2026 Black Friday Playbook: How You Can Make Millions in Q4

Hulken made millions on Black Friday 2025, and Alex and Lee are already planning 2026 differently. Their best campaign last year went only to existing customers, and the Black Friday email that beat their Cyber Monday send had no design at all.

In this solo episode, Alex and Lee open up the Black Friday playbook for a brand that's almost always short on inventory: who gets the deepest discount, which products never go on sale, why their salesy content flopped, and why they'd rather sell a bag at full price in December than on sale in November.

In this episode:
- Why existing customers got 30% off when new customers never will
- Not all sales are created equal: protecting margin when inventory is tight
- The salesy BFCM graphics that bombed, and the reels that actually converted
- Early access by email and SMS a week before Black Friday
- The plain text Happy Thanksgiving email that outperformed Cyber Monday
- Building an SMS list from scratch with Structured
- Why the first half of December brings their highest margin sales
- How they decide whether a new product gets discounted

Make sure you subscribe to Unfinished Business for the exact playbooks on how to run and scale your DTC business.

This episode is brought to you by:

Structured Agency: Where strategic guidance meets strong execution. Structured is a growth agency for DTC e-commerce brands, bringing paid media, lifecycle marketing, creative strategy, and CRO together into one integrated system built for profitable growth. Learn more and request a free audit at structured.agency/unfinishedbusiness

🎧 Watch on YouTube, listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro
01:12 Two months out from Black Friday
01:47 The best campaign of 2025: VIP early access
02:42 Why existing customers get the bigger discount
03:25 Discounting with limited inventory
05:13 Not all sales are created equal
06:24 Don't change your content strategy for BFCM
07:46 Early access a week before Black Friday
08:40 The plain text email that beat Cyber Monday
10:07 How Structured built our SMS list
12:13 Full price in December over discounts in November
13:15 The first two weeks of December
13:39 Know your numbers
14:15 Discounting new products