A Black Friday email marketing calendar for an Australian Shopify brand in 2026 runs to about 12 emails, from Tue 10 November to early December, sent to three segments. Black Friday falls on Fri 27 November and Cyber Monday on Mon 30 November, so the build-up starts two and a half weeks before. Across 10,000 Klaviyo brands, email and text drove 42% of total revenue over BFCM 2025 (Klaviyo, December 2025).
The calendar below gives every email a date, a job and a segment, so you can copy it into Klaviyo this week. It also covers what each email should say, the send-time and deliverability checks that matter when every brand is emailing at once, whether a teaser stalls October sales, and the Christmas delivery dates your last email needs.
Key facts
- Black Friday 2026 is Friday 27 November, and Cyber Monday is Monday 30 November
- Australians were forecast to spend a record $6.8 billion over the 2025 Black Friday to Cyber Monday weekend, up 4% (ARA and Roy Morgan, November 2025)
- Email and text drove 42% of total revenue across 10,000 Klaviyo brands over BFCM 2025, and 43% on peak days (Klaviyo, 2025)
- Revenue from repeat customers grew 13.5% over BFCM 2025, faster than revenue from new buyers (Klaviyo, 2025)
- Brands with the smallest discounts saw the highest growth over BFCM 2025, at 14% (Klaviyo, 2025)
- On 15 October 2026, 9 of 14 well-known Australian Shopify stores we checked had no Black Friday page at the common addresses (Elinix AI check, October 2026)
What does a Black Friday email calendar look like for 2026?
A 2026 Black Friday email calendar has four phases: three build-up emails in November, VIP early access on Thursday 26 November, five emails across the Black Friday weekend and Cyber Monday, and a wrap-up in December. The 12 emails below follow that order. Each one has one job.
| # | Send date | Who gets it | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tue 10 Nov | Teaser: something is coming, join the VIP list | Engaged subscribers and past buyers |
| 2 | Tue 17 Nov | VIP reminder and a sneak peek | Engaged subscribers and past buyers |
| 3 | Tue 24 Nov | Early access is coming for VIPs and past buyers | VIPs and past buyers |
| 4 | Thu 26 Nov | VIP early access opens | VIPs and past buyers |
| 5 | Fri 27 Nov, morning | Black Friday is live | Engaged subscribers |
| 6 | Fri 27 Nov, evening | Best sellers and gift ideas | Engaged subscribers |
| 7 | Sat 28 Nov | Reminder with reviews and social proof | Engaged subscribers |
| 8 | Sun 29 Nov | The weekend ends tonight | Engaged subscribers |
| 9 | Mon 30 Nov, morning | Cyber Monday is live | Engaged subscribers |
| 10 | Mon 30 Nov, evening | Last chance, hours left | Engaged subscribers, plus non-opener resend |
| 11 | Tue 1 Dec | 24-hour extension (optional) | Engaged subscribers who have not bought |
| 12 | Early Dec | Thank you, plus Christmas delivery cut-offs | Everyone who bought, and engaged subscribers |
The dates are the Elinix AI calendar for 2026. They map Klaviyo's sample cadence onto this year's dates. That mapping is ours; Klaviyo's guide gives weeks, without dates. Klaviyo's sample also ends with an extended sale on the Tuesday, which is why email 11 exists. Only send it if you are happy to extend. An extension you announce every year teaches people to wait for it.
Twelve emails sounds like a lot. Over a normal month it would be. Over BFCM, most of them go to people who have opened or clicked recently, and the big sends sit on the four days when people are actively shopping.
Want this as a checklist? Get the free BFCM 2026 Blueprint: the 12-email calendar with this year's dates, the three Klaviyo segments and the Black Friday landing page checklist. Get the Blueprint
Which segments should get which emails?
Three segments carry the whole calendar: VIPs and past buyers, engaged subscribers, and non-openers. VIPs get early access first. Engaged subscribers get the main sends. Non-openers get a resend of only the emails that matter most. Nobody outside those three gets the full run.
- VIPs and past buyers. Your most loyal customers, plus anyone who has bought before. They get emails 3 and 4 and the first look at the offer. Klaviyo's BFCM 2025 cohort saw revenue from repeat customers grow 13.5%, faster than revenue from new buyers (Klaviyo, December 2025).
- Engaged subscribers. Klaviyo defines them as people who have opened or clicked an email within the last 30 to 60 days (Klaviyo BFCM strategy guide). They get the main weekend and Cyber Monday sends.
- Non-openers. People in the engaged segment who did not open a key email. They get one resend with a new subject line, a few hours later. Use it for emails 5, 9 and 10 only.
Keep the segments tight. Emailing your whole list, including people who have not opened in a year, is how a brand's emails start landing in spam in the one week it can least afford it. If segments are new to you, our guide to what email marketing is and how it earns covers the basics.
The calendar also leans on what is already running. Your welcome, abandoned cart and checkout flows will fire harder than usual over BFCM, so check they still work before 10 November. Our guide to the essential Klaviyo flows for Shopify stores lists what each one should do.
Flows matter outside Black Friday too. For one Australian beauty brand on our Klaviyo email marketing service, building out flows and campaigns took email to 53% of total store revenue in 30 days, and flows carried about 63% of that email revenue. That was a normal month, outside Black Friday. It is what happened for that client, and it is no forecast for yours.
When should the VIP early access emails go out?
Send the VIP early access emails on the Tuesday and Thursday before Black Friday: Tue 24 November to warn, Thu 26 November to open. Klaviyo's own advice is to email VIPs between Tuesday and Thursday before Black Friday. The invitation to join the VIP list goes out much earlier, from mid-October to 10 November.
Klaviyo's sample cadence puts the VIP early access opt-in in the third week of October, and says to send the opt-in email "as early as mid-October" (Klaviyo BFCM strategy guide). If you have not invited anyone yet, emails 1 and 2 do that job. Earlier is better, because every week of sign-ups is a week to warm those people up.
Early access needs somewhere to send people. That is the job of a Black Friday landing page: a page on your store that collects early access sign-ups until 26 November, then becomes the shopping page for the weekend. More on that below.
Want the 12 emails done for you? We plan, write, build and schedule the 12 emails and the Black Friday landing page for you, in your own Klaviyo and Shopify. See the Black Friday package.
What should each Black Friday email say?
Each Black Friday email should say one thing: what is happening, who it is for, and when it ends. The build-up emails sell access, and the discount waits for the day. The weekend emails sell products and time. The last email sells delivery before Christmas. Keep the discount number out of the build-up entirely.
Build-up (emails 1 to 4). Tell people a sale is coming and how to get in first. Do not print the discount. A number in a teaser becomes the price people wait for.
Black Friday weekend (emails 5 to 8). Lead with the offer and the end time. Email 6 is best sellers and gift ideas, because many shoppers arrive with a person or a budget in mind. Email 7 carries reviews. Email 8 is the deadline.
Cyber Monday (emails 9 to 11). Same structure, shorter copy, a clear end time. If you extend, say exactly when the extension ends.
After the sale (email 12). Thank buyers, give the Christmas delivery cut-offs, and point engaged subscribers to full-price gifts.
On the offer itself: deeper is not always better. During BFCM 2024, the discounts that drove the best conversion rates sat in the 10 to 15% and 20 to 25% off ranges (Klaviyo BFCM strategy guide). In 2025, discounts dropped 10% year on year across ecommerce and demand stayed strong (Klaviyo, December 2025). Klaviyo reports these figures across its brands as a group. Your own margin decides your discount.
For the subject lines and open rates you should expect, our 2026 open rate benchmarks for Australian ecommerce are a better yardstick than a November spike.
What send times and deliverability checks matter over BFCM?
The checks that matter over BFCM are send time, spam rate and compliance. We schedule every send at 15 minutes past the hour, keep each send to an engaged segment, and check the unsubscribe link in every email.
Send at :15, not on the hour. We set Black Friday sends at :15 past the hour, away from the round-hour times most people pick when they schedule. That is our build practice. Klaviyo does not publish it as a rule. Mornings suit most sends; use your own Klaviyo data to pick the hour.
Watch the spam rate. Google's sender guidelines say to keep the spam rate in Postmaster Tools below 0.10%, and never let it reach 0.30% (Google email sender guidelines). Google also requires one-click unsubscribe on marketing emails. A complaint spike usually comes from emailing people who stopped opening months ago.
Stay inside the Spam Act. In Australia, the Spam Act 2003 needs three things in every marketing email: consent, a clear sender identity, and an unsubscribe that works. The ACMA says unsubscribe requests must be honoured within 5 working days (ACMA, Avoid sending spam). That still applies on Black Friday. Our step-by-step guide to email marketing in Australia covers consent in more detail.
Before each send, check every link, every discount code and the email at phone width. A broken code on Black Friday morning costs more than any subject line wins.
Will a Black Friday teaser stall your October sales?
A Black Friday teaser can stall full-price sales if it prints a discount or sits on the homepage. Built carefully, it mostly collects people who were going to wait anyway. Black Friday is already on everyone's calendar. The teaser decides whether those people are on your list when the sale starts, or on a competitor's.
The risk is real. On 15 October 2026 we asked ChatGPT which Australian skincare brands would have the best Black Friday deals. Of one brand with a 2026 "coming soon" page live, ChatGPT told shoppers it would "hold off buying at full price".
Four rules keep the teaser from teaching people to wait:
- No discount number before the sale. Promise early access, and keep the number for the day.
- Keep it off the main shopping path. Link it from emails and the sign-up form, not the homepage hero or product pages.
- Give a reason to buy now, if you want one. A gift with purchase in October, or an "order by" date for Christmas.
- State the exclusions. New launches and best sellers can stay full price. Klaviyo found brands with the smallest discounts grew fastest over BFCM 2025, at 14% (Klaviyo, December 2025). Klaviyo reports it as a pattern across its brands. It does not show that small discounts cause growth.
Category matters too. Bigger considered purchases, such as bedding or furniture, get delayed whatever you do. Consumables and repeat buys, such as skincare refills or coffee, mostly do not, because people run out.
How does the Black Friday landing page fit the email calendar?
The Black Friday landing page is where every email in the calendar sends people. Until 26 November it collects early access sign-ups into Klaviyo. From VIP early access to Cyber Monday it is the shopping page. After the sale it switches to a "see you next year" sign-up, so it never sits stale.
Most stores do not have one yet. On 15 October 2026 we checked 14 well-known Australian Shopify stores at five common Black Friday addresses. Five had a Black Friday page and nine had none. One page was still titled "Black Friday 2025" and said the deals were gone. That is a hand-picked sample on one day, and many stores launch later.
A stale page matters because AI assistants read these pages. In the same 15 October ChatGPT test, 3 of the 6 links cited in the answer were brands' own Black Friday pages: a sign-up page, a 2026 "coming soon" page and the terms from an earlier sale. More than half of consumers planned to use AI assistants to find deals over BFCM 2025 (Klaviyo, December 2025). Our 5-minute test for whether ChatGPT recommends your brand shows how to see what it says about yours.
Build the page with the year and the dates in the title, answer-first copy near the top, and an FAQ written in the page HTML. The FAQ should answer the questions buyers ask: sale dates, early access, whether codes stack, returns and delivery cut-offs.
Black Friday landing page plus the 12 emails, done for you. We plan, write, build and schedule the 12 emails and the Black Friday landing page for you. Bookings close Fri 6 November. See what is included.
When are the Christmas delivery cut-offs for 2026?
Australia Post has published its 2026 Christmas dates. For metro areas, Parcel Post sent within the same state should go by Tue 22 December, and Express Post on the east coast by Wed 23 December. Interstate and Western Australian parcels need to leave earlier, and anything outside a metro area needs extra time.
From the Australia Post Christmas sending dates, read on 21 October 2026:
| Service, metro areas | Last day to send |
|---|---|
| Parcel Post, within the same state | Tue 22 December |
| Parcel Post, NSW to ACT, Vic, Qld, SA or Tas | Mon 21 December |
| Parcel Post, NSW to WA | Fri 18 December |
| Express Post, NSW, ACT, Vic, Qld, SA, Tas and same state | Wed 23 December |
| Express Post, to WA, NT and from WA | Tue 22 December |
Your own cut-off should sit a day or two before these dates, to allow for picking and packing. If you use another carrier, check its published dates. Then put your cut-off in email 12, on the Black Friday landing page FAQ, and in a banner from early December. A date is a delivery promise. "Order soon" is not.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is Black Friday 2026 in Australia?
Black Friday 2026 is Friday 27 November, and Cyber Monday is Monday 30 November. Many Australian brands run the sale across all four days, from Friday to Monday. The ARA and Roy Morgan forecast a record $6.8 billion in Australian spending over the 2025 Black Friday to Cyber Monday weekend, up 4% on 2024.
How many emails should I send for Black Friday?
About 12 campaign emails from mid-November to early December suits most Australian Shopify brands with an engaged list. Most of those go to engaged subscribers over the four sale days. A smaller list with low engagement can cut it to six or seven, keeping the teaser, VIP access, launch, weekend reminder, Cyber Monday and last chance emails.
When should I start my Black Friday emails?
Start inviting people to your VIP or early access list in mid to late October, and send the first teaser by Tuesday 10 November. Klaviyo's sample cadence puts the VIP early access opt-in in the third week of October. The VIP early access emails then go out on Tuesday 24 and Thursday 26 November.
Should I email my whole list on Black Friday?
No. Send the main Black Friday emails to engaged subscribers, which Klaviyo defines as people who opened or clicked an email in the last 30 to 60 days. Emailing people who stopped opening months ago raises spam complaints. Google says to keep the spam rate below 0.10% and never reach 0.30%.
What time should I send Black Friday emails?
Mornings suit most Black Friday sends, with a second send in the evening on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Elinix AI schedules every send at 15 minutes past the hour, away from the round-hour times most people pick. Check your own Klaviyo data for the hour your list opens most.
Do I need a Black Friday landing page as well as the emails?
Yes, if you want early access sign-ups. The emails need one place to send people: a Black Friday landing page that collects sign-ups before the sale and becomes the shopping page during it. On 15 October 2026, 9 of 14 well-known Australian Shopify stores we checked had no Black Friday page at the common addresses.
