The 90-second BFCM guide

Grow with these simple popup tweaks

Author

Shaan Arora
October 06, 2025

GM! Shaan from Alia here 👋🏼

Check out this popup we recently designed for Venus Williams’ brand, Happy Viking.

No, this is not another lead magnet.

Every year it feels like agencies & gurus try to force their BFCM guides on brands.

At Alia we do things differently.

I’m going to cut to the chase and give you our best popup BFCM advice (based on millions of popup views and thousands of AB tests).

All I ask is for 90 seconds of your time.

So here goes 👇🏼

90-Second BFCM Popup Guide

Before BFCM:

  • Use VIP early access emails and teaser popups to build anticipation for your BIG sale.

  • Gather emails and warm up your audience ahead of launch.

During BFCM:

  • Keep popups on: Turning them off kills conversions.

  • Your popup should match your hero offer: There’s no worse feeling than clicking an ad, going to a site, and seeing a different offer popup

  • Clear headline (“Up to 40% Off Sitewide”)

  • Simple CTA and minimal fields.

  • Match existing branding (if it’s been tested), but incorporate BFCM/holiday elements.

  • Add a small bonus to your hero offer (extra 5% off) if pushing list growth.

  • Use the same trigger you do now, if you’ve tested it. Consider exit, scroll depth, or a long delay if you want to be more conservative.

Key popup tactics for max impact:

  1. Timing: 10–20s delay (give people time to digest what you sell), but test this!

  2. Data collection: Ask shopper intent questions; feed results into post-BFCM email/SMS follow-ups.

  3. Personalization: Consider serving different popups for new vs. returning visitors, different email segments, device types, geographies, etc.

Sample BFCM Popup Timeline

  • 3–4 weeks before: Teasers/VIP early access popup → build list & anticipation

  • 1 week before: Countdown to offer reveal popup → final subscriber push

  • During BFCM: Sitewide offer popup + cart/exit recovery popup → convert customers

  • After BFCM: Cash in on collected data with retention campaigns

90 seconds done 🥵 You can read the whole guide here.

We’re here to help!

If you’re already a customer, use our BFCM templates on your dashboard:

Ask your CSM or live chat for help with implementing your BFCM strategy.

If you’re not already a customer, book a call with us asap and we can help you get onboarded.

Need more popup inspo?

If only there was a directory of our best-in-class popups in a swipe file format you could copy for your own brand…

Oh wait… there is.

Meme of the Week

Grow your business with best-in-class popups by working with my team

There are two easy ways to get in touch:

  1. Reply to this email - I read every single one

  2. Book a free onboarding call with me here

Let's crush BFCM together🤝

Until next time,
Shaan from Alia