Traffic Cardinal
wrote November 10, 2025
Traffic Cardinal
wrote November 10, 2025
Every November, like clockwork, it begins… Black Friday. Thanksgiving wraps, leftovers are packed and just before the floodgates open – the inbox turns feral and every brand starts shouting – shoppers go quiet.
You think they are just chilling? As if! They are preparing, big time. Tabs are open. Discount codes are circulating. Wishlists are cross-referenced with price trackers. Every move is calculated, like they’ve done this before – because they have.
Silly you, believing you are the one luring with your campaigns. In reality, you are walking into a heist already in progress. These shoppers aren’t waiting to be sold to – they are running their own playbook.
Today, we are giving you a peek into it. Time to uncover their clever workarounds and figure out how to slip your offers into this plan without setting off the alarms.
The Calm Before Commerce
Black Friday follows Thanksgiving – fourth Thursday of November, in case you forgot – the American holiday when people collectively agree to slow down. No gift-giving whatsoever, just carbs and a chance to relax while mentally bracing for December.
But this pause isn’t only peaceful… It's also profitable. Retailers saw the gap – the day off, the full bellies and idle hands dangerously close to browsing – and gave people something to do. Advertisers filled it with deals and urgency, plus enough sparkle to make everyone forget they’d sworn off spending.
The name “Black Friday” wasn’t invented by marketers. Legend says it was muttered by Philly cops in the ’60s, watching post-holiday traffic jams and stampedes. Brands took one look at the mess and thought: opportunity. If crowds were inevitable, why not bait them with discounts? And just like that, a logistical nightmare became a marketing jackpot.
By the ’80s, it was a full-blown national ritual – the unofficial kickoff to Christmas shopping. Then the 2000s hit and the internet globalized this frenzy. Black Friday stopped being exclusively American and became a global code for: “Deals have dropped. Go!”
How Shoppers Game the System
Assuming shoppers just stumble into deals? Please. They’ve got systems – and they are here to outmaneuver your best promo. But don’t worry: today, we are lifting that curtain for you. Let’s see what they are really up to.
Wishlist Stacking
Squirrels are hoarding acorns and Black Friday shoppers are stacking wishlists days (sometimes weeks) in advance. And if you thought they were just biding their time in hopes of a good discount – honey, you are astronomically off the mark. They are tracking price drops, stalking historical trends and predicting discount patterns. Every item is a bet. Will it dip? Will it vanish? Will it get slapped with a 40% off tag at 2:07 AM? They strike when the timing is right, and brands are often the last to know they’ve been played.
Price Tracking Tools
Wishlist stacked? Good. Now it’s time to outsource the surveillance. Smart shoppers don’t refresh pages – they’ve got price trackers doing the dirty work. These tools monitor every twitch in pricing and send alerts the moment a product hits the magic number. Of course, retailers expect a surge when the price drops. What they don’t expect is how many shoppers were studying the pattern and setting traps days ago, ready to pounce.
Cart Abandonment as Bait
Cart left behind? Well, it has nothing to do with forgetfulness. Shoppers have learnt that silence speaks volumes, so they walk away mid-checkout and leave brands to stew in their own urgency. Ha! Retargeting emails, discount nudges, “Still thinking about this?” subject lines – they’ve seen it all, you can be sure of it. It’s a psychological play and it works: the shopper is already calculating how long it’ll take before the brand caves. Wait a day, maybe two and voila – 10% off lands in the inbox. Mischief managed!
Email Burner Accounts
One email address per person. Yeah, you wish. Every burner account is a new persona, a fresh start… and, of course, a chance to claim what’s technically “exclusive”. Shoppers know this drill by heart: sign up, snag the welcome discount, checkout, vanish. All these “new” faces are first-time buyers – with one small detail: it’s the fifth time this month. It’s not deception or fraud. Brands tailor the journey and obsess over personalization. Deal hunters build their own game plans – and they are getting better with every round.
Influencer Code Hunting
Every social media swipe is a scavenger hunt. Shoppers know that behind every “get ready with me” or “unboxing” lies a code, a link or a deal. They don't even have to love the creators – what they do love is 15% off. They are scanning captions and comment sections like detectives on a deadline. TikTok for beauty bundles. YouTube for tech gear. Instagram for fashion drops. And if the code is expired? On to the next creator.
Reddit Sleuthing
Real deal hunters go underground. They plug into the hive mind and dive into subreddits like r/Frugal and r/BlackFriday, scanning threads for leaks, loopholes and affiliate codes that haven’t expired yet. And when a deal hits? It’s already been dissected and passed around like contraband. The brands might think they’re in control – but Reddit knows better.
Ways to Monetize the Shopper’s Playbook
Don’t treat smart shoppers like a problem. They are an opportunity. You can mirror their behaviour and embed affiliate codes where shoppers already look or time offers to match the pause before purchase… But wait, we are getting ahead of ourselves. The main idea here is that Black Friday shoppers are primed and ready to spend – isn’t that the best audience you could wish for? So let’s learn how to make your campaigns feel native, so that conversions become inevitable.
Pre-Sale Targeting with Wishlist Data
Affiliates aren’t supposed to read minds. But advertisers do read wishlists – that “save for later” click – they already track it. And now it’s time to share it. Who bookmarked what and when, paired with exclusive offers (early access, bundles, limited drops), is the perfect setup for “wishlist unlock” affiliate campaigns. “You saved this – now it’s 20% off” hits differently when it comes from a creator the shopper already follows. The psychic pipeline in action.
Pricing Teasers
Price tracking tools trained shoppers to wait, so advertisers need to train them to act. They can feed that behaviour with dynamic pricing signals – “price may drop”, “bundle unlocks soon”, “limited stock.” Then hand it off to affiliates, who will turn that tension into watch-this-deal content. And when the price finally moves, it feels earned – and everyone is happy.
Second Chance Campaigns
Advertisers know perfectly well who ghosted their cart. How to lure those shoppers back? Simple: replace the sad little “you forgot something” emails with gamified retargeting – spin-to-save, countdown bundles, mystery unlocks. Then let affiliates run with it, framing the whole thing as a “last shot” offer. Less guilt trip, more fun play. Now, instead of feeling nagged, shoppers feel lucky and the cart gets resurrected. Bingo!
Tiered Welcome Offers
Burner emails are the shopper’s way of saying “I’ll take the discount, but not the commitment”. Advertisers can fight back with tiered welcome offers: the first signup gets the best deal and every repeat gets less. How? By tracking signups through email verification, phone checks and burner detection tools and tagging each user’s reward level in the way their pattern earns. Affiliates then promote “first-time only” codes and make the diminishing returns crystal clear at the same time. The shopper gets the hint, does the math and decides that one good email is better than five bad ones.
The Cheat Code Funnel
Advertisers hold the keys to the good stuff. Bundles don’t show up in the main feed, stackable deals override the usual limits, drops are designed to be only shared by creators – it all comes down to exclusivity. Affiliates can easily spin it into “you didn’t hear this from me” content. The shopper sees the code, hears the whisper, feels chosen and clicks. The deal’s in the pocket.
Staged Spill Strategy
Leaks happen. Advertisers can either chase them or even better – stage them. The best way to do it is to let affiliates seed them in the wild: Reddit threads, niche forums and comment sections. It can be in the form of casual mentions, offhand tips or maybe a screenshot that “wasn’t supposed to be public”. The shopper stumbles on it, feels like they’ve found something forbidden and clicks fast. Because such things as leaked codes feel like a glitch in the system. And that’s what makes it work so well.
Conclusion
Now that you know the shopper’s habits – how they chase codes, dodge commitment and skim for shortcuts – you can stitch together a funnel that doesn’t beg for attention. It’s a sequence of nudges: one email gets tagged, one bundle dresses like a cheat code, one leak lands in the right thread when it’s most needed. And shoppers will click, thinking it was their idea. Ain’t that great?
