A Black Friday That Pays Off: Watch the Webinar Recording
Black Friday brings record revenue. The question is how much of it you actually keep. And the biggest losses don't happen during the sale itself, but in the weeks before and after it.
Excerpt: three short passages from the webinar. The full recording (59 min) is below
Black Friday isn't one day. It's a whole season, from early November into January. Together with Jakub Žilinčan of XEMEA, we walked through it step by step: how to prepare, run the campaign, clear stock, win new customers, and judge whether the sale was worth it.
We showed it all on a model Black Friday Management Board. Martin built it in Claude on demo data from RAS (Retail Automation Suite), connected to the AI through our MCP, without a single line of code.
What's inside
What the recording covers
- 01
Preparation and planning
The key metric is contribution margin: revenue minus discounts, cost of goods, marketing, shipping and fulfilment. How much a month has to earn to cover fixed costs, how to set targets on margin, cost-to-revenue ratio and contribution (not just on revenue), and why to plan November and December country by country.
- 02
Timing and the revenue boost
When to start, when it peaks and when to stop. Some markets buy all week, others only on the Friday. Why an early discount buys revenue without profit, what to do after the last delivery day before Christmas, and how to measure how much revenue Black Friday really added compared to the baseline.
- 03
Clearing stock
Which products to discount (stock age, edition, days of stock left, end-of-line items) and which to leave alone. How to put old stock in front of customers, and how to stop burning ad budget on products that are being reordered or are missing sizes.
- 04
Customer acquisition
Is a Black Friday customer a bargain hunter or the start of a relationship? Share of new customers, CAC, first-order profitability and cohort payback within 90 and 180 days.
- 05
Evaluation in the Black Friday Management Board
Five questions an evaluation should answer: how much revenue the sale added, how much of it stayed as profit, which products earned and which lost money, whether stock was cleared, and whether customers will come back. Plus how to let AI recommend the next step after every data refresh.
Key takeaways
- 1
Plan ahead on revenue, margin and contribution margin, separately for each country.
- 2
Discounts and marketing add up, so set them together.
- 3
Steer daily (hourly during Black Friday itself), across the whole season, not just the peak days.
- 4
Clear stock: old products, past editions and end-of-line items. Discount bestsellers with care.
- 5
Bet on retention only after reviewing previous years, once you know it works for you.
Speakers
Martin Faith
CEO, Stratodata
Jakub Žilinčan
Founder, XEMEA
Full recording
Watch the full recording
Full recording · 59 min
The recording is free. Fill in the form and the video starts right here.
Unlock the full recording
Want to look at your own Black Friday numbers the same way? We'll go through them with you.