Get answers to your SMS and email sending questions, including when to start talking about BFCM, best times to send, and how many messages to send across channels.

“When is the best time to send a text or an email?” is one of the questions we hear most often from brands. As we get closer to the biggest shopping period of the year, this question might be even more top of mind, since shopping behaviors tend to look a bit different during BFCM. 

Most likely, the send times and frequency that work for your brand throughout the rest of the year will need to be adjusted during BFCM to match your subscribers’ shopping habits and the limited-time nature of your campaigns. 

While there’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution for what works best, you can use this guide as a starting point to find the BFCM send times and frequency that work for your brand.

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When should I start sending BFCM text messages and emails?

This year, 75% of shoppers are anticipating some change to their end-of-year holiday spend. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t ready to shop—it just means they’re buying fewer items and going on the hunt for deals.

It also means they’re shopping earlier. 39% of consumers plan to start their Q4 holiday shopping before October—and only 23% will wait until November.

As the end-of-year shopping period expands, we recommend you take a compounding approach to your BFCM text message and email campaign calendar.

Keep in mind that today’s shoppers aren’t following a linear path—some are building wish lists while others are already making purchases within the same timeframe. 

Serve both audiences simultaneously: 

• September - October: Educate subscribers about your products and brand to help them build their shopping lists and build loyalty for future purchases. This is a great time to share educational content about your bestsellers, your brand value proposition, and loyalty programs. Also lean into gift guides, user-generated content, and conversational messages to help shoppers in their discovery and research process. 
• October - Early November: Launch initial seasonal promotions to capture earlybird shoppers. You can align these with seasonal moments, including the start of fall and Halloween. Early promos are a great testing ground for your BFCM campaigns. With shifting customer behavior, you can overlap these with your education and loyalty-building campaigns that you started in September.
• Mid- to late-November: Last year, we saw purchases start to increase the Monday before BFCM, so you can start texting and emailing your subscribers with BFCM-specific deals as early as the Sunday before. Even if your sales don’t start until later in the week, you can give subscribers a heads up on what to expect by sharing a countdown or teasing your deals schedule. Keep the campaigns going through the BFCM weekend by promoting extended Black Friday sales, or early access to Cyber Monday offers.
• Post-BFCM: Continue messaging through the end of the year. Send extended sales messages, shipping deadline reminders, gift card promos, and New Year’s prep campaigns to capture last-minute shoppers. Use post-purchase flows that include product tips, loyalty program invites, and product recommendations to build relationships with the customers you acquired during BFCM.

Create your messaging roadmap: Read 60 Days to BFCM: Nurture Your Path to build a unified email and SMS strategy that builds anticipation, drives sales, and nurtures customer relationships throughout Q4.

How can I drive urgency ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday? 

We recommend two core strategies for driving urgency ahead of BFCM:

1. Draw in new subscribers with BFCM promos

Use your BFCM promotions to grow your subscriber list. In late October and early November, launch sign-up units promoting your scheduled sales, encouraging site visitors to sign up to be the first to know when they begin.

Once Cyber Week kicks off, send a dedicated campaign to this segment of subscribers giving them early access to your deals. Your subscribers will appreciate the heads-up, and it’ll help you break through the inbox clutter on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Update those sign-up units once again for Cyber Week to promote your deals. Last year, Attentive brands brought in 12 million new SMS subscribers and 19 million new email subscribers during Cyber Week.

2. Prep your VIPs to shop

As you get closer to BFCM, start engaging your VIPs—whether you define them as loyalty members, top spenders, most engaged subscribers, or something else. These subscribers are the most likely to convert right away during Cyber Week. 

Create a brand loyalists segment so you can easily send them emails and texts that the rest of your subscribers won’t receive. A few ideas you can send them include:

• Early access to your BFCM deals
• Double loyalty points for a limited time
• Free shipping 
• Dedicated “VIP” sitewide sale
• Complimentary add-ons like gift wrapping 

As you approach the end of Cyber Monday, follow up with anyone in this segment who hasn’t made a purchase yet, and let them know the deals are ending soon.‍

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When is the best time to text subscribers during Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

During Cyber Week last year, SMS was a clear conversion driver, achieving the highest click-through and conversion rates on Friday and Monday. Because it’s an immediate channel, consumers can see (and click on) brands’ messages right away.

Our data showed clear patterns between the most popular SMS send time and highest-converting SMS send time, but there are a couple baseline best practices to keep in mind:

• Phone carrier congestion peaks between 10am and 3pm ET on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, with the fastest message delivery rates before or after those times.
• Messages send fastest outside the top of the hour and half hour, so consider sending at off times like 11:05am, 1:40pm, etc.
• Attentive’s recommended quiet hours are 8pm–12pm ET to account for federal and state laws. If you have questions about the “best” time to send based on local laws, we recommend checking with your counsel for specific compliance requirements in your markets.

Our customers found that targeting different times for each day of Cyber Week—based on what consumers were most likely up to and the urgency of the offers—was the most effective strategy.

Breaking it down by the most popular times to send, and by the highest conversion rates (CVRs), we discovered: 

• Thursday (Thanksgiving): 11am was the most popular send time, although messages sent at 3pm the best CVR. 
• Friday (Black Friday): While 9am was the most popular send time, messages sent at 12pm unlocked a higher CVR. 
• Saturday (Small Business Saturday): 7pm saw the highest send volume, but 3pm saw the highest CVR.
• Sunday: 10am was the most popular send time, and messages sent at 4pm saw an increase in CVR. 
• Monday (Cyber Monday): 9am was the most popular time to send text messages, while messages sent at 2pm had a higher CVR. 
• Tuesday (Giving Tuesday): 7pm saw the highest send volume, but messages sent at 4pm drove a higher total CVR. 

The split between the most popular send times and highest conversions makes sense: Brands often sent their campaigns in the morning, but consumers held off on purchasing until later in the day. This year, your BFCM schedule will come down to balancing getting shoppers’ attention early to introduce them to your deals, and following up when they’re ready to make a purchase.

Most of the year, we recommend using Send Time AI to deliver messages at the time of day each unique subscriber is likely to engage with a campaign. This will continue to be an effective strategy outside core sale days with time-sensitive deals like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

However, during Cyber Week, we recommend using manual send times because most BFCM campaigns are time-sensitive. Waiting for each subscriber’s “ideal” time might cause them to miss out on fast-selling products and limited-time sales altogether.

In general, we recommend using a specified send time for any campaigns that are:

• Time-sensitive: If a campaign needs to be delivered at specific times or rely on urgency to drive traffic (for example, a flash sale that ends in four hours), use a manual send time instead of Send Time AI.
• Targeted towards new subscribers: When you schedule a message with Send Time AI, the audience of the message is determined at midnight company time zone, so only subscribers who have signed up the day before will receive the messages.
• Targeted towards subscribers receiving other messages with smart sending on the same day: Smart sending excludes subscribers who’ve received a brand campaign recently so they don’t receive too many messages in a row. Since Send Time AI can be sent to subscribers throughout the day, other messages with smart sending turned on may be skipped for part of your audience.

Additionally, you may consider using Attentive’s time zone-based message-sending feature to adjust send time to align with each subscriber’s time zone. This is another great way to reach shoppers at an optimal time based on their location, but should also be avoided for time-sensitive campaigns.

Pro tip: Don’t use same-day retargeting for messages sent in subscribers’ local time zone. The audience for the follow-up message is locked at the first send time, and the first message may not have finished sending, which will result in the follow-up message under-sending. If you want to use local time zone retargeting, messages should be spaced 12-24 hours apart.

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‍When is the best time to send email campaigns during Black Friday Cyber Monday?

Email excelled as an awareness channel in 2024, with peak click-through and conversion rates on the Tuesday before Black Friday as it drove early engagement.

While brands and consumers used SMS during typical business hours, email was the star of the show in the early morning and late in the evening, when shoppers were likely to check their email inboxes.

Looking at the most popular send times and the highest CVRs, we discovered: 

• Thursday (Thanksgiving): 8am was the most popular time to send, but‌ messages sent at 10pm had the highest CVR. 
• Friday (Black Friday): 9am was the most popular time to send, while messages sent at 11pm saw a higher CVR. 
• Saturday (Small Business Saturday): Brands sent the most messages at 8am, while those sent at 9am saw a higher CVR. 
• Sunday: 9am was the most popular time to send, while messages sent at 1am had a higher CVR. 
• Monday (Cyber Monday): While 8am was the most popular time to send, messages sent at 10pm had a higher CVR. 
• Tuesday (Giving Tuesday): 7pm was the most popular time to send, and 10pm saw the highest CVR. 

Like with SMS, it’s often helpful to send an email earlier in the day, and then again later in the day when subscribers are ready to buy. Email excels at late night targeting (9pm–12am) when you can’t send SMS due to Quiet Hours. You’ll be at the top of shoppers’ inboxes as they check their emails one last time before bed.  

As with SMS, Send Time AI and time zone-based sending are great for customizing email campaign delivery time to each subscriber. However, we recommend using manual or specified send times for campaigns that are:

• Time-sensitive (which includes most BFCM promotions)
• Targeted towards new subscribers, if using Send Time AI (since only subscribers who have signed up the day before will receive the messages)
• Targeted towards subscribers receiving other messages with smart sending on the same day (so those messages don’t get skipped)

And like with SMS, you should avoid using same-day retargeting for messages sent in subscribers’ local time zone since the first message may not have finished sending, which will result in the follow-up message under-sending.

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How many text messages should I send during BFCM?

When we crunched the data from BFCM 2024, we saw a fascinating trend. Revenue went up exponentially the more a brand sent SMS campaign messages.

We analyzed brands’ revenue and ROI trends as they increased their text messaging frequency in November. Brands saw the most success during Cyber Week when they sent 3x the number of campaigns they would in a normal month (we recommend looking at averages across August through October). 

If you’d like a more concrete number to benchmark against, we recommend sending at least 6 BFCM-related campaigns. If you’re a larger brand, you could send upwards of 11 campaigns. 

Plus, we discovered that opt-outs during Black Friday and Cyber Monday are actually a good thing.

75% of subscribers who opt out during Cyber Week have never made a purchase from that brand. And most of the remaining 25% have only ever made one purchase, likely from their original welcome message. This means you’re not losing value when subscribers opt out during Cyber Week. You’re actually getting your budget back, so you can send to subscribers who are ready to buy.

It’s a natural way to clean up your list. 

Pro Tip: Send texts to your full list during this period to maximize revenue. That doesn’t mean you have to “batch and blast” the same message to everyone, though. Create different segments within your subscriber list based on first- and zero-party data you’ve collected, so each message still feels relevant to different audiences.

What types of text messages should I send during Black Friday and Cyber Monday? 

During BFCM, focus on messages that create urgency and inspire purchases:

• Sales announcements and reminders: Send notifications for your deals. If your sale lasts several days, use SMS campaigns to bookend the sale—one to announce the sale and another on the last day to remind them this is their last chance.
• Teaser content: Let shoppers know what deals you have coming with countdowns and sneak previews.
• Inventory messages: Send low stock alerts and back-in-stock notifications for trending items or products a shopper has shown interest in.
• VIP and early access campaigns: Share exclusive previews for loyalty members, early access to deals before the general public, and member-only pricing or bonus offers.‍
• Post-purchase follow-ups: Add cross-sell and upsell opportunities to your post-purchase flows to encourage subscribers to keep shopping.

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How many emails should I send during BFCM?

When deciding how many emails you should send during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, think through the lens of maintaining a strong deliverability score. 

The exact number of campaigns you should send will vary depending on a variety of factors like your vertical, audience size, and sales volume. 

While this is going to look different from brand to brand, after digging into our 2024 BFCM data, we have three key recommendations:

1. Keep your triggered email journeys on

Your behavioral flows are your work horses on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. They’re a sure-fire way to get shoppers coming back to your site with personalized reminders and offers, and to engage them after they’ve made a purchase.

The essential journeys we recommend you activate if you haven’t already are:

• Welcome series
• Browse and cart abandonment
• Post-purchase
• Winback
• Inventory updates
• Transactional

Turn these on well in advance of Black Friday to assist with deliverability. If you’re suddenly sending all these messages, plus your sales campaigns, during Cyber Week for the first time, it could trigger email spam filters.

Update your journeys with BFCM-specific language so they stay relevant. For example, if subscribers can’t layer their welcome discount on top of your BFCM sales, remove that offer from your welcome message and promote your deals instead.

Consider adjusting the timing of your journeys as well to match shoppers’ different habits on these days and the time-sensitive nature of your deals. For example, you might send abandonment messages sooner so they don’t miss out.

2. Start ramping email volume gradually

Don’t save all your email sends for a single, big BFCM spike. We’ve found that sending a slightly higher, more consistent volume of emails from Q2 to Q4 before BFCM is more effective.

Last year, brands that spiked their campaign sends in Q4 without a gradual increase saw 22% lower ROI than all other brands.

If you didn’t already start ramping up in Q2, it’s not too late to start. Increase email sends by no more than 5–10% of the previous day’s send volume:

• High-volume senders (1M+ emails/day): Stay closer to a 5% daily increase
• Smaller volume senders (~100K emails/day): You can target the 10% growth rate

This gradual approach prevents email providers from blocking messages due to a sudden change in sending behavior.

This will also clean up your subscriber list by removing bad addresses over time, rather than seeing a spike in bounce rate on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. 

‍Pro tip: As you ramp, start by targeting your most engaged subscribers first to maintain a high open rate.

3. Strike a balance between staying in touch with your audience and avoiding email fatigue

Segment your list based on engagement levels and tailor the frequency of emails accordingly. Aim for consistency without overwhelming your subscribers. Too much unread email can cause mailbox providers to flag your emails as unwanted or spammy, which will result in widespread deliverability issues.

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For more strategies and inspiration, step into The Marketers Sanctuary: A BFCM marketing resource filled with time-honored wisdom and foundational practices to help guide, ground, and amplify your strategies for the busiest time of the year.