BFCM (Black Friday/Cyber Monday) brings the highest email sending volumes of the year. Inbox providers like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook tighten filtering during this period to protect users from spam. Without proper preparation, your emails risk landing in spam folders or being blocked entirely.
This guide covers the essential deliverability practices to protect your inbox placement during the holiday season.
Before You Begin
Authenticate your sender domain – If your domain isn't signed with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, [set it up now](link to domain signature guide).
Check your baseline metrics – Review your current open rate (should be ≥20%), spam complaint rate (<0.1%), and bounce rate (<0.3%).
Clean your list – Remove invalid, bounced, and unengaged contacts before BFCM. Learn how to clean your list.
Plan Your Sending Strategy
Avoid peak sending times
During BFCM, everyone sends at obvious times (midnight, 9 AM, noon). This creates inbox congestion and delays. Send at off-peak times like 10:14 AM or 3:37 PM to improve deliverability.
Check your sales data
Go to your store admin and review when your customers typically buy. Schedule campaigns around those windows for better engagement.
Build anticipation with pre-sale campaigns
Tease your Black Friday deals a few days early. Use countdown timers and sneak peeks to keep subscribers engaged without overwhelming them.
Don't over-send
Stick to your regular sending frequency with only a slight increase before Black Friday (1.5–2x max). Jumping from weekly emails to daily blasts triggers spam filters and annoys subscribers.
If your emails bother people too much, they may stop opening them. This alerts inbox providers and harms your sender reputation. Worse, some users may report your emails as spam, damaging deliverability even further.
Create a campaign calendar
Map out every send from pre-sale to Cyber Monday. Include send dates, audience segments, and offer details. This prevents last-minute mistakes and overlapping campaigns.
Planning your holiday campaigns beyond just Black Friday and Cyber Monday sets your store up for success throughout the season.
💬 Explore our BFCM webinar series for expert strategies on campaign planning, deliverability, and Q4 optimization.
Warm-up Your Audience Before the Holiday Sale
It's a common mistake to start sending emails right before the Holidays without warming up your audience. This leads to low engagement rates and may cause your emails to be blocked.
A proper warm-up period helps your sender domain build trust with mailbox providers, increasing the chances of your emails reaching the inbox.
The warm-up process may seem slow, but it's essential and cannot be skipped if you want to avoid the spam folder. Without a warm-up, your messages may be blocked completely.
How to warm up your domain:
Segment your contacts – Start by sending to your most engaged subscribers (opened or clicked in the last 30–90 days).
Gradually increase volume – Grow your audience by 1.5–2x for each campaign.
Send consistently – Send no more than one campaign per day, three times per week.
💡 Tip: Start by Getting People Interested
During warm-up, send emails to people who are most likely to open and click. Engagement signals to inbox providers (especially Gmail) that your emails are wanted.
Pre-sale strategy:
Send "pre-sale" or "early access" campaigns to your most engaged customers at least a few days before your main holiday emails. Target:
Repeat customers who have ordered from you and stayed subscribed for 6+ months.
Subscribers who joined in the last 3–6 months.
Anyone who opened an email in the last year.
This strategy helps your main sales emails reach more people, because providers like Gmail will see that your pre-sale got strong engagement and will deliver more emails to the inbox instead of spam.
Personalization matters:
Segment your customers and create relevant content based on their behavior and purchase history. Customizing your messages based on what your customers share and buy helps you send more targeted, engaging emails.
💬 Read the full guide: Use Personalization in Omnisend.
Maintain a Clean Subscriber 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.
Drive Conversions with Better 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.
Email marketers sometimes get aggressive with ALL CAPS, emojis, and excessive exclamation marks during Black Friday and Cyber Monday to stand out. This approach often backfires.
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 one week, 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.
FAQ
Should I send to my entire list during BFCM?
No. Focus on engaged subscribers (opened or clicked in the last 6–12 months). Sending to unengaged contacts increases spam complaints and hurts deliverability.
How many emails can I send during BFCM week?
Don't exceed 2x your normal frequency. If you typically send 1 email/week, send no more than 2/week during BFCM or start increasing your volume before BFCM. Sudden volume spikes trigger spam filters.
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].