Black Friday Email Marketing: 10 Tips for a Successful Campaign

Black Friday 2026 falls on Friday 27 November and Cyber Monday on Monday 30 November. It is the busiest week of the year in inboxes, so the emails that succeed are the ones that arrive on time, reach the right people and carry an honest offer. Start planning in October, send the first teaser in early November, give loyal customers early access and let automation follow up with those who did not open. Always calculate discounts from the lowest price in the previous 30 days, otherwise you risk a fine. Here you will find 10 tips for a Black Friday email campaign, a week by week timeline, subject line examples, figures from last season and an overview of what works and what does not.

Key takeaways

1. Black Friday has long stopped being a single day: in 2025 Allegro ran its Black Weeks from 3 November to 1 December, and there were 32% more emails in November than a year earlier.
2. People want offers early: 45.9% want them at least a month before Black Friday, according to a Sinch Mailjet survey. Your plan belongs in October.
3. Automated emails are a small share of sends but a big share of revenue. According to Omnisend's analysis, during Black Friday 2024 they made up only 3% of emails sent but 30% of email orders.
4. A bigger discount does not mean more sales. The real average discount in Czechia is around 20%, and in 2025 brands with moderate discounts grew the most.
5. More than half of Czechs do not trust Black Friday discounts and check them. In 2025, the Czech Trade Inspection Authority found violations in 51% of its discount inspections.
6. Deliverability comes first: send to active contacts first and keep spam complaints below 0.3%.

In short: when Black Friday is, when to start, what works and what to watch out for

• When: Black Friday 27 Nov 2026, Cyber Monday 30 Nov 2026. Sales usually run all November.
• When to start: plan and segments in October, first teaser in early November, main emails from 23 to 30 November.
• What works: segments, early access for loyal customers, a specific subject line with a deadline, and automation.
• What to watch out for: discounts based on the lowest price in 30 days, and sending only to people with consent, not to your whole old database.

What has changed since the article was first published: The original six tips from 2018 still apply, but Black Friday has changed a lot since then. I have expanded the article to 10 tips and added a week by week timeline, subject line examples, Black Friday 2025 results from Czechia and around the world, the rules for advertising discounts, the requirements of Gmail and other mailbox providers for bulk senders, and the rise of AI assisted shopping.

What Black Friday is and when it falls in 2026

Black Friday is a day of big discounts that falls on the Friday after American Thanksgiving and opens the Christmas shopping season. In Czechia, around 70% of small and medium online stores took part in 2024, according to the Czech Association for Electronic Commerce (APEK). Cyber Monday is the Monday after Black Friday. It originally belonged to online shopping and today it closes the whole sale week.

In 2026 the dates are:

Discounts no longer fit into a single day. In 2025, Allegro ran its Black Weeks from 3 November to 1 December, and the Czech Trade Inspection Authority focused its checks on the period from 29 October to 6 December. For your emails, this means you compete for attention all November, not just on one Friday.

Black Friday 2025 in numbers

Last season showed that people spend more, but more carefully. Globally, revenue grew mainly thanks to higher prices, while the number of orders rose by only 2%. In both the Czech and Slovak markets, Black Friday brought record revenue.

Sources: APEK and Hlídač shopů for ČTK (ČT24, 1 Dec 2025); Shoptet, Black Friday 2025 (4 Dec 2025); SITA agency (7 Dec 2025); Salesforce, Cyber Week 2025 results (5 Dec 2025); Klaviyo, BFCM 2025 (2 Dec 2025); Sinch Mailjet, BFCM statistics 2025 (9 Dec 2025).

How Czech shoppers see Black Friday is telling. It tempts them, but they do not trust it.

The numbers hold three lessons for your emails. First, half of people shop without a plan, so a well timed email decides where they buy. Second, half of people check discounts, so an exaggerated or false discount costs you trust. And third, a fifth of people find Black Friday annoying, and among 18 to 26 year olds it is as many as 27.1%. They will appreciate fewer emails with better content.

Black Friday 2026 email timeline

A Black Friday campaign is a series of emails, not a single email. This is what a plan can look like for an online store that wants to cover all of November without overwhelming subscribers:

Adjust the plan to your own numbers. A smaller company may need just three emails: a teaser, the launch and a last chance. In Quanda you prepare campaigns in advance and schedule the sending for a specific day and time, so on the busiest days you only watch the results.

Tip: Do not send everything on the hour. At 9:00 on Friday, thousands of other emails go out. Try 8:40 or 10:20, or the time when your recipients actually open emails. An AI assistant connected to Quanda via the Quanda MCP server can work it out from your campaign history.

10 tips for a successful Black Friday campaign

1. Start planning 6 to 8 weeks ahead

Black Friday cannot be improvised a week in advance. By the end of October, decide what you will offer, to whom and when, and prepare your email templates. In its forecast for the 2025 season, Klaviyo reports that 40% of people plan to start their holiday shopping between July and October. If you start emailing only in Black Friday week, you lose those who choose in advance.

Go through last year's campaigns too. Which email had the most clicks, when did people open most, and how many unsubscribed? These answers are worth more than any general statistic.

2. Clean your database and prepare your reputation

Sender reputation is the rating that Gmail, Outlook and other mailbox providers use to decide whether your email goes to the inbox or to spam. In Black Friday week, far more emails are sent and mailbox providers are stricter, so your reputation needs to be prepared in advance.

• Remove undeliverable addresses and long inactive contacts. In Quanda, contact scoring by open rate helps by sorting contacts into groups from Fans to Ghosts.
• Do not increase volume abruptly. If you normally send once a month, start sending more often in October so the rise in November does not look suspicious to mailbox providers.
• Watch complaints. Gmail requires bulk senders to keep their spam complaint rate below 0.3% and recommends keeping it below 0.1%. Senders of more than 5,000 emails a day must have SPF, DKIM and DMARC set up and offer one click unsubscribe. Details are in the article Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook bulk sender requirements.

Warning: Never revive an old database you have not emailed for years on Black Friday. Inactive addresses generate the most complaints and bounces, which can pull down deliverability even for emails to your best customers.

3. Split recipients into segments

Segmentation is dividing contacts into groups based on what you know about them, so that each group gets an offer that interests it.

For Black Friday, four groups are enough:

• Loyal customers who have bought more than once. They get early access and possibly something extra.
• Last year's Black Friday buyers. You know what they were interested in, so offer them similar or related products.
• New subscribers who have not bought yet. They need more trust: reviews, a return guarantee, clear terms.
• Inactive contacts. One email with your strongest offer. Sometimes it is better not to email them at all.

In Quanda you create the groups with tags and the detailed filter, which can also filter by other data stored with contacts. Do not overdo the number of segments, though. Four well written emails are better than ten rushed ones.

4. Give your best customers early access

Early access means that some customers get the deals a day or two before everyone else. It is the simplest way to show that you value regular customers, and it also spreads the rush of orders over more days.

It pays off. According to Klaviyo, repeat purchases grew by 14% during Black Friday 2025, while purchases by new customers grew by 9%. Regular customers brought more than the hunt for new ones. You can also offer early access as a reward for subscribing, for example with a sign up form on your website in early November.

Example subject line: "A day early, just for you: Black Friday starts today"

5. Offer a fair discount and state it honestly

The lowest price in the previous 30 days is the price from which every discount on a specific product must be calculated. The rule comes from the EU Omnibus Directive and applies across the European Union, in Czechia through § 12a of the Consumer Protection Act since 6 January 2023, and in Slovakia and Poland as well. So it is not enough to raise prices in October and "discount" them in November.

The Czech Trade Inspection Authority takes this seriously:

• In 2025 it carried out 1,432 discount inspections and found breaches in 734 of them, that is 51%.
• In 324 cases the discount was calculated incorrectly or the lowest price in 30 days was missing.
• Final fines for 2025 reached CZK 38.7 million.
• It also warns about getting around the rules with phrases like "Save 50%", "SUPER price" or "recommended price".

Source: Czech Trade Inspection Authority, results of discount inspections for 2025 (5 Mar 2026).

One more thing: a bigger discount does not automatically mean more sales. According to Klaviyo, the average Black Friday discount fell from 29.6% to 26.2% in 2025 and the brands that discounted less grew the most. Instead of the biggest discount on everything, try:

• A discount only on selected products, ideally ones with a margin that people search for.
• A gift with purchase or free shipping above a certain amount.
• A product bundle for a better price than the items separately.
• A tiered discount, for example 10% over EUR 40 and 15% over EUR 80, which raises the average order.

6. Write a subject line that says what and until when

In Black Friday week, a recipient gets dozens of emails with the word sale. Your subject line must say at a glance what you offer, how big the discount is and when it ends. Generic shouting gets lost.

The subject line goes together with the preheader, a short text shown next to or below the subject line. Use it for what did not fit in the subject line, for example "Free shipping over EUR 60, delivered before Christmas". More in the articles How to write an email subject line and Email preheader: 9 tips. You can compare two subject lines in an A/B testing campaign, for example on the teaser, and use the winning style in your main emails.

7. Highlight what matters and think mobile

To buy, people first have to find the offer. Build the email around one main offer:

• The offer and deadline at the top, not a logo taking up half the screen.
• One prominent button with specific text, for example "Choose a coffee machine" instead of "More".
• The discount code as text, not in an image. If images do not load, the code must still be visible and easy to copy.
• A countdown or the end date of the sale, so it is clear how long the discount lasts.
• Shipping, returns and Christmas delivery deadlines, which people ask about most.

Above all, think mobile. According to Salesforce, 70% of orders worldwide during Cyber Week 2025 were placed on mobile. Emails from the Quanda editor display correctly on mobile, but the link must lead to a page that works well on mobile too. Ideally straight to the discounted product or category, not to the home page.

8. Let automation do the work

Automations are emails that send themselves when a recipient does or does not do something. During Black Friday they are the most powerful tool you have. In its Black Friday 2024 analysis, Omnisend found that automations made up only 3% of emails sent but brought in 30% of email orders. They also had a much higher open rate: 45.4% compared to 27.9% for regular campaigns.

In Quanda you can set up automation in a simple campaign like this:

• Did not open the email: after 2 days, send the same offer with a different subject line.
• Clicked on a specific product: after 30 minutes, send an email with similar products or free shipping.
• Did not click the offer button: before the sale ends, send a reminder that the discount is ending.

For a longer series, a logic campaign works well, where the path branches depending on who clicked the marked link and who did not. The teaser, launch and last chance emails can then run on their own and everyone gets only what they have not received yet.

Tip: Set up and try out your automations in October on a regular campaign. There is no time for fine tuning in Black Friday week.

9. Prepare your website, team and a backup plan

When you expect above average traffic, make sure your website can handle it and that you have enough people to answer customers, by phone and online. Add more users to your Quanda account so a colleague can watch the campaigns while you deal with orders.

Even with good preparation, it is good to know what to do when something goes wrong. Decide who will be available during the sale, who can change or stop a scheduled campaign and what you will do if the website goes down or stock runs out. Have a short correction email ready in advance. In Black Friday week, problems are solved in hours, not days.

Send yourself a test email before every send and click through all the links. A broken link or an invalid discount code costs more in a Black Friday email than at any other time.

10. Do not stop after Black Friday

In many countries Cyber Monday is an even stronger day than Black Friday itself. In the US, according to Adobe, people spent USD 14.25 billion on Cyber Monday 2025 and USD 11.8 billion on Black Friday. So send an email on Monday too, ideally only to those who have not bought yet.

Then it is time for the relationship:

• A thank you to customers without a sales message, for example with a tip on how to use the product.
• Christmas delivery deadlines, which people care about most in December.
• Evaluation: which segments, subject lines and times worked. Save your notes for next year.

The Christmas season follows straight after Black Friday, and the same principles apply: plan ahead, segment and keep your offers honest.

What works on Black Friday and what does not

Black Friday for B2B and services

Black Friday is not only for online stores. If you sell services or sell to businesses, a discount on everything usually makes no sense, but a deadline at the end of November does. Companies are planning next year's budgets and deciding what to spend on before the year ends. Offer, for example:

• an annual subscription for the price of a shorter one, or an extra month,
• an extended service or a higher plan for the price of a lower one until the end of the year,
• available slots for training, consultations or installations in December,
• an offer only for existing clients instead of a public discount.

More about emails for business customers is in the article Email marketing in B2B.

Checklist before sending a Black Friday email

Before you send your Black Friday campaign, go through this list:

• The campaign goes only to contacts with consent and existing customers, not to the whole old database.
• Inactive and undeliverable addresses are excluded from the campaign.
• The discount is based on the lowest price in the previous 30 days and the email shows which price it is.
• The subject line says what you offer, how big the discount is and when it ends.
• The preheader adds to the subject line rather than repeating it.
• The discount code is in the text, not in an image, and it works.
• The button leads straight to the discounted product or category and the page works on mobile.
• Automations for unopened emails and clicks are set up.
• The SPAM test is fine and you have checked the test email on desktop and on mobile.
• Sending is scheduled and you know who watches the campaign and who solves problems.

In conclusion

Black Friday is won by those who start on time, write to the right people and offer honest discounts. Prepare your plan in October, segment your recipients, give regular customers an advantage, write a specific subject line and leave the rest to automation. Then, in the busiest week of the year, you will have time for what matters most: your customers.

If you want to go deeper into seasonal campaigns, take the free online course Email copywriting and design that gets read with its lesson on seasonal campaigns. And if you are not sure how to set up a Black Friday campaign in Quanda, get in touch. We will go through it with you and advise you on what to adjust.

We wish you a successful Black Friday!