Black Friday 2026 falls on 27 November, with Cyber Monday closing the month on Monday 30 November. Starting on 20 October leaves more than five weeks to prepare sales, customer service and communications. That is enough when decisions happen in the right order. It is too little if everyone waits for a finished advertising campaign before working on their own part.
The plan should show dependencies: advertising needs an approved offer, the offer needs available stock and calculated costs, and delivery promises need confirmed warehouse capacity. Appoint one coordinator with authority to close decisions, plus a deputy for the selling days. End each stage with a specific deliverable, a named approver and a condition for moving forward. The schedule below is a proposed way of organising the work; adapt it to your team size and business readiness.
20–31 October: define the objective and boundaries
The business owner and finance define what the campaign should change: drive sales of a selected collection, release cash tied up in stock, or acquire customers the company can subsequently serve. The deliverable is a one-page project brief covering the product scope, available budget, expected contribution after variable costs and risk limits. Do not confuse this contribution with net profit. We discuss product selection and costs in more detail in our article on preparing your business without sacrificing margin.
Operations confirm stock, replenishment options and the number of orders that can be fulfilled as promised. Marketing collects available assets, while the technical owner identifies blocking gaps. By 31 October, the owner approves the scope and cost boundaries; the coordinator records outstanding decisions and deadlines. An unconfirmed supplier delivery requires a fallback, rather than a silent assumption that it will arrive. This document becomes the foundation for everyone else's work and helps reject ideas that fall outside the agreed objective.
2–8 November: finalise the offer and communication rules
The sales owner prepares an offer brief: products or services, eligibility, start and end dates, limits and exclusions. Finance checks the calculations, operations check availability, and customer service checks whether the rules are clear. Also decide who can change the offer and how each change will reach the store, advertising and support team simultaneously. We discuss offer mechanics and price communication in how to plan a Black Friday promotion.
The finished deliverable is an approved version of the offer with effective dates, rather than a loose discount idea. Marketing uses it to produce copy and designs, while the technical team prepares implementation. The owner approves the terms by 8 November. If one product remains undecided, remove it from the initial scope instead of blocking everything. In a small team, one person may fill several roles, but checking calculations and publication should remain separate activities. Reviewing your own work after a break is better than approving it automatically.
9–15 November: build the campaign from one source of information
Marketing and the technical owner prepare the offer page, messages and advertising assets from the same approved brief. The coordinator keeps the current version in one place, with its last revision date. Support receives sample answers to questions about availability, fulfilment and the promotion's end. The warehouse plans staffing and shift handovers. The dependency is straightforward: layouts can be designed before terms are settled, but copy intended for publication should not be finalised.
The week's deliverables are materials ready for review, named channel owners and a description of how accepted orders will be measured. The analytics owner explains where reports come from, when data becomes available and how cancellations will be included. Sales and operations approve the alignment between promises and business capacity; marketing confirms consistent communication. Only then should the complete package move into publication and advertising setup. If an element needs further verification, mark it as blocked and name the person responsible for resolving it before the next stage.
16–22 November: rehearse the complete journey
The technical owner and operations place a test order: from opening the offer through payment, confirmation, dispatch preparation and a support response. Marketing checks asset consistency and scheduled publication times. The purpose is to find where completed components fail to work together, rather than redesign the campaign. For detailed testing, use our list of 15 things to check in an online store before the sale.
The coordinator collects issues in one register, separating sales blockers from improvements that can wait until after the campaign. Every blocker gets an owner, a correction deadline and someone to confirm the retest. The advertising owner leaves time for asset review and corrections according to account readiness. By 22 November, the owner approves operational readiness or narrows the scope. Moving forward requires a functioning end-to-end journey, rather than merely a page displaying correctly. The team also agrees where to report incidents and who replaces an unavailable decision maker.
23–26 November: freeze the scope and confirm coverage
During the final four days, the coordinator limits changes to corrections necessary for sales to work properly. An idea for an extra category would require another check of assets, stock and terms, so it should wait. Operations reconfirm availability, support receives current answers, and channel owners check scheduled times. Record exact start and end times and the time zone; everyone should work from the same schedule version.
By 26 November, prepare a short launch guide: who publishes, who checks afterwards, who monitors sales and who decides to pause. Include deputy contacts and a way to restrict the campaign if a product sells out or an error appears. The owner authorises launch after operations and technology confirm that key blockers are resolved. Without this approval, publication must not proceed simply because it was scheduled earlier. The schedule owner needs the ability to stop planned activity across every channel being used.
27 November: launch sales and manage exceptions
On Black Friday, the people assigned to publication release the approved version, and a second person checks the customer-facing offer. The coordinator confirms completion in one shared location. The first check covers the ability to place an order, message consistency and information reaching support. Schedule later reviews according to sales pace and response time. Do not demand reports every few minutes if the team cannot make any useful decision from them.
Marketing monitors spending and traffic quality, operations monitor the order queue, and support monitors recurring customer problems. The previously appointed person approves changes; the coordinator records the time, reason and affected channels. During a payment failure, reducing traffic may take priority over analysing ad effectiveness. When a product becomes unavailable, messaging and availability need to change together. The team should know which situations trigger a sales pause, avoiding lengthy discussions while the support queue grows.
28–29 November: use shifts and clear handovers
The weekend needs real coverage even when the campaign runs automatically. The person ending a shift hands over current order status, unresolved tickets, changed messages and decisions awaiting approval. The incoming person confirms receipt. Operations update fulfilment estimates from the actual queue, while marketing checks that published promises still reflect reality. The absence of a new report does not automatically mean the absence of problems; someone must be responsible for checking.
Schedule a short Cyber Monday readiness review on Saturday. If Monday's offer was prepared and approved earlier, reconfirm availability and the switching time. Otherwise, retain the agreed end of the current promotion. Do not add another day under pressure or introduce a misleading countdown. The owner decides whether capacity and budget support the planned scope. The coordinator communicates that decision to every channel owner and checks that scheduled publications actually reflect it.
30 November: close Cyber Monday as promised
On Monday, the team runs the approved version while monitoring current availability and support workload. The coordinator names a person responsible for closing each channel: the store, advertising, messages and visible banners. Stopping one campaign is insufficient if customers still reach outdated terms elsewhere. Before the day ends, operations confirm how orders placed before the deadline will be handled, and support receives clear information about subsequent fulfilment timelines.
After the agreed time, check the public website and whether the expired offer can still be used. Retain the applicable terms and the times of significant changes. Each channel owner confirms closure, and the coordinator collects confirmations in the register. Keep order service running while ending promotional communication as announced. Extending sales requires a new, explicit decision and honest communication; it should not result from an overlooked setting or a countdown automatically restarting on the website.
If you start late: reduce scope and preserve dependencies
A company starting in mid-November should not squeeze six weeks of work into a few evenings. Choose one offer, a limited product group and channels the team already manages. Combine decision meetings, but preserve the sequence: objective and costs, availability, terms, assets, rehearsal, approval to publish. The coordinator resolves blockers daily and removes elements that cannot be prepared reliably. Assigning responsibility remains essential even in a two-person team.
If there is no time to check payments, reliable availability or offer terms, reduce the campaign or decide against launching. A late start may mean communicating to existing audiences instead of pursuing broad new reach. Do not promise results simply because the campaign coincides with a popular date. A carefully limited plan is feasible when every published promise has evidence behind it and someone responsible for delivering it.
Early December: reconcile results and record decisions
In early December, finance brings together accepted orders, spending and service costs, marking the result as provisional. Set a later update date for cancellations, returns and remaining settlements. Operations and support describe overload points, while marketing compares performance with October's objective. The coordinator records three decisions for the next season: what to repeat, what to improve and what to stop. This way, the schedule ends with accountability for results, rather than the final publication.
MB Digital Marketing can turn this calendar into a marketing strategy with responsibilities, deadlines and launch conditions suited to your business. Book a consultation to organise decisions and dependencies across sales, advertising and customer service before your promotion begins.