Black Friday Email Strategy and Examples

Black Friday is one of the busiest one-day shopping events of the year. Our tips and examples will help you optimize your brand’s campaign emails so they stand out in your subscribers’ inboxes.

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Although Black Friday has been dethroned by Cyber Monday as the busiest email holiday of the year, it still generates a river of email campaigns in the months leading up to the annual November event and is one of the year’s heaviest email streams. 

With average open rates hovering around 10 percent on general promotional emails, you can’t assume that your customers and subscribers will even see your Black Friday emails, let alone open them over the hundreds or thousands of other Black Friday emails descending on their mailboxes. 

More email campaigns can hit inboxes in the week leading up to Cyber Five – Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday – than in the roughly three previous weeks of November.

Plus, those email marketing campaigns start earlier every year. According to the data we’ve collected from thousands of ecommerce brands, the Black Friday flow begins before Halloween, ramping up fast between 10 days and two weeks before the floodgates open during Black Friday Week.

Many brands also continue sending Black Friday campaigns during Black Friday weekend, extending the holiday until Cyber Monday and even beyond.

These three steps can help you create more attention-getting email campaigns and lay the groundwork for a successful Black Friday program:

  • Have a solid Black Friday strategy. This can help you stand out in crowded inboxes, especially if you build in pivots and extra emails to deploy if something doesn’t go according to plan.  
  • Pull in every bit of customer intelligence and technology you have. Use your data to segment and target emails and personalize content. Advances in marketing automation and tactics such as interactive emails and tactical message resends can help you boost engagement. 
  • Break away from standard Black Friday email subject lines. That means finding an alternative to cliches like  “Black Friday starts NOW!” MailCharts has many sources of inspiration, like our hand-curated and frequently updated Black Friday email example list. But if you’re still stuck, turn to AI and ask a generative AI bot like ChatGPT to suggest alternatives. Use them to kickstart your creativity and tweak them to suit your audience, campaign goals, and brand voice.
  • Draw inspiration from some of the best Black Friday emails from leading brands. We’ve put together a list of great Black Friday email examples below, along with some pointers on how to leverage their strategies.
Black Friday Email Examples
Black Friday Email Marketing Best Practices

Black Friday Email Examples

Patagonia: Swim against the tide

Patagonia’s Black Friday strategy is not to have one. Instead, the brand markets against the Black Friday hullabaloo by talking about sustainability, environmentalism, or, as in this email, taking better care of the things you own instead of buying more things. It’s not for everyone. But this “zig where others zag” tactic, adapted to your brand, also lets you send a change-of-pace message that can keep people interested through a multi-email campaign.

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Karen Millen: Help customers succeed

When you help your customers find exactly what they want, with little friction in the process, they’ll remember you, and for the right reasons. You’re giving them a better experience with your brand, and that can beat 20% off and free shipping for the right customers. Apparel retailer Karen Millen structures one of its Black Friday email campaigns around this helpful concept with an email designed to support customer goals and how-tos.

And it still manages to squeeze in a tasty discount for the bargain-hunters, too.

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Global Healing Center: Engage, then convert

This strategy should be a pillar of your email marketing program all year long, but in the heat of Black Friday promotions, it’s doubly important. With so many other brands shouting about sales, discounts, and “buy buy buy,” being the brand that offers something more can help you stand out in customers’ minds. Global Health Center is promoting a sale, but the health brand wraps its promotional messaging in wellness-focused content.

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Michael Kors: Offer a Black Friday exclusive

With so many eyes on your Black Friday messages, why not give them something that’s worth looking at? Michael Kors follows that formula by promoting a new handbag at a limited-time special price. It’s attractive enough that the brand doesn’t have to drum up attention by promoting it with a discount, either in the subject line, preheader or message copy. In fact, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a dollar sign or percent sign anywhere in this elegant, understated Black Friday email.

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Our Place: Give them early access

If you promised your email subscribers at opt-in that you would send exclusive deals and offers, Black Friday is an excellent time to make that come true. Everybody loves to skip a line, and Our Place leaves no doubt that its subscribers are getting first crack at their deals. This email went out early, on Nov. 1, but given that customers are shopping earlier every year, this campaign might be well-timed.

Another genius touch: This email is designed to let shoppers put the items they want in their carts but doesn’t ask them to commit to purchasing until later. The company later sent an abandoned-cart reminder so shoppers would remember to come back and check out.

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ULTA: Go beyond discounts to attract buyers

Everybody loves a bargain, but 20% discounts aren’t always the greatest motivators. If your brand operates a customer loyalty program, promote an incentive that appeals to those members, as in this email from ULTA. Getting a bonus payout of points can appeal to customers who are not price-driven but who instead want to reach higher benefit tiers in your program. Another bonus: ULTA uses the email to promote its branded credit card program by running two attractive offers side by side.

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Vena: Offer a freebie

This email campaign combines several time-testing Black Friday tactics. It includes a free offer (gift with purchase). It reminds subscribers that they’re something special, and it adds an exploding offer (see explanation in the next section) to nudge customers into acting quickly. Bonus: It has an easily remembered promo code instead of a long string of letters and numbers. This can reduce friction at checkout because shoppers won’t have to search for the code.

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Jigsaw: Send a last-minute reminder

It’s always good to let customers know when a good deal is about to expire. Jigsaw’s reminder campaign, which also competed with its Cyber Monday promotions, goes out just hours before its Black Friday sale ends. The timing is important—if you send your reminder too soon, you risk encouraging customers to procrastinate. Send too many, and they’ll blend in with all of the other email reminders brands are sending. The red alert emoji can be extra effective here, but watch your inboxes or check MailCharts throughout the day to see how many other senders are using the same images. 

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Zappos: Send a daily deal reveal

You can’t tell from the subject line, but this Zappos email includes a popular tactic that persuades customers to watch for your emails every day—the daily deal reveal. Sure, you could show the deal in the email, but look at what Zappos is doing in this campaign. It achieves two objectives in a single message: It gives customers plenty of offers to click on, but if you want to see the daily deal, you must click through to the website. That makes this email extra-click-worthy.

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Ralph Lauren: Engage customers before selling to them

You aren’t required by law to send an undifferentiated stream of discounts and don’t-miss-out messages to your customers. They’d probably even be glad to tell you who’s on their list so your messages are more relevant. This tactic, which focuses on helping customers accomplish their goals, is more interesting than yet another request to fill out a long list of preferences. Plus, the data you glean can help you understand when your customers are shopping for themselves or for others.

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Zumba Fitness: Play with dynamic content

Let your designers unleash their creativity with your Black Friday emails. Using animation can help make your content stand out, but be sure it has a tactical purpose. This Zumba Fitness email campaign uses the scratch-off animation to persuade viewers to click and reveal their deal.

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Black Friday Email Marketing Best Practices

Use the strategies illustrated in the Black Friday email examples above to create or improve your own Black Friday strategy, and keep them in mind when you design and write copy for your Black Friday emails.

Want even more Black Friday email ideas? Sign up for a free MailCharts account and browse our database for examples from hundreds of leading brands. You can also check our curated SMS marketing examples to complement your email campaigns.

Then, combine the inspiration you’ve gathered with the strategies below to create a Black Friday email template, run A/B tests, and adapt your Black Friday messaging based on what works and what doesn’t. You can also create different email templates for different segments of your audience.

Create a Black Friday/Cyber Five plan

Black Friday is now one day of the Cyber Five weekend, which in the United States runs from Thanksgiving to Giving Tuesday. It’s the busiest time of the year for browsing and shopping. Subscriber and customer engagement are in overdrive. You owe it to your email program and your company’s success to come up with a plan that balances your goals and your customers’ needs and expectations. 

In other words, don’t blow this huge opportunity by going into this busy time of year without a plan. The process should begin as soon as possible but certainly when your company starts discussing its holiday goals and campaigns. Among other benefits, it means you will be prepared if someone comes to you with a last-minute request to send another email if results are lagging.

Your plan should include these six points:

  1. Campaign goals and theme and how they fit with your general holiday plan
  2. Volume and frequency plans and your schedule for launching campaigns and scaling up or tapering off sends
  3. Targeting and personalization plans—which campaigns will go to your full active list, targeted to like-minded groups, which ones will use personalized content
  4. Promotion plans—the incentives or discounts you plan to use and how they fit in with your general holiday promotion schedule
  5. Marketing strategies for different groups of customers, including regular purchasers, lapsed or near-lapsing customers, inactive or non-purchasers, and customers in a reactivation cycle
  6. Template redesigns to fit with the Cyber Five or Black Friday theme and plans, if any, for retemplating associated messages such as welcome messages, onboarding journeys, browse and cart abandonment reminders, purchase and shipping confirmations, and other lifecycle emails

Don't be a copycat

How many “Black Friday starts NOW!” subject lines do you see in your own inbox? Don’t waste your precious inbox space telling people what they already know. Tell them something they don’t, like what your best offer is, whether you added new sale items or when the sale ends.  That’s what will persuade customers to open your emails over those from your inbox competition.

Blow up your offers

The “exploding offer” is tailor-made for Black Friday. Real-time innovations like countdown timers (ticking watches, counters, and other timekeepers) create urgency by literally showing recipients how much time they have left before your offer ends or your VIP sale begins. For guaranteed impact, specify the time limit in the subject line: “Two hours left,” not “ends shortly.”

Change up your offers and copy

People know that Black Friday and the entire holiday season itself means their inboxes will be inundated with offers, pleas, warnings, and more. Having subject lines that swim against the tide is one way to get noticed. 

However, keep in mind that repetitive or irrelevant marketing messages will turn people off and make your emails invisible in the inbox. If your Black Friday weekend plan dictates that you send emails every day, send a different daily deal each time.

Alternatively, you can build promotional breaks into your campaigns. For example, include an email that tells subscribers more about your brand mission or invites them to read a blog post.

Resend your Black Friday emails if needed

The Black Friday email you send at 9 a.m. could get buried under an avalanche of competing messages in your subscribers’ inboxes. Consider resending it later in the day when traffic is lighter, especially if you didn’t get the traction you expected.

Two approaches can drive more action:

  • Resend the original message, but only to those who did not open or act on it the first time.

  • Revise the message and subject line slightly, and send to people who opened and/or clicked but did not convert. Let them know your offer is still good but about to expire.

You’ll also want to track your opens across different send times to find the right window to reach and engage your audience and drive sales.

Want to know when your competitors are sending their Black Friday emails? Sign up for MailCharts and track their sending patterns in our database. You can pinpoint exactly when they’re in your customers’ inboxes, how often they send, whether they’re sending more email or cutting back and much more.

Use preheaders to deliver important information

While your core message goes in your subject line, your preheader can share important secondary information, such as store hours, extra offers, or CTAs, as well as any other type of information that could entice customers to open your email. This gives you more space in the subject line to focus on key offers or themes.

Send an early teaser email

Black Friday teaser emails are a great way to attract attention—and keep it—before Black Friday arrives. According to our data, Black Friday teasers start going out as early as late September. The volume of Black Friday emails then grows steadily before peaking on the day itself.

With this in mind, send your first email for Black Friday a bit in advance. Not only do you want consumers to associate your store with the holiday, but they’ll likely be mapping out their shopping strategy ahead of time.

If you operate brick-and mortar stores, let shoppers know whether you’ll be open, what your hours will be, where your locations are, and what deals they should expect. Many department and general stores, like Target, Walmart, and Kohl’s, send out virtual catalogs with their most compelling discounts.

Keep in mind that 16% of Black Friday emails are sent after the holiday, meaning there’s an additional opportunity to create revenue.

Don’t forget Cyber Monday

As we mentioned earlier, Black Friday is now one day in a string of themed shopping events. An effective Black Friday plan should also include a strategy for segueing into Cyber Monday, which is now an even bigger event, in both email and sales volumes.

While Cyber Monday planning is an entity unto itself, a Black Friday plan should include ideas for keeping Black Friday shoppers engaged enough to be interested in your Cyber Monday campaigns. This kind of plan can safeguard against turning off customers, either because you sent too many emails in a short period of time or didn’t send interesting information.

Prepare for end-of-year holiday email campaigns with MailCharts

MailCharts helps you manage Black Friday planning with ease, but you can use it all year long for strategic planning, creative inspiration, and intelligence-gathering on your competition and industry peers. Sign up for a free account today—the data is waiting for you!