minutes with me, completely free, diving into your paid and/or organic social strategy.

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2. IF YOU’RE A FOUNDER, GRAB YOUR SMARTPHONE…

I always encourage founders to create content; this time of year, even more so. Remember: people buy from people.

No bells and whistles needed. You just need a simple script and a smartphone.

Leverage your LLM of choice here. 

Here’s a prompt to leverage for your brand:

Create an ad script for one of our cofounders, talking about our Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) deals.

Here are the our deals to include: [INCLUDE BFCM OFFER TIMELINE]

Here is a past ad script to use as a reference: [UPLOAD A PAST FOUNDER AD SCRIPT THAT’S PERFORMED BELOW YOUR TARGET CPA]

Keep in mind:

  • Assume [FOUNDER] is going to record this in a low-budget, selfie-like format. 

  • Create a script that’s 30 seconds total.

  • Include three hooks, and three calls-to-action to consider

  • Have the script appeal to the common pain points for our [INSERT ONE OF YOUR AUDIENCE DEMOS] segment.

Tweak the prompt until you feel it lands where you want it to land.

By the way, here’s some keys to successfully recording yourself for paid & organic social!

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3. TEST YOUR HOOKS / HEADLINES!

Never launch one version of anything.

  • For static ads: test headlines like SAVINGS, SALE, and HOLIDAY DEALS

  • For video ads: create a few different ads, with differing creative directions.

I like to try to work in “BEST DEAL OF THE YEAR” messaging where I can during BFCM (assuming it is). 

Find a different ways to say the same thing and see what your audience responds to most. Remember: keep it simple!

4. YOUR LLM IS YOUR BEST FRIEND 

As I mentioned in my BFCM blog post last month, you have A LOT going on this time of year. You only have 24 hours in a day. Be resourceful. 

Upload brand messaging, your offer timeline and your best performing headlines and ad scripts into your LLM of choice. Prompt it for headlines, creator scripts, founder scripts, etc.

To me, this isn’t selling out, it’s being smart and efficient.

LAST MINUTE TECH STACK RECOMMENDATIONS (FOR BRANDS DOING <$10M)

Top of funnel:

  • From The Lobby: Self-service UGC/Seeding platform that I’ve been telling all my clients about since I saw an old client’s content who used them.

  • Refunnel: a new-to-market one-click whitelisting tool that makes a sometimes tedious and annoying process insanely simple. 

Bottom of funnel: 

  • Varia AI: An AI-shopping partner. Essentially a website chatbot on steroids. Here’s a live demo of what they built for The Ordinary. If you’re in Fragrances, Electronics, Accessories, Skincare, Beauty, or Supplements; could be worth checking out.

  • Talkable: Generally an up-market referral marketing product, but they’ve recently rolled out a Shopify app specifically for SMBs. 

    • Talkable will waive the platform fee of $57/month for up to 12 months for subscribers of this newsletter who sign up for the Talkable Referrals app for Shopify. If you sign up, let me know so I can tell them!

  • Rise.ai: My go-to Shopify app for loyalty/retention. Have you been meaning to roll out a digital gift card? Does your BFCM offer timeline include a cashback rewards program? Look into Rise.

BFCM is here—and your creative strategy can't afford to be lazy. 

From founder-led smartphone videos to hook testing and creator partnerships, these five tactical shifts will help you cut through the noise, drive urgency, and turn holiday shoppers into loyal customers. 

What are you working on this coming week? Respond to this email and let me know.

See you next week ✌️