It's the Saturday of Black Friday weekend. Your sale is live, your inbox is stuffed with everyone else's sales, and you're staring at tomorrow's subject line wondering whether a third email in one day is too much, or whether you should have sent one more yesterday.
I've been writing Black Friday campaigns every year since 2018, for my own shop and for clients. I even launched my first digital product, a $59 Instagram Caption Toolkit, on Black Friday weekend in 2019, before The Copy Template Shop even existed (the shop came the following year). Since then I've asked myself that same question - "how many Black Friday emails should I send?" - WAY more times than I'd like to admit. So here's the honest answer, with all my juicy insights of a near-decade of BFCM email writing to support it.
How many Black Friday emails should you send?
You probably saw this coming: there's no one right number. It depends mainly on two things: your capacity, and how warm your email list is.
If you haven't emailed your list in months, don't suddenly send them three or four emails a day. Spend a month or two warming them up before your sale, so that Black Friday isn't the first time they've heard from you in a while. Then, as a minimum, send one email a day while the sale is live and at least two on the last day.
If your list is used to hearing from you several times a week, scale up. One email a day probably won't stand out in an inbox that's used to more from you.
Here's what that looks like in practice:
- Cold list (minimum): warm-up emails for a month or two beforehand, then a heads-up, one email a day from Friday to Sunday, and a morning and an evening email on Monday. That's six emails throughout the sale.
- Warm list (scaled up): the heads-up, a morning and an evening email each day, plus an extra last-day email an hour before close, and a "sale is closed" the following day. Add a waitlist with early access and you can run well past ten.
(Updated for 2026: Black Friday is Friday, November 27, and Cyber Monday is Monday, November 30. If you're reading this post when it was published, you have about seven weeks, which is plenty.)
Here's how I'd use the next few weeks to prepare:
- Now to mid-November: if your list has gone quiet, start emailing it again, once a week to begin with, and send things worth reading before you ask for anything.
- This month: make the decisions in the section below (what's on sale, what leads, what the deadline is), so you aren't deciding them on the day.
- Around November 4: if you're offering early access, send the waitlist invite.
- Around November 18: send the heads-up, with an opt-out link.
- Write the sale emails now, while there's no deadline breathing down your neck.
Why does Black Friday need a different email plan than a launch?
During a launch, your job is to help someone decide whether your offer is right for them. That takes persuading, and the emails are built to do it.
Black Friday is a different kind of beast. Most of your readers already know what you sell, and plenty of them have had something of yours sitting in a mental "someday" cart for months. They're shopping with their card already out, and they're being emailed by every business they've ever bought from.
So your job is smaller and sharper: make the deal impossible to miss, make it easy to shop, and be honest about when it ends. It's less about convincing and more about offering the kind of clarity that's needed for a sale.
That changes the math on email count. You're not building a case across a dozen emails; you're showing up on the days people are deciding, with something short enough to read in one breath. Your most engaged readers will buy on day one or two and won't see the rest. Everyone still hanging around later is a fence-sitter who hasn't noticed the sale, or has noticed it and hasn't decided. The later emails are for them.
How many Black Friday emails do YOU send, Megan?
I usually send about five or six, and both of my last two Black Friday sales were five emails over four days. The main reason for that is really boring: capacity. I plan more emails than I end up sending, but when it's my own sale, I'm scrambling to write them at the last minute, and the sale gets however many I have time for. I'm happy with the results, buuuuut I also know I could do better.
Client work looks different. We plan the warm-up and the sale campaigns months ahead, so there's time and capacity to write a lot more emails. And what I've seen across all of it is that, in general, the more emails we send, the more sales we make.
So don't copy my five. Copy the planning I do for clients, and give yourself the time I don't always give myself.
What three rules should every Black Friday email follow?
1. Say the deal in the first line. Nobody opens a Black Friday email to read a story. The discount, what it applies to and when it ends belong at the very top. The shape that works: one scene-setting fragment, then "because...", then the deal, then your button within three lines.
2. Keep it short. Your reader has dozens of other sale emails to get through. Aim for 250 words, one job per email, and one button repeated rather than five different links. Every year I've written these, the emails have gotten shorter, and I've never once wished I'd said more.
3. Make the deadline obvious and clear, and don't move it. A discount without a deadline is just a price. Give yours a clock time and a time zone ("midnight Pacific," not "Monday"), put it near the top of the email, say it again in the PS, and make it real, ideally enforced by your cart or an expiring coupon rather than by your good intentions.
Then keep it. I almost never extend a deadline, and I'd save an extension for a genuinely good reason, like a checkout that broke. Your deadline is only as believable as the last one you kept, and if you extend one year, your "final hours" email next year does a lot less work.
What should you decide before you write a single email?
Most Black Friday email stress is really unmade decisions. Before I write a single email, I answer a short list of questions (it's the Black Friday Mechanics page in my Launch Email Library):
- What's on sale, and what's the discount on each offer?
- What is not on sale?
- Which offer leads, and how will the price be shown?
- Where does the "shop the sale" link go?
- Who gets early access, and how?
- Is there a bonus (a spend threshold, a first-20-buyers extra, a pay-in-full perk)? This one's optional.
- What's the deadline, with a date, clock time and time zone, and what enforces it?
- Is it a code or automatic?
- What's the opt-out link (the one that removes someone from Black Friday emails only)?
- Who is excluded from these emails?
- What happens after the sale?
Your answers set your email count. No bonus means no bonus-reveal email. No early access means no waitlist emails. One offer on sale means no bestseller spotlight.
Which emails does a Black Friday weekend need?
Here are all 14 emails on my Black Friday shelf, in send order. Every one is optional. You pull the ones your sale needs and leave the rest.
Before the sale
- The waitlist invite, two to three weeks out, if you're offering early access. It gets a warm, self-selected list ready to buy first.
- The heads-up, one to two weeks out: what's going on sale, when, and how to opt out of the reminders.
- The bonus reveal, a day or two before doors open, only if you have a bonus.
During the sale
- The early access email to your waitlist, if you have one.
- "Black Friday is here" to everyone: the deal, what it covers, the deadline, one button.
- The bonus nudge, telling people how few fast-action spots are left (only if you have a bonus).
- Small Business Saturday, a natural Saturday angle that keeps your own sale front and center.
- The bestseller spotlight, which points people at your two or three most-loved offers.
- The shopping guide, which matches a reader's goal to the right offer ("tell me what you want and I'll tell you what to get"). It works well on a slow Sunday.
- The proof email, in which a few buyers do the selling for you.
- The elephant in the room, where you answer the one worry that stops people buying from you even on sale.
The last day and after
- Cyber Monday (last day) in the morning, with the deadline in the first line.
- The final hours: four to six lines, one button, the clock.
- The sale is closed, the next day: full price is back, thanks to your buyers, and one question for non-buyers.
You'll never send all 14 in one sale. Pick the ones that fit your list and your capacity. The one rule I wouldn't skip: during the sale itself, one email a day is the minimum, and at least two on the last day. Quiet days are when your reader forgets you're running one.
Want sample schedules, or a schedule handed to you?
If you'd like to see sample schedules, or you'd like me to hand you a schedule for your sale, grab the Launch Email Library. The Black Friday shelf has two send schedules (a Friday-to-Monday discount, and a fuller one with a waitlist and early access), each with a minimum and a robust version, plus the emails to go with them.
Will sending more emails make people unsubscribe?
Some people will, and most of them weren't going to buy this weekend anyway. What you can control is whether they leave your list or just the sale.
Add an opt-out link to every sale email, something like "Don't want to hear about Black Friday? Click here and I'll take you off the rest of these emails (you'll still get everything else from me)." Tag whoever clicks it and leave them out of the rest of the campaign.
It feels backwards to make it easy for people to opt out of your sale. But those people are still on your list in January instead of hitting unsubscribe on Cyber Monday because they got tired of hearing from you.
But, remember: the people who were going to unsubscribe were going to leave anyway. If they're a good fit for your business, they tend to come back.
You also have to remember that whatever you're selling, you're a business, and you deserve to treat it like one. On Black Friday weekend, people expect businesses to act like businesses. So stop worrying so much about spamming or bothering people.
Email list segmentation is how you keep opt-outs and recent buyers out of the reminders. And if you're offering early access, a waitlist is the easiest way to build the warm group you open the sale to first.
The bottom line
There's no magic number of emails to send for Black Friday. It depends on your capacity and how warm your list is. Warm a cold list up for a month or two first, send at least one email a day during the sale and at least two on the last day, and scale up if your list is used to hearing from you.
Whatever your count, put the deal in the first line, keep it short, make the deadline clear and don't move it, and add an opt-out link to every sale email.
If you'd rather not start from a blank page, the Black Friday shelf in the Launch Email Library has 14 short sale emails, the two send schedules, the Mechanics page and a Black Friday subject line library made of real subject lines I've written since 2018. And if you'd like to hear me walk through it, there's a free audio training, about 30 minutes, on writing Black Friday emails that make bank: Black Friday Emails That Make Bank.
Frequently asked questions
How many Black Friday emails is too many?
There's no hard-and-fast rule, and no easy answer. It depends on three things: how long your sale runs, how warm and engaged your list is (and how used to hearing from you they are), and what you're selling / how good the offer is. You'll have to make that judgment call for yourself. If you think it's too much, it's probably perfect. The only thing that's genuinely too much is something like an email every hour.
When should I start emailing about Black Friday?
If your list is cold, a month or two before, to warm it up. For the sale itself, two to three weeks before for a waitlist invite, and one to two weeks before for a heads-up.
How long should a Black Friday email be?
80 to 250 words, with one job and one button. The deal should be in the first line, and the later emails (last day, final hours) should get shorter still.
Should I email on Thanksgiving?
You can, but you don't have to. If your list is mostly celebrating, a rest day is fine. If your waitlist is already shopping that week, a waitlist-only email is a good use of the day.
Should I extend my Black Friday sale if it's going well?
Almost never. A surprise extension teaches your list that your deadlines are soft. The one good reason is a real problem on your end, like a broken checkout.
