How Carrefour builds its Black Friday app marketing strategy with Rocket Lab

Black Friday brings a surge in demand, but making the most of it requires more than a seasonal campaign.

After years of working together, Carrefour and Rocket Lab have built an app marketing strategy that combines ongoing campaign learnings, different acquisition channels, and a shared understanding of the business.

In this Q&A, Fabio from Rocket Lab and Nayara from Carrefour discuss how that experience shapes their approach to Black Friday, from planning investments to making decisions when demand increases.

1. Carrefour and Rocket Lab have been working together for several years. What have you learned about your app and users over that time that becomes especially useful during a high-demand period?

Nayara:

Over several years of working together, Carrefour and Rocket Lab have built a shared understanding of the app, its users, and how performance changes across different commercial periods. That comes from more than looking at campaign results in isolation. It comes from seeing how different audiences respond over time, how acquisition translates into post-install behaviour, which approaches are more relevant for particular business priorities, and what the team has learned from previous tests and campaigns.

That history is just as useful in always-on activity as it is during a high-demand period. When Carrefour has a new commercial priority or wants to explore a new opportunity, both teams already have a strong starting point. We understand the history, the thinking behind the current setup, and the learnings that should inform the next decision.

The long-term relationship also gives Carrefour the trust to explore new solutions with a clear objective. Rocket Lab does not simply bring an idea to test. The team explains why it could be relevant for Carrefour and what we should learn from it. When demand is higher, that accumulated knowledge helps us approach the moment with more context and make better use of the opportunity.

2. Over time, the strategy has expanded across different channels and objectives. What has that broader mix allowed you to understand that you could not see from a single channel alone?

 Nayara:

As the strategy has expanded, we have learned to think about the media mix as a set of complementary roles, rather than a list of separate channels. One activity may help us reach new users, another may help us reconnect with people who already know the app, and another may be better suited to a particular commercial priority.

Working across the broader mix that Rocket Lab has helped us build has made it easier to see how those activities complement one another. We can look beyond the result of each one in isolation and understand what it adds to the overall approach, which users it helps us reach, and where it can create the most value.

That is important because expanding the mix only makes sense when there is a clear role for each new solution. Rocket Lab has helped us introduce those opportunities with intention, based on what the strategy needs at that point, rather than adding channels simply for the sake of having more channels.

3. Last year, Carrefour ran a Black Friday campaign with Rocket Lab. How did the work happening throughout the year influence the decisions you made for that period?

Nayara:

Last year’s Black Friday was not designed at the last minute. The work happening throughout the year gave us a clearer view of what normal performance looked like for the app, how audiences were responding, and where we saw the strongest opportunities before demand started to increase.

But beyond that always-on learning, we also began preparing specifically for Black Friday well ahead of the event. That gave us time to translate those learnings into a plan for the moment, set priorities in advance, define what we wanted to monitor closely, and agree on how we would assess performance once the campaign was live.

During Black Friday, higher volume can make everything look stronger at first glance. Having that baseline and preparation in place made it easier to distinguish the natural uplift in demand from the signals that actually required action.

It was not a plug-and-play approach. Rocket Lab’s ongoing support throughout the year, combined with the dedicated preparation for the event, was fundamental in building a strategy that suited the moment and gave us a clearer way to respond as conditions changed.

4. Peak season naturally brings more purchase intent. What can a strategy add on top of that demand?

Nayara:

For us, the main challenge during peak season is deciding where to invest, how much to invest, and how the role of each channel should change before, during, and after the event. More purchase intent creates an important opportunity, but the media mix and budget allocation cannot stay the same throughout the whole period.

For example, investing in programmatic earlier can give the strategy time to learn and help build a stronger base of users ahead of the peak. Once demand increases, the focus may change. And after the event, retargeting can play a bigger role in bringing those newly acquired users back, encouraging further engagement and purchases beyond that first transaction.

That is where having an expert growth partner becomes especially valuable. Rocket Lab helps us look at the commercial calendar, current performance, and the role each channel can play, so we can make more informed decisions about where budget should go at each stage. The goal is to make the most of the demand in the moment, while using it to build a more valuable user base that can keep growing after the promotion ends.

5. What do you need from a growth partner when the business enters a period where decisions need to happen faster?

Nayara:

When the business is moving quickly, speed matters, but so does the quality of the decisions being made. We need a partner that can identify an opportunity or a risk early, explain why it matters, and come with a clear recommendation instead of simply reporting what is happening.

That requires close and transparent communication, but it also requires working closely together in practice. We hold working sessions both at Carrefour and Rocket Lab’s offices, where the teams can review performance, connect it to what is happening in the business, brainstorm new ideas, and share insights as we test new solutions and keep iterating on the strategy.

That way of working makes Rocket Lab feel like an extension of our team. Their combination of hands-on campaign management and mobile expertise helps us respond quickly, while still making decisions with a clear rationale behind them.

6. Carrefour serves customers across very different shopping needs and occasions. How does that complexity shape the way you approach app growth, and how has Rocket Lab supported that strategy over time?

Nayara:

Brazil is one of the world’s most digitally active markets. Brazilians spend an average of 9 hours and 13 minutes online every day, placing the country second globally for daily time online. For retail, that creates a major opportunity, but it also means apps compete constantly for customers’ attention.

Carrefour is not only competing with other supermarket apps. We are competing with local retail leaders, marketplaces, delivery platforms, and international players that are all looking to become part of the customer’s routine. Our challenge is not simply to attract someone around a specific promotion, but to become an app they return to because it can help them solve more of their retail needs in one place, from food to non-food and from everyday purchases to more occasional ones.

That makes app growth more complex. A customer opening the app for a weekly grocery order will not necessarily have the same intent or expectations as someone browsing a seasonal offer or planning a larger non-food purchase. The strategy needs to account for those different needs, bringing users into the app in a relevant way while giving them reasons to return afterwards.

Rocket Lab has helped us translate that complexity into clearer app-growth decisions. Their mobile expertise helps us connect different commercial opportunities to the right acquisition and retargeting activity, so we can keep building a more consistent relationship with customers over time, rather than focusing only on isolated transactions.

7. What should app teams prioritize if they're still defining their Black Friday strategy?

Fabio:

The starting point should not be the channel. It should be the business question: what does the app need peak season to achieve? That might mean acquiring new purchasers, increasing revenue from the existing base, supporting a particular product category, or building an audience that can keep generating value after the event ends.

The most expensive time to learn is during peak season. That is why teams need to work backwards from the event.

In October, the focus should be on validating which audiences bring in quality users, which channels can support more investment, which products or offers deserve priority, and where performance begins to weaken.

By the first week of November at the latest, those learnings should translate into a clear plan for budget allocation and channel roles, so everything is ready when demand increases.

Acquisition and retargeting should also be considered together from the beginning. The users acquired before and during the event are not only a source of immediate volume. They are the audience the app can continue engaging after the promotion, helping turn a high-demand moment into repeat purchases and longer-term growth.

A strong partner helps turn those business questions into a practical media plan, with enough time to test, learn, and make decisions before the pressure is on.

Black Friday is an opportunity to attract new customers, but the right strategy can create value well beyond the event.

Whether you're looking to improve acquisition, strengthen retargeting, or make better use of your media budget, Rocket Lab can help you find the right approach for your app.

Get in touch with our team to explore your next opportunities.