Updated on May 27th, 2024

Throughout the holiday season, your email send cadence will inevitably increase. Entering Black Friday and Cyber Monday with healthy brand awareness allows organizations to comfortably dip in deliverability while chasing higher revenue from broad segments. 10% open rates are not optimal for long-term deliverability but are acceptable for short-term revenue gains during heavy promotional periods.

When brands have open rates above 25%, it's an opportunity to leverage a broader list of subscribers. Loosening engagement criteria in segments can increase conversions in healthy accounts without triggering deliverability issues. Increased send volume to larger engaged audiences ultimately creates more significant conversion opportunities. Using audience rotation to offset occasional dips below benchmarks is key to maximizing BFCM success.

Warming Before Black Friday & Cyber Monday (BFCM)

Inbox providers (such as Gmail) flag sudden spikes in send volume as suspicious - drastically increasing segment size and send cadence puts the sender reputation at risk.. Driving enhanced conversion performance by leveraging a broader list necessitates an IP warming strategy before launching Black Friday email marketing.

A powerful warming strategy requires two key components:

Gradual Segment Expansion

The gradual adoption of more significant segments, thirty days leading up to BFCM, is an optimal time to increase segmentation potential without raising deliverability flags.

An expansion path can use the following engagement buckets:

  • 30-60 days engaged
  • 60-90 days engaged
  • 90-180 days engaged
  • 180+ days engaged

Engagement segments can use open, click, and subscription data. For example, users in a 90-Day Engaged segment would have either subscribed to a list, opened an email, or clicked a link in an email once in the last 90 days. Depending on the existing sender reputation, most accounts should send at least two campaigns with each segment before widening to the next. Throughout the expansion process, monitoring drops in deliverability is critical, at which point slowing the warming process protects the sender's reputation.

Long-Term Deliverability for Short-Term Wins

Leverage the following Klaviyo deliverability metrics to manage account health surrounding BFCM. While IP warming before Black Friday and Cyber Monday, landing on account metrics within the “great” range is optimal. Campaign metrics dipping below the “great” range require attention.

Maintaining great deliverability long-term allows for full-list sends to be leveraged in busier promotional periods. The occasional send to a brand’s entire audience can increase conversion potential without harming the account. A healthy account will see softer deliverability performance during the holiday promotional season while managing dips. carefully. Audience rotation is essential to offset the short-term impacts of BFCM on account health.

Klaviyo deliverability benchmarks chart.

Segment Rotation for Revenue and Account Health

Strategically rotating segments during BFCM is a powerful lever for optimizing the account conversion-to-deliverability ratio. Consider using the following segments in any BFCM strategy:

  • Engaged
  • VIP
  • Last year’s BFCM purchasers
  • Window shoppers
  • Category shoppers

To offset low engagement from full list sends, stabilize account health with sends to high-engagement segments, such as the VIP segment and last year’s BFCM buyers. These segments will enhance BFCM communications and are vital to sustaining deliverability performance. Set up a VIP segment using lifetime value and the number of order metrics to target your highest-value customers. VIP segments optimally represent ~10% of a brand's total customer data.

The most significant segments to earn unique conversions will come from window shoppers and other engagement segments. These segments should be heavily targeted throughout the BFCM period, receiving all primary campaign sends and resends.

Deliverability Repair Post-BFCM

Reestablishing healthier account deliverability metrics during an account recovery period by tightening engagement criteria is optimal post-BFCM. Leveraging high-engagement segments such as VIP segments, repeat purchase segments, and 30-day engaged audiences will quickly bolster deliverability, setting your account up for success through the remainder of the Q4 holiday season.

Audience rotation remains a vital tool throughout the year for nurturing customers and optimizing revenue potential. By providing content tailored to unique segments, brands will see strong engagement performance while growing LTV. Maintaining an engaged audience throughout the year will bring stable revenue growth and prime any account for success in future promotional periods.

Need support planning for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Northern is your Klaviyo Master Elite Partner. Contact our team to improve your marketing performance during BFCM.