Deliverability
The holidays reward senders who prep early, target smart, and respect the inbox. If you build momentum now by warming infrastructure, tightening segments, and aligning teams you’ll ship more messages to the inbox when it matters most.
“I always consider it the deliverability Super Bowl… it’s the time when all of us are activated.” — Mike Auldredge
Peak season activates every mailbox provider and every sender. Volume surges, filters tighten, and mistakes get magnified. Treat November like game day and September and October like your warm-up.
Start earlier than you think. The best Black Friday performance is earned in September and October. Begin list curation, audience split testing, frequency planning, and offer sequencing now before the holiday flood.
“Every year I’m like, we’re gonna start early this year, right guys?… There’s always a new batch of folks that have no idea what’s going on. Start now.”
“Every year I’m like, we’re gonna start early this year, right guys?… There’s always a new batch of folks that have no idea what’s going on. Start now.” — Allison Gootee
Warm up, don’t blast. Hype your offers with a targeted pre-season series. Use engagement from those teasers to shape your Black Friday and Cyber Monday audience. Save the “whole list” approach for myths and legends.
One of the more exciting trends in recent years is seeing senders hype their deals ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Instead of waiting until the big day, they roll out carefully targeted drip campaigns to let their audiences know a major promotion is on the way. This early “hype train” not only builds anticipation but also provides valuable engagement data to fine tune lists before the main send. The key is following through on those promises, giving your most engaged subscribers something truly worth their attention.
“Hype the deals with carefully targeted drips… then fine tune your list for the actual Black Friday Cyber Monday send and really deliver on what you promised.”
“Hype the deals with carefully targeted drips… then fine tune your list for the actual Black Friday Cyber Monday send and really deliver on what you promised.” — Mike Auldredge
Make email engagement your north star. Define engagement by email signals first such as opens, clicks, and recent activity. Purchases or app logins are helpful, but inbox providers weigh email behavior most.
Some marketers define engagement as a login, a page view in the past year, or even a purchase, but inbox providers like Gmail do not see that activity. They only measure how recipients interact with your emails. That is why email engagement should be the foundation of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday audience strategy. Those engaged contacts are far less likely to trigger filtering issues, keeping your campaigns where they belong in the inbox. Business data such as purchase history can still help refine your targeting, but it should supplement rather than replace core email engagement signals.
“Gmail doesn’t know how many custom slippers your customer bought… make email engagement paramount and use business data to supplement.”
“Gmail doesn’t know how many custom slippers your customer bought… make email engagement paramount and use business data to supplement.” — Mike Auldredge
Reengage dormant users safely. Work a small dynamic slice of inactive contacts into regular traffic now. Think one to two percent to start. Lead with a single CTA and opt in framing like “Want our holiday deals” not a perfunctory opt out nudge.
Marketers often wonder how much of their inactive audience they can safely include in holiday sends. A common guideline is to avoid mixing more than about ten percent of unengaged contacts with active subscribers, since higher proportions can hurt performance and lead to deliverability issues. The safer approach is to reintroduce inactive users slowly, giving them opportunities to opt back in through clear, respectful messaging. Simple prompts such as “We haven’t heard from you in a while, do you still want to stay on the list?” help confirm interest, reduce risk, and keep reengagement efforts transparent.
“I love messages that say, ‘Haven’t heard from you—do you still want in?’… that’s honest and respectful.”
“I love messages that say, ‘Haven’t heard from you—do you still want in?’… that’s honest and respectful.” — Jonathan “JT” Torres
Don’t make big changes in November. Avoid new dedicated IPs, fresh sending domains, or major routing changes during peak season. If you must split marketing versus transactional or add capacity, do it now and warm gradually. And don’t drop legal or terms of service blasts on transactional IPs—protect receipts and password resets at all costs.
Coordinate across teams and channels. Rogue sends burn reputation. Align campaign calendars, suppressions, and frequency caps across marketing, product, and lifecycle teams. If users are active in-app but cold on email, message them in-app first. Don’t risk your sender reputation to say what a push or modal can.
Protect list quality during peak sign ups. Holiday sign ups spike and so do bots. Use bot protection and CAPTCHA on forms, double opt in for new subscribers, and a preference center like “Only holiday deals” or “Weekly round-up” to set expectations. You’ll start 2026 with a cleaner higher intent list.
Everyone sends more in November. Stand out by sending less but better: meaningful subject lines, clear value, time boxed promos, and no top of the hour launches. Map your promo arc such as Monday category X, Tuesday BOGO, Wednesday free shipping so customers can plan and feel good about buying from you.
“I always consider it the deliverability Super Bowl… it’s the time when all of us are activated.”
The takeaway is simple. Start early, send smarter, and let engagement, not list size, drive your Black Friday and Cyber Monday strategy. Your inbox placement and revenue will thank you.
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