How to plan Black Friday emails without burning your list
What to set up in October, what to send each day of Black Friday week and who should get it, with the 2026 dates and the plan we use with clients.
Manuel Sierra
Founder, One Mail Studio
Published · 6 min read
PlanningIn this article · 9 sections
Black Friday 2026 falls on Friday 27 November and Cyber Monday on Monday 30 November. Most email plans for it start that same week, when the list is cold, the offer is still being argued about and every email has to shout. The work that makes the week easy happens in October: decide the offer, split the list, check the flows and open a waiting list. After that, the week is a matter of order.
This is the plan we follow with the stores we run, day by day and with this year's dates.
Start in October
Black Friday week leaves no time to think. Everything you decide before it goes better. These four decisions change the result the most.
- Which offer you will give. With your margin and your average order in front of you, not a percentage picked because everyone else uses it.
- Who will get it. Separate the people who read you from the ones who have not for months. They do not get the same emails.
- Which flows must be running. Welcome, abandoned cart, abandoned checkout, browse abandonment and post-purchase. That week brings in more new people than the rest of the year.
- Whether you open a waiting list. A form on the site for anyone who wants the offer before everyone else. They are the people most ready to buy.
Split the list before you send anything
What changes during the week is not the email but who gets it. Build these segments in Klaviyo before November.
| Segment | Who is in it | What they get |
|---|---|---|
| Active | Clicked or bought in the last 90 days | Every email of the week |
| Rest | Subscribed, but neither Active nor Dormant | Three emails in the whole week |
| Dormant | No click and no purchase in 180 days | One or none |
| Waiting list | Signed up to the Black Friday form | The offer one day early |
We build Active on clicks and purchases, not opens, because an open is the weakest signal you have. Klaviyo's own guidance points the same way: send more often to people who engage recently and, during the sale, write every day "but not necessarily to your entire list".
The Dormant segment matters more than it looks. Shopify lists sending five times your normal volume in a single day among the things that get mailbox providers to block you. Mailing the whole list on Friday is exactly that.
Check the flows with a real order
Place a real order in your own store and look at what arrives, when and with which discount. The usual problems:
- The welcome email does not deliver what the pop-up promised. If the pop-up promises a discount, it goes in the first email.
- Abandoned cart and abandoned checkout are two flows with different triggers, not one.
- Someone who buys keeps getting the flow. Buyers must leave every flow.
- The post-purchase email tries to sell something in the first message. It should not.
Make sure your emails reach the inbox
If you send more than 5,000 emails a day to Gmail addresses, Google requires SPF, DKIM and DMARC on your domain, one-click unsubscribe with a visible link, and a spam rate under 0.30% in Postmaster Tools. Black Friday week is when stores cross that line without noticing. Check your domain now with our email deliverability checker, with time to fix it before November.
The week, day by day
Once the offer is fixed, the week is a matter of order. Early access goes first and only to the people who asked for it. The public sale opens on Friday. Reminders go only to Active subscribers who have not bought.
| Day | To whom | |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 3 and 10 | Content, no discount | Active and rest |
| Wed 11 | Singles' Day, if it fits your brand | Active |
| Mon 16 | The waiting list opens | Active and rest |
| Tue 24 | Something happens on Friday | Active and waiting list |
| Thu 26 | Early access | Waiting list only |
| Fri 27 | Black Friday opens | Everyone except Dormant |
| Sat 28 and Sun 29 | Reminders | Active who have not bought |
| Mon 30 | Cyber Monday, last day | Active and rest |
| Tue 1 Dec | Thank you, no offer | Active |
Dates for 2026. Black Friday falls on Friday 27 November and Cyber Monday on Monday 30 November.
Anyone who buys leaves the reminders. Nobody should get "last chance" after paying.
If you use Smart Sending in Klaviyo, check it on the sends that must reach everyone in the segment. Klaviyo suggests turning it off for campaigns that need to reach all recipients during the sale, provided your segments and exclusions are already right.
Every extra email in that week costs you attention in December. Send fewer, to the right people, and say one thing in each.
An offer that does not eat your margin
A store-wide discount is also used by people who were going to buy anyway. Before choosing a percentage, do this sum: margin ÷ (margin − discount). With a 60% margin and a 20% discount, 60 ÷ (60 − 20) = 1.5. You need to sell 50% more to earn the same as without the offer.
Three offers that hold the margin better: a gift above an order value set higher than your average order, a bundle priced below the sum of its parts, and early access with the same discount as everyone else. The typical mistake is raising the discount every day of the week. The list learns to wait for the last day.
The email three days before
It goes out between two and five days before the offer and shows nothing yet. It tells the list that something happens on Friday and that they will see it first, and it asks for a small gesture: move the email to Primary in Gmail, or reply with one word. Replies and moves tell the mailbox that your emails are wanted, the week they matter most. The full structure, with an example written by us, is in the plan above.
After Cyber Monday
Give the list a few quiet days. On 1 December send a thank you with no offer. Then look at who bought for the first time: everyone who bought in November enters the post-purchase flow, which should teach them to use what they bought and ask for a review two or three weeks later. They decide whether November was a spike or the start of something.
Sources
Checked on October 5, 2026.
- Black Friday
- Planning
- Segmentation
- Klaviyo
Common questions
When is Black Friday 2026?
Friday 27 November 2026. Cyber Monday is Monday 30 November. Black Friday is always the Friday after the fourth Thursday of November, which is Thanksgiving in the US.
When should I start preparing Black Friday emails?
In October. The offer, the segments, the flows and the waiting list should be ready before November, so the list gets a few weeks of normal sends before the big week and nothing is decided under pressure.
How many emails should I send in Black Friday week?
It depends on the segment. In our plan, Active subscribers get one a day during the sale, the rest of the list gets three in the whole week and dormant subscribers get one or none. Buyers stop getting reminders.
Should I email subscribers who never open?
At most once. People with no click and no purchase in 180 days rarely buy that week, and a sudden jump in volume to cold addresses is one of the things that gets mailbox providers to block a sender.
Should I raise the discount during the week?
No. If the discount grows every day, the list learns to wait for the last day and you sell the same at a lower margin. Keep one offer, and use early access as the advantage instead of a bigger percentage.
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