Black Friday is still the biggest email opportunity of your year. Get it right, and a single weekend can outperform whole months of sends.
But here’s the catch. Your subscribers’ inboxes are packed, and hundreds of brands are all shouting the same “50% off” at the same time.
So how do you stand out? You send the right type of email at the right moment.
Today, I’ll walk you through 11 types of Black Friday emails, with real black friday email examples you can copy for each. Pick one from every phase, then customize it to fit your brand and your goals.
The short version: the best Black Friday email marketing works in phases. You tease the sale before it starts, announce it loudly on the day, drive urgency as it ends, and (if you’re brave) subvert the whole thing. The 11 types below cover every phase, so you can build a full campaign instead of blasting one lonely “Sale’s on” email.
What makes great Black Friday email marketing?
Great Black Friday email marketing isn’t one clever send. It’s a sequence that builds anticipation, then converts it.
Think of it in three acts. You warm up your list before the sale, you go loud when it launches, and you turn up the urgency as the clock runs down.
The 11 types below map to those acts, plus one bold alternative. Each comes with real black friday email examples you can steal for your own store.
Part 1: Pre-launch email examples
The weeks before Black Friday are where quiet brands lose. Prime your subscribers now, and you won’t have to fight for attention later.
1. The Teaser Email
Like a movie trailer, a black friday teaser email builds excitement for what’s coming without giving it all away.
One of my favorites belongs to leather goods maker Bellroy.
After opting in for its “Black Friday Subscriber Exclusive,” subscribers got a short, mysterious note: “Pssst. Don’t miss our Black Friday gift.”
It works because curiosity is a hook. Bellroy set an expectation, then let anticipation do the selling.
Other retailers, like Sweaty Betty, build on the teaser by highlighting a hero product and backing it with customer reviews.
Inviting subscribers to click through before Black Friday also gauges their interest, so you can segment and prioritize them once the big day lands.
2. The “Don’t Buy Yet” Email
Here’s a teaser with a twist. Instead of nudging you to buy, Kina and Tam tells you not to.
The subject line? “Don’t buy from us…” The message inside is even better: “There’s nothing worse than buying something and having it go on sale a few days later, but don’t worry, we got you.”
Then it flips the script. It invites shoppers to add items to their cart now and check out later, once Black Friday prices drop.
It’s reverse psychology, and it’s brilliant. The brand protects loyal customers from buyer’s remorse, builds goodwill, and quietly primes carts for the sale. Try it when you want your teaser to feel like a favor, not a pitch.
3. The Early Access Email
Hundreds of brands compete for attention on Black Friday itself. So many retailers now start early to beat the rush.
Kate Spade offered subscribers 30 percent off everything a full five days before Black Friday. Early access rewards your list for being on it, and it spreads your revenue across more days.
To add exclusivity, frame early access as a benefit few are privy to.
That’s exactly what furniture brand Joybird did, positioning its early discount as a reward for loyal insiders. If you launch before Friday, tell subscribers why, and you turn a discount into a perk.
4. The Save the Date Email
Getting into the inbox is hard. So why not market to subscribers somewhere less crowded, like their calendar?
Glossier did exactly that. It sent a save-the-date email with a simple “Add to Cal” button. One click dropped an .ics file straight into the subscriber’s calendar, complete with the product page link.
Good marketing is about being present online and off. And what’s more persuasive than booking a spot in your prospect’s own schedule?
Part 2: Launch email examples
The sale’s live. Now the job changes from building anticipation to earning the open, then the click.
5. The Announcement Email
Once Black Friday hits, you’re one of four hundred emails fighting for a single open. So how do you rise above a crowded inbox?
Start with the subject line. Estée Lauder caught attention by using unicode characters (not emojis) around its offer: “25% Off Until Midnight.” It’s a small pattern break, and it earned the open.
A quick word of caution. Special characters can trip spam filters and hurt deliverability, so test carefully before you send to your whole list.
Others go loud in the creative instead.
Brooklinen simply declared “Black Friday is here,” while Tarte opened a curiosity loop with “It’s here. You won’t believe it.” Once readers open, drive as many clicks as you can.
6. The Daily Deals Email
Many retailers now stretch Black Friday across a week or more. Daily deals keep subscribers opening every single day.
Uniqlo released one deal at a time. Each email spotlighted a single item or category, and it closed by teasing the next day’s offer.
The payoff is data. Instead of pushing everyone to a sitewide discount, daily deals show you which categories your subscribers actually want, which sharpens your follow-up. It’s one of the more underrated black friday email ideas out there.
7. The Free Gift Email
Not everyone is moved by another percentage off. With discounts flying everywhere, shoppers get numb to them fast.
One way to motivate action is a gift with purchase. Daniel Wellington threw in a free accessory for anyone who bought a watch, and added urgency by capping the offer while stocks lasted.
FabFitFun took the idea further.
Its Black Friday email dangled a free $450 mystery gift on top of a customizable box, adding up to $900 in total value with the code BIGGEST. The word “mystery” adds intrigue, and stacking a freebie on top of the core offer reframes the whole deal as a windfall, not a discount.
Part 3: Last-chance email examples
This is where the money is. As the deadline nears, urgency and scarcity do the heavy lifting.
8. The Limited Availability Email
Black Friday runs on urgency. The clearer you make it that buyers need to act now, the more you’ll sell.
One way is a time-sensitive discount. Another, which Banana Republic used well, is stock scarcity.
It reminded subscribers to hurry given the limited quantities of bombers and sweaters left.
Just keep it honest. Scarcity and urgency work best when they’re genuine, so never fake a countdown or a “last few left.”
9. The Last Chance Email
For brands not extending their sale, the last chance email is the final nudge before the door closes.
Mojo nailed the tone. Its subject line, “30% off goes poof at midnight,” is playful but crystal clear, and the body drove it home: “Save 30% sitewide before the sale ends for good at midnight.”
Notice the reminder shows up everywhere, in the subject line, the preview text, and the body copy. Don’t be shy about repeating your deadline.
Joybird pushed this even further with a live countdown timer ticking down to zero.
Feeling adventurous? Pair the email with an onsite popup that only shows returning subscribers, so your last-chance message follows them onto your site.
10. The Extended Email
Plenty of brands keep the party going past Cyber Monday. The trick is framing.
Tell subscribers you’re closing a deal, then reopen it a day later, and you’ll lose trust. Give them a reason, and you keep it.
Malouf kept it simple and upbeat with “Extra! Extra! Extended Black Friday!” and a clear “We’ve extended our sale. Save 30% on everything now through 12/1.” No excuses, just a fresh deadline and one more chance to buy.
Fabletics took the reason-driven route, framing its extension as a “VIP Member Exclusive” reserved for subscribers only. Either way, the extension feels like a gift, not a bait-and-switch.
Part 4: The alternative play
Not every brand wants to out-shout the discount frenzy. Some win by stepping out of it entirely.
11. The Anti-Black-Friday Email
Here’s a Black Friday email that tells you not to shop. And it’s one of the most memorable examples on this list.
Patagonia skipped the discounts entirely.
Instead, it invited people to slow down and repair what they already own, with the rallying cry “If it’s broke, fix it!”
It closed on the line “Earth is now our only shareholder.” Bold? Yes. But it deepens loyalty with values-driven customers and sets the brand apart in the noisiest inbox of the year.
This won’t fit every store. If sustainability is genuinely part of your brand, though, an anti-Black-Friday email can earn more long-term trust than any discount.
When is the best time to send your Black Friday emails?
Timing turns 11 good emails into one great campaign. There’s no single best time to send email, but a steady drumbeat beats one Friday-morning blast.
Here’s a simple send schedule you can adapt:
| 1–2 weeks before: | Teaser and “don’t buy yet” emails to build anticipation. |
| 2–5 days before: | Early access for your list, plus a save-the-date. |
| Black Friday morning: | Your announcement email, sent early. |
| Across the weekend: | Daily deals, free-gift, and limited-availability sends. |
| Sunday night into Cyber Monday: | Last-chance emails with a hard deadline. |
| After Cyber Monday: | An extended offer, if you’re stretching the sale. |
No two stores are the same, so watch your own engagement and adjust. The goal is presence at every stage, without wearing your list out.
Don’t forget your subject lines
Every email above lives or dies by the subject line. It’s the one thing standing between your offer and the trash folder.
We’ve pulled together a full swipe file to help. Grab our roundup of the best Black Friday email subject lines and steal a few for your own campaign.
Want a head start on design?
You don’t have to build these from scratch. If you’re a Drip customer, our help center has email templates and a strategy guide for Black Friday and Cyber Monday ready to adapt.
How to automate your Black Friday sequence with Drip
Here’s where it gets exciting. Every type on this list is really one step in a sequence, and sequences are what automation does best.
With Drip, you can map the whole campaign into a single workflow. Teaser, early access, announcement, daily deals, last chance, all triggered automatically, and all personalized to what each subscriber has browsed or bought.
Because Drip is an ecommerce marketing automation platform, it pulls in purchase and browsing data to segment on the fly. You can route VIPs to early access, suppress people who’ve already bought, and fire a last-chance send only to subscribers who clicked but didn’t check out.
Want to go further onsite? Drip’s built-in popups let you run Spin to Win wheels and Mystery Offers that match your email campaign, so the deal follows shoppers onto your site.
It clearly works at scale. Shopify-integrated stores generated $19.3 million in attributed revenue through Drip during Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend alone in 2025.
Wrapping up
The best Black Friday email examples all share one thing. They send the right message at the right moment, instead of blasting one generic sale email and hoping.
So pick one email from each phase above, give it your brand’s voice, and string them into a sequence. That’s how a single weekend becomes your biggest revenue window of the year.
Ready to put this into action?
Drip makes it easy to build, automate, and personalize your entire Black Friday campaign from one platform. Start your 14-day free trial today, no credit card required.
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