Black Friday is November 27 this year and Cyber Monday is November 30. That leaves about a month, and a month changes what a measurement tool can realistically do for you. Northbeam is a reasonable choice in general, but its own docs say the Clicks-Only model needs one to two weeks of data and the Clicks + Views model needs about 30 days of learning. Sign up today and the view-based model is just getting going when the sale starts.
For BFCM you need three answers, ideally daily: how many new customers you are buying, at what cost, and how much of the revenue would have happened at full price anyway. These tools can give you those answers in time.
The short version
| Tool | What it answers during BFCM | Terms | Starting price |
|---|---|---|---|
| ThoughtMetric (sponsor) | New versus returning by channel, discount code breakdown | Monthly, free trial | $99 a month |
| Triple Whale | Channel performance, first and last click on the free plan | Free plan, paid plans by GMV | Free |
| Wicked Reports | New versus repeat buyers, cohort value after the sale | Revenue bands | $499 a month |
| KnoCommerce | What buyers say brought them in | Monthly, no long-term contract | $19 a month |
| GA4 | Tagged traffic and a baseline | Free | Free |
1. ThoughtMetric
ThoughtMetric is an e-commerce attribution tool for Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and custom stores. (Disclosure: ThoughtMetric sponsors this site.) The two reports I would watch during BFCM are both in it. New versus returning revenue by channel shows whether your Black Friday spend is acquiring anyone, and orders broken down by discount code show how much of the weekend ran through your sitewide code. Pricing starts at $99 a month based on pageviews, with a free trial, and its pricing page says you will not get a surprise bill if traffic spikes, only a conversation if you exceed your tier two months in a row.
2. Triple Whale
Triple Whale has a free plan with first- and last-click attribution and channel performance across ads, email and SMS. For a brand that only needs a view of revenue, spend and channel totals during the weekend, that is enough and costs nothing. Multi-touch attribution and post-purchase surveys are on Foundation, priced on annual GMV and package, so ask how a BFCM spike affects your tier before you upgrade.
3. Wicked Reports
Wicked Reports is less about the weekend and more about what the weekend bought. It separates new and repeat buyers at the order level and has cohort and LTV reports with lifetime lookback, which is how you answer the January question: were BFCM customers worth acquiring, or did they buy once on discount and leave? Measure is $499 a month under $2.5 million in revenue.
4. KnoCommerce
KnoCommerce costs $19 a month on Starter, billed monthly with a 7-day trial and no long-term contract. Add a “how did you hear about us” question before the sale and you get a channel read that no pixel can give you, which is useful when gift shoppers arrive from places you are not tracking.
5. Google Analytics 4
GA4 is free. If it is not set up cleanly now, fix it this week, because it is your baseline. Make sure every email, SMS and paid link carries consistent UTMs before the first early-access send.
What to watch each day
I keep BFCM reporting to four numbers: MER, new customers, new-customer CAC, and the share of orders using the sale code. ROAS by channel will look great all weekend, because demand is high and every platform claims the same buyers. The new-customer count is the number that tells you whether the spend did anything. Gift shoppers also inflate new-customer totals, which I covered in why gift shoppers distort your Q4 new-customer numbers.
Pick your attribution window before the sale, not during it. More in what attribution window to use during Black Friday and what to fix in your attribution before Black Friday.
FAQs
Is it too late to set up attribution before BFCM?
No, but keep it simple. Pixel-based tools start collecting on install, so a month gives you a few weeks of baseline. Models that need a learning period may not be ready.
Is Northbeam month-to-month?
Starter is, for Shopify brands. Northbeam lists it at $1,500 a month with usage-based pricing for brands spending less than $1.5 million a year on ads. Professional and Enterprise are annual terms.
What attribution window should I use for Black Friday?
Shorter than usual for the sale itself, because the buying cycle compresses. Seven-day click is a reasonable default. Keep it fixed through December so comparisons hold.
How do I know if BFCM customers were worth it?
Track the cohort. Compare 60- and 90-day repeat rates for BFCM-acquired customers with customers acquired in October. If they never come back, the real CAC was the whole discount plus the ad cost.
Picking one
- Want new-customer and discount-code reporting in place for the sale? ThoughtMetric (our sponsor).
- Want a free dashboard for the weekend? Triple Whale’s free plan.
- Want to judge in January whether BFCM customers stuck? Wicked Reports.
- Want a cheap survey to catch gift-shopper sources? KnoCommerce.
- Need a baseline? Clean up GA4 now.
Leave a Reply