Ecommerce marketing calendar 2027: plan, budget and key dates

In short: an ecommerce marketing plan for 2027 has three parts: a revenue goal in euros, a budget and a calendar. The average marketing budget is 7.7% of revenue (Gartner). For an online store in Bulgaria the peaks of 2027 are Valentine's Day (14 February), 8 March, Orthodox Easter (2 May), Black Friday (26 November) and Christmas. Have every campaign ready at least 2 weeks before its date.

Below: the plan in five steps, the budget maths, the channels and a 2027 calendar by month for stores selling in Bulgaria, with the local dates global calendars leave out (Baba Marta, the long Easter weekend) and the Bulgarian rules for announcing a sale. CloudCart features come from the platform documentation and the Campaigns and Promotions and discounts pages.

What is a marketing plan for an online store

A marketing plan is a one or two page document that says how much you want to sell, to whom, through which channels, with what budget and in which weeks. It turns your strategy into dates, amounts and tasks.

A good plan for an online store has six parts:

• A goal in euros. "€60,000 revenue in 2027, with €18,000 of it in November and December" can be measured. "More sales" cannot.
• The customer. Who buys and what the average order value is.
• Channels. Which channel brings new customers and which one brings past buyers back.
• Budget. One amount for the year, split by month and by channel.
• Calendar. The holidays and the seasons of your niche, each with the date the campaign has to be ready.
• Metrics. Revenue, conversion rate, average order value, customer acquisition cost.

Review the plan every month.

How to build an ecommerce marketing plan in 5 steps

With the orders from the last 12 months, the plan takes one afternoon. With no history yet, set a goal for the first 3 months.

1. Look at last year. Export revenue by month, average order value and best-selling products from Analytics. Your highest months are your peaks. A garden store peaks in April and May, a school supplies store in August.
2. Set a goal in euros for each month. Split the yearly goal by each month's share of last year's revenue. If December was 18% of the year, it gets 18% of the new goal.
3. Pick 3 or 4 channels. One for new customers (Google or Meta), one to bring buyers back (email), one for content (a blog or Instagram) and SEO on your product pages are enough to start.
4. Set the budget. The method is in the next section.
5. Put the campaigns in the calendar. For each peak write down three dates: when the campaign is ready, when it starts and when it ends. Create the discounts and emails in advance with a start date, so they launch on their own.

Important: a plan is a list of decisions. A line with no date, no amount or no owner is not a decision yet.

How much marketing budget to plan for 2027

The average marketing budget is 7.7% of company revenue, according to Gartner's survey of 402 marketing leaders in North America, the UK and Europe (Gartner, CMO Spend Survey). Paid media is 30.6% of those budgets, or about 2.4% of revenue.

Most companies in that survey have more than $1 billion in revenue, so a small store gets a sharper budget from its own numbers:

1. Work out the profit per order. Average order value × margin. With a €50 order and a 40% margin, you make €20 before advertising.
2. Set a ceiling for a new customer. If a customer buys twice on average, they bring you €40 in profit. A CAC (customer acquisition cost) ceiling of €15-20 leaves you half of it.
3. Count the customers the goal needs. A goal of €5,000 in new sales this month ÷ €50 average order = 100 orders from new customers.
4. Multiply. 100 customers × €15 = €1,500 ad budget for the month. If your real CAC is higher, cut the budget or raise the average order.

How to split the budget by month

Split the budget by each month's share of revenue and raise it 7-14 days before each peak, while people are still choosing a gift. In Google Ads, a seasonality adjustment tells Smart Bidding to expect a higher conversion rate during a short event. Google recommends using it for events of 1 to 7 days and notes that it works less well beyond 14 days (Google Ads Help, seasonality adjustments). The full campaign setup is in the guide to Google Ads for an online store.

Which digital marketing channels to choose

Google, Meta, TikTok and SEO bring new customers. Email, SMS, Viber and Web Push bring past buyers back without paying for an ad on the repeat order. A good plan uses both groups.

Channel	What it does	Where it is in CloudCart
Google Ads (Search, Shopping, Performance Max)	New customers who are already searching for the product	Product feed and tracking from the Google apps
Meta Ads (Facebook, Instagram)	New customers by interest; retargeting	Meta Pixel and product feed
Email	Bringing buyers back, newsletter, automations	Marketing → Campaigns
SMS and Viber	A short reminder with a code or a deadline	Marketing → Campaigns (SMS and Viber channels)
SEO and blog	Visits from Google without paying per click	Marketing → SEO; the store blog

Email is the cheapest channel for bringing customers back. In ecommerce the average open rate is 29.81% and the average click rate is 1.74% (Mailchimp, email marketing benchmarks). You build the subscriber list with the forms and pop-ups described on the Subscribers and segments page. For paid social see Meta Ads for an online store.

Ecommerce marketing calendar 2027 by month

The 2027 ecommerce marketing calendar for Bulgaria has five shared peaks: Valentine's Day on 14 February (a Sunday), 8 March (a Monday), Orthodox Easter on 2 May (a Sunday), Black Friday on 26 November and Christmas. Add the seasons of your niche on top. Official public holidays are marked, because couriers such as Econt and Speedy (the main Bulgarian parcel carriers) and BOX NOW lockers run a reduced service or none on those days.

Month	Events in 2027	What to prepare	CloudCart tool
January	1 January (public holiday); post-holiday sales	Clear leftover stock; an email to everyone who bought in December	Global discount in %; segment of customers who bought in the last 30 days; regular campaign
February	Valentine's Day, 14.02 (Sunday); Trifon Zarezan, the winegrowers' day, on the same date	"Gifts for him and for her" selection; email 7-10 days before	Gift card with a Send on date of 14.02; discount with promo code
March	Baba Marta, 1.03 (Monday); Liberation Day, 3.03 (Wednesday, public holiday); 8 March, Women's Day (Monday)	Gifts for women; delivery by 5 March	Countdown discount; free shipping over a threshold; gift card
April	Easter preparation; spring season	Holiday catalogue; campaign ready by 20.04	Discount with a start date; automated campaign from a template
May	1 May (Saturday); Easter, 2 May; St George's Day, 6 May (Thursday); 24 May (Monday), all public holidays	The last order date for delivery before the holiday, shown on the site	Countdown discount until the last delivery date; SMS or Viber reminder
June	Children's Day, 1.06 (Tuesday); start of summer	Gifts for children; collect reviews from spring orders	Category discount; post-purchase campaign asking for a review
July	Summer season	Blog posts and SEO for the autumn; summer collection sale	Blog; Marketing → SEO; quantity discount
August	Back to school preparation	Catalogue and ads for 15 September	Category discount; Google Shopping ads
September	Unification Day, 6.09 (Monday, public holiday); first school day, 15.09 (Wednesday); Independence Day, 22.09 (Wednesday, public holiday)	Budget for November and December; new segments	Segments (including AI-generated); subscriber forms
October	Black Friday preparation	Regular prices stable from 27.10; a growing subscriber list; teaser email	Subscriber pop-up; segment of your most active customers
November	Singles' Day, 11.11 (Thursday); Black Friday, 26.11; Cyber Monday, 29.11	Discounts created in advance; ad budget raised from mid-month	Countdown discount; Discount code (PRO) with many codes; email, SMS and Viber campaigns
December	St Nicholas Day, 6.12; Christmas, 25.12 (Saturday); 24-26 December public holidays	The last order date before Christmas; gift cards for last-minute buyers	Gift card with a Send on date; free shipping over a threshold

Easter in Bulgaria follows the Orthodox calendar: in 2027 it falls on 2 May, while Western (Catholic and Protestant) Easter is on 28 March. If you also ship to Western EU countries, you have two Easter campaigns five weeks apart. Black Friday is the day after the fourth Thursday of November, which makes it 26.11 in 2027.

Two local habits are worth a line in the plan. Baba Marta on 1 March is the day Bulgarians give each other martenitsi, small red and white tassels worn for luck, so small gifts and packaging sell in late February. Name days are celebrated like birthdays: St George's Day (6 May) is the name day of everyone called Georgi or Gergana, and St Nicholas Day (6 December) of everyone called Nikolay or Nikolina. That makes both days good dates for a gift email or a gift card reminder.

Valentine's Day and 8 March: the two gift peaks early in the year

Valentine's Day and 8 March are 3 weeks apart, so run them as one series: a gift selection, an email 7-10 days before and a reminder 2 days before the last delivery day. In Bulgaria 8 March is Women's Day, when people give flowers and small gifts to partners, mothers and colleagues.

In 2027, 14 February is a Sunday and 8 March is a Monday. If your courier does not deliver on Sunday, set the last order date around Thursday 11 February and Thursday 4 March, and keep in mind that Liberation Day on 3 March is a public holiday. Put the deadline in the banner. For late shoppers there is the gift card: in the Send on (optional) field the buyer picks the date the email reaches the recipient.

Easter, 1 May and St George's Day: the long holidays

Easter 2027 is on 2 May, the day after 1 May, and St George's Day follows 4 days later, on a Thursday. Under the Bulgarian Labour Code the official holidays include Good Friday (30 April), Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday (3 May), as well as 1 and 6 May (Labour Code, Art. 154, in Bulgarian). That is four days off in a row, so the last order day for delivery is around Tuesday 27 April. Launch the campaign around 20 April.

Black Friday and Christmas 2027: the six strongest weeks

Black Friday 2027 is on 26 November and Cyber Monday on 29 November. Bulgarian law sets two limits on every price reduction. The prior price you show next to the sale price is the lowest price you applied during at least the 30 days before the reduction (Consumer Protection Act, Art. 65, in Bulgarian). The reduction lasts at least 1 working day and at most 1 month (Art. 66). The 30-day rule comes from the EU Omnibus Directive, so it applies across the EU, which matters if you also sell cross-border (Directive (EU) 2019/2161, Article 6a). For Black Friday 2027 this means: keep your regular prices stable from 27 October. In the wording of Art. 65 that applies from 05.02.2027 there are two exceptions: the 30-day rule does not apply to perishable goods, and for goods on sale for less than 30 days the period is at least 7 days. The 30-point checklist is on the page Black Friday: preparing your online store.

The Christmas campaign starts right after Cyber Monday and has a clear end: the last order date for delivery before 24 December, because 24-26 December are public holidays. If in December you announce a new reduction on a product that was on sale for Black Friday, its prior price is the Black Friday price, because that is the lowest of the last 30 days.

Which CloudCart tools cover the calendar

You run the calendar with three tools in the CloudCart admin: Campaigns, Discounts and the Gift Card app.

Campaigns in Marketing Suite

Campaigns live in Marketing → Campaigns and come in two kinds. A regular campaign is a one-time send to a segment with one step. An automated campaign starts from a customer action (abandoned cart, new subscriber, purchase) and has up to 5 steps with waits between them. Every campaign sends to a segment, and the channels are email, SMS, Viber and Web Push.

• Ready-made templates. + Create campaign → Automated offers abandoned cart, new subscriber, post-purchase, win-back and seasonal templates.
• AI assistant for campaigns. The AI assistant button in the campaign list shows ideas in three groups: events and seasons, products that are trending, and customer behavior. "Create" turns an idea into a draft with a title, channel and sample text.

A step-by-step guide to your first campaign is in how to send an email campaign in CloudCart.

Discounts

Discounts live in Marketing → Discounts, where + Add discount opens 10 cards. The calendar mostly needs these five.

Discount type	What it does	For which holiday
Global discount	Always on, no code: % or amount off products, categories, brands; or free shipping	January sales, Black Friday
Discount with promo code	Works only when the shopper enters the code	Valentine's Day, 8 March, a code for subscribers
Countdown discount	A short promotion with a timer on the storefront	The last 48 hours before Easter and Black Friday
Discount code (PRO)	Many codes, each with its own terms, with a generator and export	Black Friday, influencer codes

Every discount has a validity period. Create it in advance as active, with a start date: it applies from the start of that date in the store's time zone. Only one Countdown discount runs at a time: with two active, checkout takes the first. Limits per plan are on the pricing page. How to choose the type and size of a discount is covered in the guide to discount codes and promotions.

Gift Card

The Gift Card app (Apps → Gift Card) sells gift cards for a set amount. The recipient loads the code into their store wallet. The Send on date is useful for 14 February, 8 March, name days and Christmas. The app is marked as beta. Setup details are in the guide to gift cards in your online store.

How to measure whether the marketing plan works

Check four numbers every month:

• Revenue against the monthly goal. Falling more than 15% behind for two months in a row is a signal to change the channel or the offer.
• CAC by channel. Ad spend ÷ new customers from that channel. The channel with the highest CAC loses budget first.
• Revenue from campaigns. How many orders and how much revenue each campaign brought in Marketing Suite.
• Share of returning customers. If it grows, email, SMS and Viber are doing their job.

Common marketing plan mistakes in ecommerce

• The campaign starts on the day of the holiday. The order no longer arrives in time. On that day mostly gift cards sell.
• The last delivery date is missing from the site. A gift ordered on 23 December and delivered on the 28th often comes back as a return.
• A global calendar copied as is. Thanksgiving is not a Bulgarian holiday and Easter usually falls on a different date, while 8 March and Baba Marta are missing from global calendars.

CloudCart, the ecommerce platform from Bulgaria, keeps campaigns, discounts and gift cards in one admin. Plan prices are on the pricing page (billed annually, excluding VAT: from €14/month for Baby Pack). Start your store for €1 and have your 2027 calendar ready before the first peak. Questions: support@cloudcart.com.

Frequently asked questions