Most ads simply circulate inside the same algorithmic bubble, shown to people who already look, think, and behave like your existing customers.
During BFCM, when every competitor is retargeting the same warm pool with a discount, relying purely on your existing audience means you're fighting for the same finite group of people everyone else is also chasing and CPMs rise accordingly.
An important distinction: Incremental reach doesn't come from making better-looking versions of the same idea.
Creative needs to give the algorithm a reason to go and find someone new - which is exactly what BFCM needs, because a fresh, cold-to-warm pipeline built in November converts into your most-aware, highest-intent BFCM audience by the time peak week actually hits.
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The examples below are concept types that consistently break brands out of existing audience clusters. During BFCM specifically, they're what feeds new audiences into your funnel fast enough that they're warm and offer-primed by the time Black Friday itself arrives.
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One of the fastest ways to unlock incremental reach: borrow distribution, trust, and identity in one move.
Partnership ads work because they introduce your brand through a new entity - a creator, influencer, or publisher that the algorithm already understands and distributes confidently.
There are two primary executions:
Different vehicles, same outcome: new feeds, new faces, new trust layers.
Because the ad is no longer anchored to your brand account, Meta treats it as genuinely new inventory which dramatically expands reach potential when done correctly.
(For deeper examples and landing pages, explore the full Foreplay board here.)
An example of this in practice: when Katto - a premium British knife brand - was over-reliant on Google for existing demand, partnership ads became the primary lever for building new top-of-funnel reach on Meta.
Rather than one creator, they worked with a mix of larger and smaller creators, each speaking to a different persona - passionate home cooks through to personal chefs - turning partnership content into the account's biggest driver of new visitor growth.
Combined with a channel rebalance and their first-ever Black Friday campaign, the result was a 56% increase in total sales and a 63% increase in net profit, while spend only grew 42% - proof that the incremental reach from diversified partnership content converts into efficiency.
Read the full case study here.
👉 We also strongly recommend watching the episode below alongside this section. It covers live examples, account structures, and execution nuance that’s difficult to capture on a single page and will make briefing your team significantly easier.
