How To Turn Black Friday Buyers Into Repeat Customers

Winning the Black Friday sale is only the beginning. Your offer gets a customer through the checkout, but what brings them back in January, March or beyond? Turning peak-season buyers into repeat customers starts with planning for that next purchase before Black Friday begins.

That was the focus of our webinar, Black Friday After the Checkout: Turning Buyers into 2027 Customers. Our host Dan O’Kane, Global Head of Partnerships at Tradedoubler, brought together experts from ABOUT YOU, Klarna, Atolls, MAI xpose360 and Tradedoubler to explore how brands and their partners can build value beyond the first order.

The discussion covered everything from defining a valuable customer to planning relevant follow-up and rewarding publishers for the outcomes that matter. Here, we share the key insights and practical steps to help you plan for the next purchase before the first one happens.

You can also watch the full conversation in the recording below.

1. Start By Defining A Valuable Customer

What does a successful Black Friday look like for your brand? The first order is part of the answer. To understand its longer-term value, you also need to consider whether the customer returns, what they buy next and how profitable those purchases are.

In the webinar, Scully Chen, Marketing Manager at ABOUT YOU, shared that customers acquired during Black Friday and Q4 bring the business greater lifetime value than those acquired during summer or winter sales. That’s ABOUT YOU’s experience, but it’s a useful reminder to test assumptions against your own customer data.

Before briefing partners, define the behaviour you want to encourage. Is it a second purchase within three months, a complementary product order or the return of a customer who hasn’t shopped with you for some time? The right objective will depend on your category and buying cycle. Make it clear from the outset so your partners can build their activity around it.

2. Build The Next Purchase Into Your Black Friday Plan

Once you know what success looks like, map out what should happen after checkout. What could the customer need next, when would it be relevant and how could your partners help?

Karl Wood, UK Head of Business Development at Atolls, illustrated this with a simple example: someone who buys a coffee machine has a natural reason to return for coffee pods. For other products, the next step may need more thought. Useful content, a complementary accessory or early access to a new collection could give customers a reason to reconnect with your brand.

Timing should reflect that buying cycle. Daniel Kocher, Teamlead Affiliate Marketing at MAI xpose360, highlighted the first 48–72 hours as an important opportunity for personalised follow-up. Scully explained that ABOUT YOU works with a longer window for encouraging another fashion purchase. Early engagement and the next sales offer don’t have to happen at the same time.

Crucially, reserve budget for what comes next. As Karl pointed out, spending everything during Cyber Week leaves little room to re-engage the customers you’ve just acquired. Include follow-up activity in the original partner brief, with a clear purpose, realistic timing and budget behind it.

3. Give Publishers A Clear Role And The Right Incentives

Different publishers give customers different reasons to return:

• Cashback and loyalty partners can reward another purchase

• Content publishers and creators can show how to get more from a product or introduce complementary items

• Deal and membership partners can bring relevant offers to an engaged audience.

As Carla Spuri, Affiliate Partnerships Lead (EMEA) at Klarna, explained, those partners also need different support. A creator might need product information and early access to shape useful content. A cashback partner needs to understand which customer groups the brand wants to encourage back.

ABOUT YOU offers a practical example of aligning incentives with that objective. Scully described how the brand separates reactivated customers from its broader existing-customer group in its tracking and offers a higher commission for that segment. This gives partners a clearer incentive to help bring those customers back.

Review whether your programme rewards the behaviour you’re asking partners to support. If reactivation or repeat purchase matters, make sure your tracking can identify the relevant outcomes and your commercial terms give publishers a reason to invest in them.

4. Connect Affiliate Activity With Customer Insight

Once the campaign is live, partners need to understand what happens to the customers they bring to your brand. Conversion reports show the initial sale, but the brand’s customer relationship management (CRM) data helps reveal whether those customers return and how their value develops.

Robin Piet, Head of Business Development at Tradedoubler, highlighted the importance of feeding that insight back into the programme. Understanding repeat-purchase behaviour and customer profitability gives brands, networks and publishers a stronger basis for adjusting activity and investment.

Start with a few useful questions:

• Which publishers bring customers who go on to buy again?

• How long does it take those customers to make a second purchase?

• How do returns and cancellations affect the value of those sales?

Agree who will review these findings and what relevant insights can be shared with partners. Your CRM team can help identify patterns after purchase, while your agency or network can translate them into recommendations on publisher mix, timing and commission.

That feedback makes the next campaign better informed. A publisher that delivers a smaller initial basket may deserve more investment if those customers consistently return and buy profitably.

Make the next purchase part of your brief

Before your next Black Friday campaign goes live, ask one more question: does the brief cover what happens after checkout? Agreeing the next step with your partners now gives you a clearer plan for turning November’s buyers into customers who return in 2027.

For more examples and advice from our panel, watch the full webinar recording above.

And if you’d like to explore how your partner programme can support repeat purchase and longer-term customer value, get in touch with our team. We’d be happy to discuss what that could look like for your brand.