Why September Is the Most Important Month of Your Q4

Luke Austin (0:00)

The revenue that you realize in Q4 and over Black Friday, Saturday, Monday is going to be primarily influenced by your current, your active customer file at the current state. So what your, the active customer file looks like for your business is going to have a meaningful impact on the outcome that you see over Black Friday, Saturday, Monday.

Richard Gaffin (0:23)

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Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Ecommerce Playbook Podcast. I'm your host, Richard Gaffin, Director of Digital Product Strategy here at Common Thread Collective. And I'm joined coming in live from our studio in Costa Mesa, California, Mr. Luke Austin, who is president here at Common Thread Collective. Luke, what's going on, man?

Luke Austin (1:23)

We're in it, Mike. We've got some family things going on. New baby in the family. Got this sort of end of September that...

The end of August, beginning of September, I think is when it starts to become really real for people that like... Black Friday ceremony is basically tomorrow. So you sort of have that converging as well. But never dull moment. And that's how we like it.

Richard Gaffin (1:46)

That's how we like it. All right. Well, so let's talk about that. And as here we are at the beginning of September and really the middle of September, if you think about it. And really, if you think about it, Q4 is basically here, as you said, and Black Friday is right around the corner.

And so the time to prepare is now. But the exact things that you need to be doing to prepare in Q3 are very specific in order to achieve the Q4 outcome that you're looking for. So we're going to talk through three things that you need to sort of consider as you approach Black Friday. And I'll set them up for you. And then you can kind of dive in. The one is you need to ask yourself what you believe about the impact of your active customer file. And we'll unpack that a little bit. Then you need to be thinking about your short-term LTV. That's the second thing. The third is the incremental impact of your media spend. So talk about those three factors, Luke, and what addressing them in September, how that can impact your Q4 performance.

Luke Austin (2:38)

Yeah. So to frame it up, I think it's helpful for everyone to ask themselves the question what they believe about this time period we're in right now. Like September of 2026, end of Q3, Q4 starting. The next month, the rest of September, the first half of October, how do you view this time period for your business and the opportunity that it represents? What I'll say is, from the seat that we sit in, the approach from brands is widely different as it relates to how you approach these next four to six weeks, and what you see is the opportunity everywhere from, we're post July 4th, we're post back to school. This is really the trough moment, things slow down, conversion rates lower, consumer sentiment and behavior is down, and so we're going to hold back, be more efficient, and save for the push coming up. All the way to brands seeing this as, this is our moment actually to grow new customers, grow our list, really lean in hard, pull out new campaigns, new launches, new categories, etc., and drive demand at this point to contribute to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and that it doesn't pull revenue forward. It actually can be incrementally really helpful. So I think it's helpful to just sort of reflect on, okay, what do we believe about this moment currently? And as it relates to this moment, what we would contend based on what we see is that how you approach this moment comes down to what you believe about the three things, Richard, that you just walk through. The impact of your current active customer profile, the short-term LTV growth of your business, and the incremental impact of your media spend, which we'll walk through briefly here. But the main point that all these three things point to is that these next four to six weeks are wildly impactful and represent a meaningful opportunity for your business to maximize your 2026 outcome as a whole, to maximize this time period of the next four to six weeks, but then also to maximize Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the Q4 sort of the year period that's coming up as well. And that this moment is not a, okay, pull back, sort of be more efficient, but this is a really impactful moment for your business and represents a lot of opportunity and will contribute to the success that you see or lack thereof in Black Friday, Cyber Monday.