101 Black Friday Email Marketing Campaign Ideas and Subject Lines

Black Friday is not an official holiday in the US, but for many Americans, it’s one of the most important shopping holidays of the year.

Many, if not all, ecommerce and brick and mortar stores offer insane sales and open at ridiculous hours, some even at midnight, to welcome frantic and overly-hyped up shoppers.

Although we always hear stories about Black Friday shopping hysteria and how Black Friday frenzy reflects the image of an irresponsible consumer society; for retailers, Black Friday is a crucial day for annual profits.

And who can blame them?

In 2018, more than 165 million Americans shopped either online or in brick and mortar stores, between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, exceeding the NRF’s predictions.

On average, every shopper spent at least 310$ on gifts and other items over the five days.

If you want to get your piece of the pie, keep reading, as we will share with you awesome resources to make your Black Friday email marketing campaign a success.

Black Friday Email Marketing Ideas

Let’s kick off our Black Friday Email Marketing guide with a selection of awesome Black Friday email templates, send out by eCommerce and SaaS businesses.

Black Friday in the time of a pandemic

Since the start of the coronavirus, we have noticed a forced shift in consumer behavior. Shoppers, even from the older generations, are leaning more towards online shopping, to minimize infection risks and respect health measures.

Studies have shown that boomers, people aged between 56 to 74 are prioritizing their family’s safety over their usual daily routines and shopping habits.

Stay-at home mandates and social distancing requirements mean boomers have moved more of their lives online.

The following graph highlights the different methods in which baby boomers are currently shopping, which should give you an idea of what sort of benefits you can offer through your Black Friday campaign in 2020.

Some brands have been impacted more than others by Covid-19. This has in turn affected their communication and promotional plans. The following example from Rogue shows how a few brands have adjusted their email campaign this year.

Matte Black Friday Update

Pre-Black Friday Emails

Build up the anticipation around your sales with a Black Friday Teaser email. But why wait to reveal your offers until Friday?

Some ecommerce and online stores choose to kick start the party early and send out Black Friday sales emails before Friday. Here are two great Black Friday email examples that combine beautiful email design with clever email copy.

Subject Line: Something big is coming…

Notice how they included a GIF in their Black Friday email template, that is very subtle yet manages to uplift the whole email design and keeps the attention of the reader a bit longer.

Subject Line: It’s Go Time. Black Friday Starts Now!

😱 Our Black Friday Sale is Almost Over!

Black Friday Early Access Ends Today!

Post Black Friday Emails

We mentioned previously that Black Friday is one of the busiest shopping days of the year, providing retailers with up to 30% of their annual profits.

And who wouldn’t like that? Some ecommerce and Saas businesses want to get the fullest out of this shopping holiday.

Their Black Friday email marketing campaigns and offers are prolonged, well after Friday. Here’s a Black Friday email example from Apple in 2018.

Subject Line: The Apple Shopping Event is almost here

Apple started their email copy with a very expressive headline “Friday is just the beginning.”. And as always, Apple stood out of the crowd with their different approach in their communication.

Instead of promoting their product discounts, the brand sent out an event reminder email, inviting their loyal customers to attend what they call a shopping event.

Black Friday Sales Email

Black Friday email campaigns are all about sales and discounts. During Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday week, your current and potential customers keep their eyes out for the best deals.

Promotional codes, percentage off, free shipping, coupons, and giveaways, Black Friday Sales Emails are countless, and you will not be the only one sending them.

Your customer’s inbox, at the start of the Holiday season, will be a mess. They will receive hundreds of tempting offers and promotional emails.

So make sure you stand out!

This Black Friday sale email example from Casper did just that. Casper put a twist on their Black Friday email marketing campaign with funny and relatable email content and simple email design, complemented by a tempting offer.

Subject Line: Snooze through the sales…

Extended Offer

By the end of the shopping holiday, some businesses will choose to delight their customers even more and send out a “Back Friday Sales Extended” email.

This type of Black Friday campaigns is common and targeted towards those late shoppers who didn’t get the chance to take advantage of the Black Day offers.

When sending out extended offer emails, make sure to segment your customer list according to previous purchasing behavior.

You want to target the subscribers who didn’t make any purchases from your previous email campaigns.

Subject Line:⚠️ We’ve extended our Best Black Friday Deal Ever!

Thanksgiving and Black Friday Email

Combine your Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales emails. Some resources say that people check their emails more frequently during the holidays, so why not test out this theory and send a promotional email in disguise on Thanksgiving to your email subscribers.

This Black Friday/Thanksgiving email sample from Nordstrom hits all the right spots:

A very colorful and beautiful email design.
Animated email template with a fun, eye-catching GIF.
Warm and personal email copy: “Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours.” This creates an affectionate bond with the customer.
Includes a preview of the upcoming Black Friday Sales.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday emails

Cyber Monday is on the 2nd of December 2019.

With only 2 days apart, many brands pair their Black Friday and Cyber Monday emails.

You can either send one email for both occasions or create a Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaign. Here is a very compelling email campaign for Black Friday and Cyber Monday from GFDA.

Although the email copy used in the emails is daring to say the least, the creativity behind it in ingenious.

Instead of creating a whole new email campaign for Cyber Monday, this company decided to recycle their Black Friday email and send it again, with a different subject line, which also refers to their previous campaign.

Subject Line for Black Friday: No sleeping bag necessary
Subject Line for Cyber Monday: Cyber Monday – because you missed Black Friday…

This is a fun take on what could’ve been a regular email campaign. You can use this Black Friday and Cyber Monday example as an inspiration for your own campaign.

Obviously, we are not recommending you use a similar email copy– unless it actually suits your target segment and is coherent with your brand.

Exclusive Black Friday Offer Emails

If you have developed a loyalty program for your most loyal customers, Black Friday is a great occasion to reward them.

Everyone likes to feel special, and sending an exclusive Black Friday offer to a select few will make them appreciate your brand even more.

Subject Line: 🤫 Shhh! Black Friday is back. Just for you!

Animated Images and GIFs

In our blog, we talked about the benefits of using GIFs in emails, and how embedding video in your promotional emails can lead to better engagement rates.

However, some email providers don’t support GIFs or videos in emails. So make sure to use an HTML email generator that will help you design a responsive email template that renders perfectly with all email providers, especially Outlook.

Subject Line: Black Friday Weekend

Countdown in Black Friday Email

Oh FOMO! We have all experienced the famous “Fear Of Missing Out” feeling at least once before.

If you want to utilize this irrational fear of the modern consumer, simply include a countdown timer in your Black Friday email template. The ticking clock will build up the anticipation and add urgency around your offer.

With every second passing, your reader will feel like they are missing out on an incredible offer. Create more urgency with the adequate email copy, just like Vodafone did for their Black Friday Countdown Email:

“Don’t miss out”
“exclusive savings”
“Hurry”
“Ends soon!”

Subject Line? Black Friday offers are here! The clock is ticking NAME…

On Brand Emails

Whether you choose to send a promotional Black Friday email or to combine your Thanksgiving and Black Friday emails, you need to keep in mind your brand guidelines. It’s very important to stay true to your brand voice, fonts, and color palette in order to activate Brand Recognition in your customers’ minds.

Subject Line: PSA: No Trampling Required

Interactive Black Friday Emails

Interactive emails are emails where the recipients can take actions that trigger events in the same email. This type of emails speeds up conversions. They minimize the number of clicks and layers the subscriber has to go through to reach the intended conversion.

Instead of clicking on a CTA button in the email and being redirected to a landing page where the conversion is supposed to take place, interactive emails take the landing page to the customer’s inbox.

Subject Line: Last chance to save big. Nest Black Friday ends soon.

Google recently took interactive emails to the next level by launching AMP emails.

For this Black Friday, impress your customers with an interactive or AMP email. Unfortunately, you cannot use a drag and drop email builder to design AMP emails.

Thinking outside the box

Black Friday is the shopping day of the year. But not every business gets sucked in the madness.

For those of you who are not planning on launching a promotional Black Friday sales campaign, you can still send out Black Friday emails. Instead of promoting insane deals and low prices, you can use your campaign to create an emotional bond with your customers, and humanizing your brand.

Let’s take this awesome Black Friday email example from Moment.

Subject Line: Full Disclosure: Our Black Friday Tradition

Their sleek email design and on-point email copy makes the reader feel calm and connected with the brand. Their Black Friday email content is not flashy and salesy. They stay true to their brand values by reminding their customers “of what matters most”.

Moment, a mobile photography gear, apps, and travel company, highlights the importance of disconnecting from the consumer rush and checking out.

They don’t offer any discounts or promotional codes, yet they make any reader want to grab one of their phone camera gadgets and go outside. Moment distinguish themselves with a witty email copy and an unusual approach.

Funny Black Friday Emails

If you’re not familiar with Cards Against Humanity, you might be a little confused.

But as someone who played this daring card game before, I can tell you that this email is, not only hilarious but also very true to the company’s brand.

Subject Line: Nothing.

As you can see, this funny Black Friday email doesn’t include any promotions or discounts. The only objective is to keep in touch with the customer base during this busy shopping and advertising season.

We chose to include this template example to encourage you to think outside the box and be daring with your emails.

Read more | How to use humor in your emails?

Your customers will receive hundreds of promotional Black Friday emails on the lapse of 5 days, and after that, they will be bombarded by Cyber Monday emails, so make sure your emails don’t get buried in the pile of boring and average emails.

Black Friday Email Templates You Can Use Now

In the previous section, we gave you some brilliant Black Friday email templates sent last year by ecommerce businesses and retailers. After getting an idea of what you can do for your Black Friday email marketing campaign, its now time to build your own campaign.

If you do not want to waste time and resources on coding an email design from scratch, you can use one of our high-quality Black Friday email templates, professionally-designed, and ready to use.

Simply use our drag and drop email editor to easily build a beautiful email template or choose one of our responsive Black Friday email templates.

According to the NRF report from 2018, 89 million people shopped both online and in stores, which represents a 40% increase from the previous year. More than 65 million Americans shopped online on Black Friday, of 66% used smartphones and mobile devices to make their purchases.

This highlights, even more, the importance of creating mobile-responsive email templates, that look great on every type of device.

Black Friday Email Subject Lines

Email subject lines are highly important. They are the first thing your customers see from your email. If your subject line is not good enough, your subscribers won’t even open your email, and all your efforts would have been wasted.

Here’s a list of the best Black Friday email subject limes collected from great Black Friday email campaigns.

Tips to create compelling subject lines

However, keep in mind that, as part of your email, your subject line should be loyal to your brand.

Maintain your brand voice, even in the subject line.
Keep your Black Friday subject short.
Personalize your email subject line
Use an email subject line test tool to evaluate how good your subject line is.
A/B test different subject lines when sending out your Black Friday email campaign.
Resend your Black Friday email campaign to your subscribers who didn’t open your email but under a different subject line.

30+ Black Friday email subject lines

Now that we got that out of the way, here is our selection of the best 30 email subject lines for Black Friday 2019:

🤫 Shhh! Black Friday is back. Just for you!
⌛️ [Name]; [Brand]’s unique shopping event ends today
Black Friday Extended – [Product 1] for only $49.95 | Save up to 70% on [Product 2] gifts!
🎁 [Brand] Black Friday deal is here!
Black Friday VIP offers are live!
A Thanksgiving treat for Two
Switch Things Up on Black Friday and #OptOutside
The [Brand] Shopping Event. Now through Monday
This weekend only: please don’t shop ❌.
Black Friday is now! 60% off on all products
Full Disclosure: Our Black Friday Tradition
Reminder – 20% Off Everything – Ends
Today’s the day. 20% off site-wide!
ENDS TONIGHT! Shop Black Friday Deals
Last Hours – 30% Off Sitewide – Use Code ’30OFF’ at Checkout
Our Biggest Sale Starts Now
No sleeping bag necessary
Save up to $150 on [Brand] products.
★ 50% OFF! Black Friday Drops Now ★
Last day to get your $75 gift!
Shop Small on Black Friday – 30% off shopwide! 🌟
Black Friday, 12 Hours Left
Black Friday Burnout? Contact the [Brand] Hotline!
Get your paws on Black Friday savings from [Pet Brand]
Let the Black Friday savings begin ⏰
🛍️ Black Friday deals are live
40% Off. Free Shipping. It Must Be Black Friday.
This Black Friday, choose snooze.
Don’t miss out again! 😱
55% OFF Annual Plans – TODAY ONLY (for SaaS companies)

Wrapping Up

Black Friday is not to be missed. It’s never too early or too late to start planning your Black Friday email campaign.

Here’s what to keep in mind if you want to stand out from the crowd:

Send out Black Friday emails even if you don’t have product discounts: What matters most is keeping in touch with your customers during this busy time of year.
Pair Black Friday emails with Thanksgiving or Cyber Monday emails, if possible.
Send out Black Friday emails before and after Friday, to maximize your chances of increasing sales.
Use dynamic elements in your Black Friday email (GIFs, videos, countdown timers), that increase engagement rates.
Design a beautiful email template that renders well on all email providers and is optimized for mobile devices.
Test your Black Friday email subject line to guarantee higher open rates.
Make sure your Black Friday email copy and design stay true to your brand.
Most importantly, don’t be afraid to think outside the box and come up with a creative Black Friday email.

There you have it, folks!

Make sure to check out more Black Friday ready-to-use templates in our template gallery, and share with us your advice to create a great Black Friday email campaign for 2020.

Black Friday Email Examples, Templates and 30 Subject Lines To Jump Start Your Holiday Campaigns