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Content
How We Prepare Retention Campaigns for Black Friday
October 31, 2025
10 mins
Search queries for "Black Friday" have already started to rise, signaling that sale season is upon us. People are making wish lists, comparing prices, and waiting for great deals. And brands are preparing for the hottest period of the year.
At Promodo, we prepare dozens of retention campaigns for Black Friday every year and see that success here depends not on how loud your promotions are, but on how systematic your approach is. So this time we decided to share our experience: what works, how we prepare our database, set up communications, allocate budget, and collaborate with other teams.
Together with Svitlana Fursa, Head of Retention Marketing, we gathered practical insights and discussed how to prepare communications so they don't get lost in the flood of offers and actually drive sales.
Let's start with how we segment our audience.
First—audit your contact database and collection points. Before tackling segmentation, you need to make sure your database is in order: emails are valid, there are no duplicates, and everyone who unsubscribed has been removed from the main database. You should also check all contact collection points on the site: are subscription forms working, are pop-ups and widgets properly integrated.
Next, we define the audience.
On regular days, most promotional emails go to active segments—those who have opened emails or made purchases within the last three to six months.
Brands work with those who have shown activity: opened emails, made purchases, viewed product pages, added items to cart. Tracking stores this data for eight weeks, and regular communications are built on this basis. But during the hot period (starting from Black Friday through New Year), it's worth reaching a broader audience.
We expand segments, add predictive models, all buyers, everyone who was active during the year. In short—we expand segments everywhere possible for maximum reach.
Svitlana Fursa
Head of Retention Marketing at Promodo
Predictive models are algorithms that, based on historical data, forecast what a user will do next: buy, unsubscribe, open an email, not return, etc. They allow us to identify a "most likely to purchase segment" that we definitely add to the database for Black Friday. These are contacts that the algorithm identifies as potential buyers even if they haven't shown recent activity. Maybe they bought a year ago, but their behavior matches the pattern of those who are ready to buy now. These people become an additional audience for communications.
However, expanding the audience doesn't mean we include 100% of the database. Certain restrictions remain:
What, to whom, and where to send? Each channel has its own cost, capabilities, and limitations.
Here you have the freedom of what you can offer, you can add many offers—multiple promotions, products, plus—no boundaries or design limitations.
Svitlana Fursa
Head of Retention Marketing at Promodo
Content is what can win over customers. In an email, you can include product categories, personalized selections, and promo codes. You can test different approaches, change the structure depending on how the user interacted with the previous email.
But remember, retention isn't just email.
Among channels that help reach an inactive database are Viber and SMS.
Messengers costs more than email—for small send volumes, the price can be ten times higher. But this channel allows you to reach those whose email or token is unknown, or if a contact unsubscribed from email but falls into the communication segment.
SMS is a more budget-friendly option than Viber, but less effective. The character limit doesn't allow you to fully present an offer. If you're sending a long SMS—double or triple—it's better to use Viber. Plus, tracking results is harder—users rarely click links in SMS, more often they'll see the promotion and get to the site through search or direct navigation.
App Inbox is a communication channel within a mobile app or user's personal account on the site. It's not set up everywhere, and to see it you need to open the app or log into the site.
Yes, only those who visit the site will see these messages, but they can be personalized, and across all projects this shows good results plus affordable cost.
These messages are stored in the user's personal account and don't get lost among hundreds of other emails.
MobPush and inApp are must-haves for those with a mobile app. The key here is not to overdo the frequency. Users quickly lose loyalty if push notifications come too often or at the wrong time.
WebPush is a small notification with the brand logo, text, and a call-to-action button that users receive in their browser, even if they're not on the site. They're used less and less, but this channel is essentially free, so it's better to use all available options.
The logic of channel selection always depends on the goal and budget. If you need to reach maximum people with a detailed offer—email. If you need to remind them on launch day—SMS. If you want to bring back those who haven't visited in a while—messengers.
Before launching a campaign, we develop communication maps or User Flows for clients. This is a diagram of what messages a user receives at different stages of their journey: from first site visit to purchase and beyond.
During Black Friday, this flow becomes more complex. Special campaigns are added, exclusive access for subscribers, series of emails with different offers. Without a clear map, it's easy to get confused: who gets what and when.
It depends on how long the promotional offers from the brand last. Most often, promotions before Black Friday start two weeks ahead. The audience gets a little break from the flood of Halloween messages, and then we begin the Black Friday season.
The first communication is always the Black Friday announcement. Sale launch for insiders, exclusively for subscribers, targeting the active user base. Then the segment expands, and a series of promotions continues with different offers for different audience groups.
It's important to remember that not everyone reacts to the first email right away. That's why a well-thought-out strategy includes multiple touchpoints through different channels.
If a client didn't read the email—send a message to the channel where they showed activity: SMS, WebPush. If they didn't open the email about the sale launch—remind them via a messenger about the end of Black Friday with attractive offers.
Another tool used for warm-up is a pop-up or widget on the site offering to leave an email and be first to get notified about Black Friday launch. We place this right after Halloween. This addresses two needs at once—we collect emails faster and increase the conversion of site visitors to buyers.
Read about how to make pop-ups that don't annoy in our article.
From segments for promotional emails during peak Black Friday, we usually exclude those who already placed an order within one to seven days. The exact number depends on the niche and product variety at the brand, because, for example, on a marketplace you can buy almost daily, but you won't buy a phone or accessories that often.
As Black Friday approaches, message frequency increases. And here it's important to dispel one myth.
The "I won't send because everyone else is sending too much" tactic is not okay. Although subscribers are annoyed by the large number of emails, they do work. So it's important not to get lost among other brands, but to stand out. And this won't happen if you send one newsletter per week.
Svitlana Fursa
Head of Retention Marketing at Promodo
Users really do receive many messages, but if you're not among the senders, they'll simply buy from competitors. The main thing is not just to increase frequency, but to make each message relevant.
Besides promotional emails, don't forget to set up/check trigger chains. Abandoned carts, abandoned browsing, order status messages—all this should work automatically and smoothly. During a sale, the number of such triggers multiplies, so the system needs to be ready for the load.
Cool design, catchy subject lines—you already know about all that. At Promodo, we're constantly searching for new solutions and encourage you to test bold ideas too.
There was a case when we sent out an email about the Black Friday sale launch right at midnight. More precisely, at 00:15 local time. The reason was simple: until the last moment, we didn't have exact information about which products would be in stock, on sale, and at what price. So at midnight, the team checked and updated products and prices and immediately sent the newsletter.
Did it work?
Overall, the effectiveness was better than regular newsletters. But it was Black Friday, and we didn't do an A/B test, so we can't say 100%. But it turns out there were those who read the email at night, and those who opened it first when checking email in the morning, before other brands' emails arrived.
Svitlana Fursa
Head of Retention Marketing at Promodo
Being first in inboxes is a competitive advantage.
Another significant advantage is personalization.
The more messages a user receives, the more important personalization becomes. Generic newsletters are perceived as spam. But when an email contains products you're actually interested in, or reminds you about something you viewed last week—that's not intrusive, that's service. Personalization allows you to increase communication frequency without losing loyalty, because each message carries value specifically for that individual user.
Here's how we used dynamic content in one of our cases from last year:
We started with a general email about the launch. Then we created an email with product categories. Then, depending on which category they clicked—the user received a selection of products from the previously chosen category plus recommendations based on previous purchases. And for those who didn't click in the previous email—a selection of other promotions/categories. In other words, we communicated constantly, but changed emails depending on whether users clicked links in the emails.
To enhance the effect, we use AMP in emails.
AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is a technology that allows you to embed something like a standalone webpage in an email.
AMP allows you to embed interactive elements: users can view available models and product colors right in the email, without going to the site. This increases conversion chances.
Gamification is interactive mechanics that turn regular brand communication into a game.
For Black Friday, you can use different formats: prize and discount wheels, advent calendars with daily offers, quizzes to select products, scratch cards with promo codes, or challenges where users receive bonuses for participation.
These mechanics consistently show high engagement because people like interactivity and the feeling of playing. During Black Friday, such activities work especially well—users are already in the mood to look for good deals, and when it's also presented as a game, engagement grows.
The budget question in retention marketing during Black Friday has its own specifics.
We don't divide it explicitly between channels. But there are channels where we expand the budget during activities.
For email, for example, if the rate is tied to the number of emails sent, the team calculates the approximate number of contacts in segments, the number of sends—promo plus triggers—and thus gets the planned number of messages. If the rate is based on the number of contacts in the database, it remains unchanged.
A similar principle works for Viber, for instance: count contacts in segments, sends, definitely factor in the coefficient of increase in behavioral messages—abandoned carts, views—and transactional messages for order statuses.
During a sale, the number of behavioral and transactional messages grows several times. More people add items to cart—more "abandoned cart" triggers fire. More orders—more delivery status messages.
Therefore, planning must be flexible. If you calculated the budget only for promotional emails and didn't account for trigger growth, you might face overspending or send limitations at the hottest moment.
A separate issue is synchronization with other channels, primarily with paid advertising. We always consider what activities are planned for other channels. If necessary, we can adjust the logic of pop-ups for users who came from certain channels.
The retention team can engage PPC colleagues if, for example, gamification is launched on the site but actual traffic is lower than planned. Then PPC sets up separate campaigns specifically with messaging about gamification. This allows us to amplify the effect of retention activities and simultaneously reduce the overall cost of acquisition.
Svitlana Fursa
Head of Retention Marketing at Promodo
Joint planning helps avoid duplicate messages and reduce contact cost. If a user already saw your offer in email, there's no point showing them the exact same banner in contextual advertising. Instead, you can offer something additional or remind them about the limited time of the promotion. Modern retention isn't an isolated tool, but part of the complete marketing ecosystem.
Retention has countless nuances, but well-prepared campaigns can bring big profits. Our experience proves that the following brings results:
Would you like to create captivative retention campaigns? Reach out for a custom offer.
Content Marketing Manager at Promodo
Immersing myself fully in any topic I explore and my appreciation for simplicity are the driving forces behind my work.
Head of Retention Marketing
I've been working in email marketing since 2016. I passed the way from a junior specialist with the thoughts "email is spam in the mailbox?" to the real jedi of retention marketing. I worked with the largest Ukrainian eCommerce projects. I'm keen of the latest technologies and non-standard technical implementations.
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