LinkToLooks · Guides · Creator Desk
Creator Desk
When should a creator start posting Black Friday deals?
Part of: Black Friday and Cyber MondayFor creators
Discounting has already started. On 1 September 2026, 50.5% of the US listings that publish both a list price and a sale price were already marked down — 2420 of 4788, 87 days before Black Friday.
So publish evergreen guides now, and dated deal posts in November. What you cannot honestly publish in September is a Black Friday price, because no retailer has set one.
What the discount data says on 1 September
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Listings publishing both a list and a sale price | 4788 of 7310 |
| Advertisers publishing a sale price at all | 37 of 91 |
| Already marked down on 1 September 2026 | 2420 (50.5%) |
| Marked down 50% or more | 1251 (26.1%) |
| Median discount depth where a discount exists | 50.0% |
| Conventional retailers only, already marked down | 502 of 715 (70.2%) |
The last row is the one to sit with. Strip out peer-to-peer sellers, who cut their own asking prices continuously, and the discount rate at conventional retailers goes up, not down: 70.2% of their dual-priced listings are already below list price in the first week of September.
But not all discounts are discounts
| Advertiser | Dual-priced listings | Currently discounted | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poshmark | 4073 | 1918 | 47.1% |
| UnbeatableSale.com | 222 | 222 | 100.0% |
| Macy's | 147 | 11 | 7.5% |
| Temu | 140 | 138 | 98.6% |
| TikTok Shop US - Marketplaces | 44 | 25 | 56.8% |
| Hot Topic | 28 | 28 | 100.0% |
| Madewell US | 19 | 17 | 89.5% |
| Rough Trade | 15 | 3 | 20.0% |
Three advertisers in that table discount 100% or nearly 100% of their catalogue, all the time. That is a pricing display, not a sale, and a creator who screenshots it as a Black Friday saving is passing on someone else's marketing as a finding.
Which produces the rule we apply on every page here: publish the price and the date you saw it, never the percentage off. A reader can compare $39.99 on 1 September with $39.99 on 27 November themselves. Nobody can audit "60% off" after the fact.
A publishing schedule that matches the data
| When | What to publish | Why |
|---|---|---|
| September | Buying guides, gift guides by budget, identification and comparison pages | These need weeks to rank. They also stay useful when the sale ends. |
| October | Category deep-dives and price-history pages with dated figures | Establishes the dated-price habit before anyone is checking prices daily. |
| Early November | Restock and availability notes, one-of-one warnings | Limited-run and resale stock disappears before it discounts. |
| Black Friday week | Dated deal posts with the price and the date on every line | The only window in which a Black Friday price is a fact rather than a prediction. |
| After Cyber Monday | Update the same pages with what the prices actually did | An updated page is a stronger page, and the update itself is a freshness signal. |
What we are not telling you
We are not telling you which retailers will discount in November, by how much, or on what day. No US retailer in these feeds has published a 2026 Black Friday date or price, and last year's numbers are not this year's. LinkToLooks is approved by no affiliate network, so nothing on this page is shaped by a payout.
Last verified 1 September 2026 against 4788 dual-priced live US listings inside a 7310-row deduplicated pull from 91 advertisers. Peer-to-peer asks of $500 or more are excluded as seller placeholders, as are repdigit asks such as $999 and $9,999. Asking prices are what sellers want on this date; they are not sold prices.
Timing Black Friday posts, asked plainly
When do Black Friday deals actually start?
For much of the catalogue, they already have. Of 4788 live US listings publishing both a list and a sale price on 1 September 2026, 2420 — 50.5% — were already marked down, 87 days before Black Friday.
Should creators post deals before November?
Post evergreen buying guides before November and dated deal posts during it. The discount data says a September post can honestly say a price is low today; it cannot honestly say it is a Black Friday price, because that price does not exist yet.
Are permanent discounts real discounts?
No. Several advertisers in this pull mark down 100% of their catalogue permanently — one has all 222 of its dual-priced listings on sale, another 138 of 140. A list price that is never charged is a display device, not a saving.
What should a creator publish in September for November traffic?
The pages that need to rank in November: buying guides, gift guides by budget, and product-identification pages. Search rankings take weeks to establish, so the content has to exist long before the deals do.
Sources
- CJ Affiliate product feeds, US advertisers, queried 1 September 2026 — every discount figure on this page is computed from that pull.
- Wikipedia, Black Friday (shopping) — the 27 November 2026 date used for the 87-day count.
Read next
What creators earn at Black Friday · Are feed sale prices real discounts? · Turntables before Black Friday
How this page was made. Drafted with AI (Claude); not yet independently re-checked. How we work