Black Friday. Some love it, some hate it. And the overwhelming feedback from the over-55s is that they simply don’t trust it.
Of all age-based demographics, over-55 are the most cautious, spending only £54 during the shopping period (source: Opinium). This is a stark contrast to the £199 consumers aged 35-54 spend on average.
The key sticking point? This demographic is far more intentional with their Black Friday spending than younger generations. They value transparency and brand trust, and they’ll rarely indulge in Black Friday shopping without doing their research first.
That being said, this doesn’t mean that you should count older consumers out when forming your Black Friday strategies.
According to marketing agency HUB, there’s actually a huge opportunity for retailers to reconsider their approach and meet mature audiences where they’re at – because they believe this demographic isn’t indifferent, just overlooked.
Trends to consider
- AI-driven efficiencies are being increasingly used by mature consumers. This Black Friday, more shoppers will use AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI mode as a co-pilot for research, price comparison, and personalised product recommendations – and AI has a better chance of finding and understanding your offers when they are multi-channel.
- Omnichannel campaigns will reign supreme. Over-55s are more intentional than impulsive, and will be looking at multiple sources for inspiration, reviews and deals. Consistency is key across these touchpoints.
- Email marketing will be a key driver of awareness. This audience tends to check their emails more frequently than younger generations, and they’re more active early on in the day – between 8am and 9am.
- Trust extends to delivery options. Baby Boomers are the generation most likely to abandon a purchase over delivery and returns. Hassle-free and extended returns, clear delivery information and familiar couriers all help to secure a sale (Source: DHL).
Read how HUB doubled Bababing’s sales during Black Friday 2025.
Six top tips when preparing for Black Friday
A recent Barclays study found that 81% of Boomers are more inclined to shop online. Many older consumers can feel overwhelmed by busy shops, preferring to browse from the comfort of their homes.
However, this doesn’t mean that you can simply rely on a strong Google Shopping strategy to generate results. A multi-channel approach remains the key driver for effectiveness, generating both short-term sales and long-term customer lifetime value.
Here are six of our top tips to prepare your business for Black Friday:
- Assess what works (and what doesn’t). Consider your position in the market and what it is that your customers really value – is it convenience, cost, comfort or customisation? These drivers are key to defining your strategies and tactics.
- Proper segmentation. Go beyond age-based targeting and segment into smaller groups. Think interests, user behaviours, physical location.
- Personalise promotions. Now is the time to make the most of all that information you’ve got on your users’ activity – email and retargeting campaigns really pull their weight here.
- Do a stock take. Don’t make promises you can’t fulfil. Make sure you’ve got the stock and the infrastructure to deliver products in the time you state online to avoid customer frustration.
- Plan ahead with paid. Get your PPC and paid social media channels optimised in advance of the period. This ensures you have brand awareness on side to reduce your cost-per-click during a very competitive period. If you’re running manual campaigns, be ready to adjust your bids appropriately. If you’re using more automated bidding strategies, you should consider how the AI will respond to the increased demand. Most importantly, keep on top of negative keywords to reduce wastage!
- Optimise your website. You’re expecting a spike in traffic, so make sure your site can handle it. Nothing will tarnish trust and frustrate customers more than a slow (or crashed) site.
La Redoute had a consistent communication strategy throughout the Black Friday period.
Pricing for Black Friday deals
Don’t do your brand a disservice when it comes to Black Friday pricing. If you’re unsure of the right approach, we recommend using the Google Merchant Center (GMC) pricing benchmark to understand how you stack up against competitors.
GMC also provides suggested pricing insight by analysing historical price points, price elasticity, current performance, and the impact of price changes for similar businesses. This can inform sale price discounts, so your brand remains competitive in the auction.
When it comes to promoting these offers and discounts, mature shoppers value transparency. State the amount saved rather than the percentage (e.g. ‘save £80’ rather than ‘20% off’), make sure discounts are automatically applied at checkout, and clearly state how long the offer will last. Nothing makes shoppers feel duped like seeing that the air fryer they bought in the early Black Friday sale has an extra £10 off on the big day!
Clear discounts remove ambiguity and build trust.
Optimising your Google Shopping feed for Black Friday
- Keep your shopping feed consistent and up to date. Make sure your creative is relevant, product USPs are clearly highlighted, and messaging and visuals are aligned across all channels – paid search, Google Shopping, paid and organic social, your website, print and TV advertising.
- Make the most of your product titles. You’ve got 150 characters to play with, so use them wisely. Add your best-performing product or category-related keywords and ensure that your ads appear for the most relevant searches during peak period to reduce wastage.
- Optimise key product attributes. Update everything that can help your products stand out in Google Shopping, including images, sale prices, reviews, and delivery and returns information.
- Use labels to structure your campaigns. Add labels to your primary feed for products that are on sale, making it easier to segment and structure your paid campaigns ahead of Black Friday.
- Use supplemental feeds for quick updates. If editing your primary feed isn’t possible, use a supplemental feed to make fast changes. Be sure to adjust your Google Merchant Centre rules so the supplemental feed takes priority over the primary feed, ensuring your updates are applied correctly.
SEO strategies for Black Friday
It’s easy to rule out SEO when it comes to Black Friday. After all, many search engines are looking for long term performance that’s built over time, and a relatively brief event like Black Friday might feel better suited to a robust paid media strategy. That’s where many brands fall short.
Having a strong SEO team and using digital PR wisely can be the difference between a lacklustre seasonal campaign and a long-term driver of brand advocacy.
When it comes to your website, here are a few SEO tips for success:
- Keep your Black Friday page(s) live all year and take it with you through migrations. It needs to remain indexed, so just reduce its position in the site architecture and remove internal links. Don’t use the current year in the URL – make it more generic to enable use year-on-year.
- Think long term. When you’re not in the current Black Friday period, you can always add content around previous offers and a hold message to your Black Friday landing page(s). It’s also the perfect spot for a captcha box to notify customers when offers go live.
- Break your offers into multiple pages if possible. People often search for specific products they’re looking to purchase, such as “Black Friday TV offers” etc and this helps both shoppers and AI tools to find your products.
It’s really hard to rank for Black Friday terms organically. The most worthwhile activity is to reach out to journalists (or get your marketing agency to do it) with the aim of getting your Black Friday deal featured in roundups and feature articles during the sale period.
HUB got Cookoogly featured in T3’s gadget roundup in September – a great trust indicator for Black Friday shoppers doing their research.
Digital PR is key for visibility
Online news consumption among 55+ audiences is climbing fast, rising from 76% to 79% year-on-year, according to Ofcom.
The good news is HUB’s digital PR experts know just how to write the hook that gets your products noticed by your target market (and AI overviews) this Black Friday.
- Get in early. Journalists start drafting Black Friday coverage way ahead of time, so if you’re pitching in mid-November, you’re already late. Start feeding stories in September or October and be prepared to keep re-pitching throughout.
- Don’t just pitch discounts. Every brand will be shouting about ‘up to 70% off’. Journalists don’t need another one. Instead, try angle your story around:
- Weirdest deals (quirky or niche products)
- Eco-friendly shopping/anti-Black Friday stance
- Regional or generational shopping trends
- Lead with data if possible. On the same note, stand out from a news cycle crowded with “best deals” lists with data-led stories – surveys on shopping habits, regional breakdowns of spending, or Google Trends analysis on what’s hot this year.
- Have expert commentary ready! Journalists need quick, confident takes (avoid AI-generated responses for ultimate authenticity).
- Be reactive. The news cycle is fast and messy on Black Friday. Make sure you have all your monitoring for trending deal stories, outages, or scams and pitch expert comments within hours. That speed often lands more coverage than planned campaigns.
- Package content well. It might seem simple, but making sure your content is packaged well – easy to read, easy to download, aesthetically pleasing – is massively helpful for journalists scrambling through an inbox of thousands. If you’ve got a survey or analysis, make the release bullet-point heavy, include regional stats, and add quotable commentary.
- Don’t forget post-Black Friday. Cyber Monday is its own story. Then you’ve got ‘returns surge’ angles, delivery delays, and ‘how much people really spent’ reports… then it’s Christmas. Keep something in your back pocket for follow ups the days after.
Watch the Bababing Black Friday video
Read how HUB doubled Bababing’s sales during Black Friday 2025.
Making the most of paid social media
Gen X and Baby Boomers are less likely to use social media than younger cohorts but, when they do choose to scroll, they tend to favour Facebook.
Social media is a competitive space for advertisers, particularly in Q4. Our paid media experts have shared their insights on how to get ahead of the competition this Black Friday.
- Test early. Don’t wait until November to start testing. Use September and October to find the hooks, formats, products and offers that actually work, then take those learnings into Black Friday.
- Build the audience first. Black Friday doesn’t have to start with the discount. Use the weeks beforehand to build awareness, engagement and site traffic, so you’re not starting from scratch when the sale goes live. Giving people the option to ‘prep their baskets’ beforehand is another way to get ahead of the curve.
- Build on what already works. Don’t reinvent your creative for Black Friday. Take your best-performing evergreen ads and adapt the messaging and offer for the event.
- Get your Google catalogue creative ready. Don’t leave catalogue ads until the sale starts. Have your Black Friday templates ready beforehand so you can quickly switch products, prices and offers as needed.
- Expect more competition. CPMs will rise and everyone will be pushing an offer. Have a few creative angles ready to go (user-generated content, product, social proof) rather than relying on one single Black Friday ad.
Watch the CareCo video and read the CareCo case study
Traditional media is crucial for over-55s
One of the biggest myths surrounding traditional media is that TV and direct mail campaigns are always expensive. The landscape has shifted significantly as the digital space becomes increasingly saturated and competitive, and suppliers are more open than ever to short-term advertising contracts and smaller print runs. Here’s how to add traditional media into your Black Friday strategy:
- Broadcast Video on Demand (BVoD) is channel that automatically carries trust, and it’s being increasingly used by advertisers as a lower-funnel tactic. It can be especially effective when paired with a good omnichannel strategy and consistent creative. Not every TV campaign requires brand-new creative to drive results, either – at HUB, we often repurpose existing assets into Clearcast-approved ads for clients looking to test the waters with TV.
- Direct mail works because it’s physical. Printed catalogues, letters and flyers carry legitimacy and longevity that emails simply can’t match. This tactic is a great way of targeting existing customers and generating pre-Black Friday awareness. Make sure to use clear, large typography and high-contrast colours so that visually impaired customers can read them, and make sure you have a clear CTA – opt for phone numbers and plain-text website URLs rather than QR codes.
CareCo’s Black Friday strategy spans online and offline touchpoints, and features high-contrast colour palettes for accessibility.
Other essential tips for a successful Black Friday
Use trust signals
Trust is the single biggest motivator for older consumers. Give your audience confidence in your brand by including Trustpilot ratings, Which? Award wins, ‘As seen on TV’ or ‘Made in the UK’ in your creative where possible.
Sell the want, not the need
Older audiences tend to favour practical purchases on Black Friday; a new winter coat, a sturdy pair of shoes, an orthopaedic pillow. But some practical products naturally come with more resistance. For retailers selling mobility and accessibility aids, it’s essential to use creative and messaging that’s both informative and aspirational. Here’s how HUB’s strategists balance the ‘want’ with the ‘need’.
Go early
We hear people talking about Black Friday earlier and earlier each year, and there’s a good reason for this. Demand is often there, and retailers want to get in early before shoppers get Black Friday fatigue. So why not go early? Black Friday demand and offers can start as early as the penultimate week of October – get in there first to make the most of the sales period.
Think ‘Sale’, not just ‘Black Friday’
Instead of simply pushing ‘Black Friday’ related keywords, we recommend using clear sale-related search terms like ‘deals’, ‘discount’, ‘sale’, ‘offer’, alongside your products or services.
Black Friday keywords can get expensive during this period and are notoriously hard for SEO to rank for; we’ve generated results by using generic sale keywords, as they too should be more popular during the peak period. It’s also a good idea to review search terms more consistently during this period, to keep adding relevant search terms to your account and removing anything that isn’t performing well.
Keep on top
Once you’ve planned your strategy and your Black Friday campaign has officially launched, it’s crucial to keep your foot on the gas and stay responsive. Remember to review auction insights for brand terms more frequently, as competitors can take advantage by bidding on your brand terms – be prepared to increase brand budget if necessary.
Plan for new customers
Ensure you have a plan in place for managing new customers you gain through Black Friday promotions – how can you build trust with them and encourage them to shop again?
Need anything more specific? HUB’s team of experts is brimming with knowledge, insight and ideas on how to capture the trust and loyalty of over-55s.
Article by HUB.
