Black Friday and Cyber Monday represent peak email sending periods that can make or break retailers’ holiday success. $123.17 billion in online revenue, with $11.7 billion generated on Black Friday alone, according to Adobe.
For brands, delivering critical emails goes beyond just sending seasonal promotions, and includes making sure transactional emails like every purchase confirmation, shipping update, and customer service message reach the inbox when it matters most.
Email is still the first choice for consumers when it comes to connecting with businesses during the holiday season, but how did brands stack up to consumer expectations?
To understand how effectively brands delivered during this critical period, we analyzed the billions of emails sent through Sinch Mailgun and Sinch Mailjet’s email platforms throughout Black November.
Email volumes surged ~30% year over year, with the sharpest spike arriving just before Cyber Week. Early promotions and pre-holiday campaigns fueled this early momentum. By the time Black Friday hit, total interactions across all channels (including voice and SMS) reached 27 billion. What drives this massive volume? Customers now expect real-time updates and longer promotional windows and brands are stepping up to meet them.
Email is still the go-to for promotions and ongoing customer engagement. Sinch’s email platform delivered 20.4 billions emails during the week of Black Friday, with volumes rising 30% YoY during Black Friday alone. Email open rates held strong at 16% during Black Friday (excluding bots), despite the influx in inbox traffic.
With so many emails being sent, do they really get noticed? Well, our data show similar levels of engagement to those seen at other points throughout the year, which proves that consumers are actually looking for relevant deals and promotions during the BFCM period.
Email continues to play a leading role in omnichannel strategies, especially during high-stakes moments like Black Friday. While conversational messaging is on the rise, core channels like email, SMS, and voice still do the heavy lifting when reliability and scale matter most.
During Black Friday week, Sinch delivered 20.4 billion emails, 3.4 billion SMS messages, and supported 3.2 billion minutes of voice traffic. These touchpoints give brands the consistency, reach, and speed needed to meet growing customer expectations. As real-time updates and longer promotional cycles become the norm, a flexible, omnichannel approach is key to staying ahead.
BFCM 2025 proved that customer expectations are shifting fast, but email is still doing the heavy lifting. While AI-powered conversations are gaining traction, brands continue to count on email for the moments that demand trust, reach, and reliability. 2025 tells us this will be true going forward, but there needs to be a growing synergy between communications channels for your messaging to have the greatest impact.
Looking ahead to 2026, longer promotional cycles and rising demand for real-time updates will put even more pressure on performance. That means your infrastructure needs to be built for scale, speed, and consistency, and that you’ll have to start your BFCM prep even sooner.
Check out Sinch’s latest predictions report breaks down to see what is next, from the rise of conversational messaging to the evolving role of email in an omnichannel world.
