BFCM, or Black Friday and Cyber Monday, brings some of the highest Email Campaign volumes of the year. Inbox providers may apply stricter filtering during this period. Without preparation, your messages may experience lower inbox placement, delays, or blocking.
Use the guidance below to prepare early, increase volume gradually, prioritize engaged contacts, and monitor several deliverability signals instead of opens alone.
Before You Begin
Complete these checks before BFCM:
Verify your sending setup
Make sure your sender domain is authenticated with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Learn how to set up an email domain.
Check that your link domain is configured correctly, and review your campaign links, landing pages, and unsubscribe functionality.
Make sure your From and Reply-To addresses are valid and aligned with your sender domain.
Avoid changing your sending domain immediately before BFCM unless necessary.
Verify email domain – Check that SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are aligned. Learn more about SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
Check your baseline deliverability signals – Review recent clicks, conversions, complaints, unsubscribes, bounces, delivery delays, and mailbox-provider performance. Compare BFCM performance against your normal trends rather than relying on a single metric.
Clean your list – Remove invalid, bounced, and unengaged contacts before BFCM. Learn how to clean your list.
💡 Important Tips:
Do not use open rate as a standalone readiness threshold. Apple Mail Privacy Protection and automated security activity can make open data less reliable. Give more weight to clicks, purchases, conversions, complaints, unsubscribes, bounces, delivery delays, and performance by mailbox provider.
Monitor trends before and after each major send. A sudden increase in hard bounces, complaints, or unsubscribes requires investigation before you continue scaling.
For bounce rates, compare your BFCM results with your usual average. Aim to keep bounce rates below your normal benchmark. Treat a sharp increase, especially in hard bounces, as a signal to pause, clean your audience, and investigate before scaling further.
BFCM Preparation Timeline
Start preparing at least three to four months before BFCM. Early planning gives you time to clean your contact list, gradually increase seasonal sending volume, warm up a new domain or sender setup when needed, test your campaigns, and identify potential risks.
3–4 months before: Define your offer strategy, create your Email Campaign calendar, and start developing content.
8 weeks before: Clean your contact list, review your deliverability data, and begin gradually increasing seasonal sending volume with your most engaged contacts.
4–6 weeks before: Send pre-sale or early-access Email Campaigns to your most engaged Contacts. Build anticipation with teaser emails.
1–2 weeks before: Finalize and schedule your Email Campaigns, complete subject line A/B tests, and review your active Automation Workflows.
An established domain with a stable sending history does not necessarily need to be warmed up again. Separate seasonal volume ramping from warming up a new domain or sender setup.
💡 Tip: Review last year’s BFCM data to identify your strongest send times, contact segments, offers, subject lines, and engagement results. Use these insights to plan this year’s campaign calendar and sending strategy.
Plan Your Sending Strategy
Choose sending times using engagement data
The clock time itself is not the main deliverability risk. Concentrated sending volume is a greater concern, especially when many senders launch large campaigns at the same time.
Use your historical performance data or Send-Time Optimization to identify strong engagement windows. Morning and evening sends can both work when they match your audience’s behavior.
To reduce concentration:
Avoid sending a large Email Campaign exactly on the hour.
Use less predictable launch times.
Stagger large sends in waves.
Avoid sending multiple campaigns to the same audience at the same time.
Review Campaigns and Automation Workflows together before finalizing your calendar.
Schedule campaigns around the times when your Contacts typically engage or purchase.
Increase volume gradually
Use a conservative ramp of approximately 25–35% per Email Campaign as a general starting point. Adjust the pace based on your sending history, sender domain reputation, engagement, and available preparation time.
Plan volume across your entire sending program. Consider:
Volume growth per send.
Overall sending frequency.
Total recipient exposure across Email Campaigns and Automation Workflows.
Cart and browse abandonment messages.
Post-purchase messages.
Recent purchases and conversions.
Suppression rules for unsubscribed or complaining Contacts.
Build a campaign calendar
Map every Email Campaign and relevant Automation Workflow from the pre-sale period through Cyber Monday. Include:
Send dates and launch times.
Contact segments.
Offer details.
Planned frequency.
Total estimated recipient exposure.
Suppression rules.
Pause criteria.
Suppress or exclude contacts when appropriate, including recent purchasers, recent converters, unsubscribed contacts, and contacts who submitted complaints.
💡 A combined calendar helps prevent overlapping messages and last-minute volume spikes.
Build anticipation with pre-sale campaigns
Send pre-sale or early-access campaigns to your most engaged contacts several days before your main holiday campaigns. This can help you test content and identify potential deliverability issues before your largest sends.
Start with recent clickers, purchasers, and highly engaged contacts, ideally from the last 30 days. Expand toward contacts engaged within the last 60–90 days only when performance remains healthy.
💡 Use relevant content based on contact behavior and purchase history. Read more about personalization in Omnisend.
Warm Up a New Domain or Sender Setup
A new sending domain or sender setup needs time to establish a sending history with mailbox providers. An established domain with stable performance does not need to restart this process automatically for every holiday season.
When warming up a new setup:
Start with recent clickers, purchasers, and highly engaged contacts, ideally from the last 30 days.
Monitor clicks, conversions, complaints, unsubscribes, hard bounces, and delivery delays.
Expand toward contacts engaged within the last 60–90 days only when performance remains healthy.
Test older or inactive audiences separately and in controlled groups.
Increase the audience gradually, using approximately 25–35% per Email Campaign as a starting point.
Adjust your frequency based on engagement and total recipient exposure.
Do not rely on opens as the primary engagement signal. Use engagement trends over time, clicks, purchases, conversions, complaints, unsubscribes, bounces, and mailbox-provider performance.
Test inactive contacts carefully
If you want to reach an inactive audience, test approximately 10% of the intended audience first. Scale only when the results remain healthy.
Do not combine an inactive-audience reactivation with a major volume increase or a new sending domain. Test one significant change at a time.
Maintain a Clean Contact List
More contacts don't mean more sales. Focus on contact quality, not quantity.
List cleaning removes faulty and outdated emails from your contact list. It's one of the best practices in email marketing that keeps your database up to date and protects your deliverability.
Benefits of list cleaning:
Higher open and click rates.
Fewer bounces and spam complaints.
Better sender reputation with inbox providers.
More accurate reporting.
Higher ROI on your campaigns.
Omnisend offers automated list cleaning. In a few clicks, you can enhance your deliverability and improve campaign performance. Invalid data has a cumulative effect, so don't wait until the damage is visible.
Use Clear Subject Lines
Your email subject line is the second thing your customers see in their inbox after the sender's name. It's one of the key factors that determines whether they'll open your email.
Avoid excessive capitalization, emojis, and exclamation marks. Use clear subject lines that describe the offer or customer benefit.
What works better: Clear subject lines mentioning specific deals, such as "Black Friday sale: 30–35% off," are more likely to be opened than "BLACK FRIDAY SALE NOW!!!!"
Add urgency: Include how long the discount will be available (e.g., "Ends tonight," "24 hours only"). Typical Black Friday sales run four days, from Friday through Cyber Monday. This creates urgency and drives action.
A/B test your subject lines: Don't use a single subject line. Test at least three different versions to see what resonates with your audience.
💡 What to A/B test:
Discount percentage in subject line vs. benefit-focused copy.
Urgency language ("Ends tonight" vs. "Last chance").
Personalization (name, product category, past purchase).
💬 Useful Resources:
Use Omnisend's subject line generator and subject line tester to optimize before sending.
Read the full guide: Email Subject Line Best Practices.
Monitor Performance and Define Pause Criteria
Decide in advance what would cause you to slow down or pause sending. Consider pausing or reducing volume when you see:
A sharp increase in hard bounces.
Complaints above your normal trend.
A significant increase in unsubscribes.
Delivery delays or deferrals.
A significant drop in clicks or conversions.
Multiple negative signals from the same mailbox provider.
Bounce rates above your usual benchmark.
If performance worsens, pause the next volume increase, review the audience, clean invalid contacts, and investigate the cause before sending more.
FAQ
Should I send to my entire list during BFCM?
No. Prioritize your most engaged subscribers. Start with recent clickers, purchasers, and highly engaged contacts, then expand toward older engaged segments only when performance remains healthy. Sending broadly to inactive contacts can reduce engagement, increase spam complaints, and hurt your deliverability.
If you want to reach less active contacts, test them separately through a controlled re-engagement or win-back campaign.
Should I avoid sending in the morning or evening?
No. Morning and evening sends can both work when supported by your historical engagement data or Send-Time Optimization.
Avoid concentrated volume instead. Stagger large sends, use less predictable launch times, and avoid sending multiple campaigns to the same audience simultaneously.
How much should I increase my sending volume?
Start with approximately 25–35% growth per Email Campaign and monitor results. Plan total exposure across Email Campaigns and Automation Workflows.
Use twice your normal frequency as a guardrail, not as a recommended volume ramp.
Do I need to warm up my domain before BFCM?
Warm up a new domain or sender setup. An established domain with a stable sending history does not necessarily need to be warmed up again. You should still ramp seasonal volume gradually and monitor deliverability signals.
What should I do if deliverability worsens?
Pause or slow down sending when hard bounces, complaints, unsubscribes, delivery delays, clicks, or conversions move in the wrong direction. Clean the audience and investigate before scaling again.
What if my emails go to spam during BFCM?
Contact [email protected] for a deliverability review.
Need help right now? Our 24/7 Support Team is standing by in the in-app chat or at [email protected].