How to run BFCM campaigns that convert and protect deliverability 

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are now a whole season, with inboxes heating up weeks in advance. For 2025, the window has stretched. 59% of shoppers start before Black Friday, and 54% plan to use AI tools to compare prices. You're working with a two-month promotional period where consumers expect personalized offers across email, SMS, push, and in-app, without feeling spammed.

If you want your brand to stand out, the prep doesn’t start with discounts. It starts with deliverability and engagement. Here’s how to nail it.

Think of October as your spring training. Now is the time to start teasing offers, sharing sneak peeks, and sending value-packed campaigns. Why?

1. Ad costs run 20-30% cheaper in October than November
2. You build relationships before asking for sales
3. Your list quality improves because October campaigns identify who's actually engaged

No matter how incredible your customer data is, mailbox providers are not looking at your CRM tags or LTV scores. They are looking at who opens, clicks, and interacts with your emails.

• Start with engagement-based segmentation to identify your strongest audience.
• Use business data like past purchase history or loyalty tiers on top of that to fine-tune your audiences even further.

As you build out your audiences ahead of the BFCM season, it's critical that you know where you stand with inbox providers. Gmail is unique among providers in that they surface your IP and Domain reputation within their Postmaster Tools dashboard.

Instructions on setting up Postmaster Tools can be found in our documentation.

If your reputation is low, take action now. Any existing domain reputation issues will follow you straight into BFCM and drag down deliverability when you need it most. Clean it up early and hit the season running strong.

If you plan to send more than 250k emails in a month, a dedicated IP is your best bet. But here’s the catch: it needs to be warmed up slowly and steadily, starting now. If you wait until mid-November, you will be stuck in spam while competitors hit the inbox.

If you are sending from a shared network, you will be sending alongside other companies that are increasing their volume just as much as you. Getting on a dedicated IP allows you to take full control over your IP reputation.

Get the ball rolling now by requesting a dedicated IP within Customer.io.

BFCM is the busiest sending season of the year. Inboxes are flooded, filters are more aggressive, and mailbox providers are making split-second decisions about who deserves prime inbox placement. This is not the time to take risks by mailing unproven or inactive audiences.

That is why re-engaging now is critical. The weeks leading up to the season are your chance to wake up inactive subscribers, clean out invalid addresses, and make sure your audience is active and trusted by inbox providers. By the time your biggest offers hit, you want to be sending only to people who are opening, clicking, and engaging.

Most engaged subscribers opened or clicked in the last 30-60 days. They get your full campaign cadence: early access, day-of promotions, and last-chance reminders. You should avoid sending to any 180-day inactive subscribers, as they hurt deliverability when you include them in high-volume sends.

VIP and high-value customers, based on lifetime value or purchase frequency, get your best offers first. Early access 48-72 hours before everyone else. Exclusive bundles. SMS-first alerts about low stock or flash sales. A password-protected VIP sale works here because exclusivity matters more than discount depth.

Previous BFCM buyers who are dormant the rest of the year are seasonal shoppers waiting for this moment. The specificity of "we know you shop with us during the holidays" performs better.

Window shoppers who browsed or abandoned carts in the last 60-90 days need the BFCM discount as their conversion nudge. Reach them early in October as they're still in consideration mode and need time to decide.

Never-engaged addresses should be suppressed entirely. Sending to people who never open emails wastes money and damages your deliverability when ISPs see low engagement on high-volume sends. If you haven’t established a sunset policy (a set of criteria for permanent list removal), now is the time.

Brands combining email, SMS, in-app, and push messages see higher year-over-year revenue growth compared to email-only approaches. Use each channel for its strengths.

Email lets you go long-form. Show multiple products, tell a story, and explain offers in detail.

Timing matters. Tuesday and Wednesday before Black Friday had the highest click-through rates in 2024. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving delivered 31.7% higher average order value than the BFCM average. By Wednesday, serious shoppers are finalizing their lists and ready to buy.

Send times: The 9-10 AM Eastern window showed the highest order volume, but avoid sending exactly on the hour. Gmail and Yahoo servers get slammed when everyone sends at 9:00 AM. Send at 9:07 or 9:23 instead to avoid congestion.

Subject lines: "BFCM" outperformed "Black Friday" or "Cyber Monday" used individually. Personalized subject lines mentioning browsed products hit 31% open rates versus 12% for generic promotional headlines. Keep subject lines under 50 characters so they don't truncate on mobile.

Frequency can increase during BFCM: Increasing your message frequency (within reason) is acceptable, but only for your most engaged segments. Automated welcome and abandoned cart flows and relevance-triggered sends dramatically outperform broadcast campaigns, even when inboxes are saturated.

SMS delivers 98% of messages, and 90% get opened within three minutes. Use it for time-sensitive flash sales, low-stock alerts, and last-chance reminders.

Your five-day SMS cadence:

• Thanksgiving: Two messages. Morning teaser of what's coming. Evening VIP exclusive early access for your most engaged subscribers.
• Black Friday: Two messages. Launch announcement to all subscribers in the morning. Time-limited offer with countdown timer in the afternoon.
• Saturday/Sunday: One message each. Saturday: last chance reminder. Sunday evening: early access to Cyber Monday deals for VIPs.
• Cyber Monday: Final push emphasizing this is the last opportunity until next year.

Compliance note: Texts are prohibited from 9 PM-8 AM in the US (TCPA requirement). Keep messages under 160 characters. Immediately suppress anyone who converts.

Timing prevents carrier congestion. Phone networks experienced peak delays between 10 AM-3 PM Eastern on Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2024. The 3 PM window delivered highest engagement despite reduced competition.

Behavioral triggers outperform broadcasts. Trigger-based SMS consistently outperforms generic blasts because the message is relevant to what someone just did.

Set up triggers for:

• Abandoned cart during sale hours (compress from 24-hour delays to 2-6 hours during BFCM)
• Price drops on viewed products
• Low stock alerts on items in wishlists
• Flash sales for categories someone browsed

81% of holiday shoppers used mobile apps during BFCM 2024. Push notifications converted at 40% when shoppers purchased directly from the notification. Among Gen Z, 52% reported push notifications motivated purchases—higher than traditional SMS, influencer content, or print advertising.

The seven-day countdown:

Start seven days before Black Friday with "7 days left" reminders. Include personalized product recommendations based on browsing history. Offer VIP early access opt-ins.

Transition to BFCM day execution with morning "deals are live" alerts, midday flash sales, and evening low-stock warnings. Send push notifications when people are actually on their phones and likely to tap through.

The advantage push has over email and SMS: you can reach customers during active shopping sessions. Modal takeovers work for major announcements. Banners and slide-ups handle secondary messages like "free shipping unlocked!", progress indicators, and post-purchase upsells.

Deep linking matters here more than any other channel. When people tap a push notification, don't send people to your homepage. Link directly to the product they viewed or the category they browsed. Customers who purchased directly from push notifications had 40% conversion rates because the path to purchase was frictionless.

In-app messaging works without opt-in requirements. Unlike push notifications, which need permission, in-app messages appear during active sessions. Use them for sale countdowns on the homepage, "complete your purchase" nudges when cart value is high, product recommendations based on current browsing, and post-purchase upsells for complementary items.

Deep discounts train customers to wait for sales and erode your margins without necessarily driving more conversions. When everything is 50% off, nothing feels special. You're competing on price alone, which means you'll lose to whoever goes deeper.

The brands that build sustainable BFCM revenue focus on value, exclusivity, and smart incentive structures rather than racing to the steepest discount.

Gift with purchase: Consider offering a premium gift for orders over a certain threshold. Customers feel like they're getting something special rather than just a discount. This works particularly well when the gift is exclusive or limited edition.

Tiered discounts increase AOV: Structure your offers so customers get better deals as they spend more (15% off $75+, 20% off $100+, 25% off $150+). This encourages customers to add one more item to reach the next tier, increasing your average order value while still offering a deal.

Bundles cross-sell complementary products while maintaining perceived value. Instead of discounting everything, curate product sets that make sense together. "Get our best-selling serum + moisturizer + cleanser for $120" feels more valuable than "30% off everything" because you're solving a problem and guiding the purchase decision.

VIP early access creates exclusivity without destroying margins. Give your most engaged customers or loyalty program members first access to your sale—24 to 48 hours before everyone else. Exclusivity is valuable. People will pay full price or accept smaller discounts to be part of something special rather than waiting for the maximum discount available to everyone.

Limited edition drops drive urgency without training customers to wait for sales. Release different products or bundles each day during your BFCM period. When customers know that today's offer won't come back tomorrow, they're more likely to act immediately rather than waiting to see if something better comes along.

Countdown timers work, but only if they're real. Add legitimate countdown timers to your emails and landing pages to show when offers actually expire. But don't fake it. Customers are tracking prices and comparing across retailers. If your "limited time" offer keeps extending or your countdown timer resets, you're training them not to trust your urgency messaging in the future.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are no longer just two days. They are a season of heightened sending, packed inboxes, and fierce competition. Start your engagement building now, layer in your business data for precision, and by the time your biggest campaigns drop, you will have iron-clad engagement segments that inbox providers can trust.

You'll know your BFCM campaigns are working when your spam complaint rate stays below 0.10%, your engaged subscriber segment drives 90%+ of revenue, your email open rates stay at or above your non-promotional baseline, your SMS opt-out rate doesn't spike above 1-2%, and your automated flows continue performing during the promotional period.

You'll know you have problems if delivery rates drop below 95%, emails land in spam instead of promotions, ISPs throttle your sending, and emails arrive hours late, complaint rate spikes above 0.20%, or unsubscribe rate doubles versus normal periods.

The brands that win BFCM 2025 won't be the ones with the deepest discounts or most emails sent. They'll be the ones who started early, segmented precisely, maintained pristine sender reputations, and used each channel for what it's actually good at.