During Black Friday week your attention goes to campaigns. That is normal, they are the visible part. But a significant share of the number happens elsewhere, in the automations running while you sleep, triggered one by one by people who hesitate. They are what catches the paid traffic your campaigns don't convert on the first pass. Here are the ones that matter, and what to do to them before November 27.
Abandoned cart: shorten the delays
It is the most profitable flow of the year, and during the rush it becomes the most time-sensitive. Your visitor is comparing three stores within the same hour.
A first message sent after a long wait arrives when the decision has already been made elsewhere. During the promotional period, you shorten. You restate the running offer in the message, not only the product, because the offer is what is urgent.
And you check one banal thing that breaks everything: that the link returns to the filled cart, not the home page.
“Abandoned cart becomes the most time-sensitive flow during the rush.”
Abandoned browse: the net under paid traffic
In November you pay to bring in people who look without adding to cart. Without this flow they leave without a usable trace.
It is the flow that best monetizes the ad money spent, and the one most stores have never turned on.
Post-purchase: protecting December's margin
A Black Friday buyer is a discount customer who doesn't know your brand. If they only come back at the next discount, you bought a transaction, not a customer.
That is what post-purchase is for: explain the product, give the right way to use it, introduce the brand and set up what comes next. It decides whether December and January exist.
Back in stock: the stockout that pays
During the rush you will run out of something. It is mathematical.
A back-in-stock flow turns that stockout into a waiting list, and therefore into deferred sales rather than lost ones. It is one of the rare mechanisms that makes money out of bad news.
Winback: the dormant list is worth the detour
You have people who bought once a year ago and have opened nothing since. Black Friday week is the one moment in the year when a strong enough offer can wake them.
One caution: sending broadly to inactives right before your biggest send of the year is the fastest route to the promotions tab. You wake them in October, gradually, not on November 26.
What to switch off during the week
As much as what to turn on, there is what to pause.
Buyers exit the sales reminders immediately. Nothing is more irritating than a discount reminder two hours after paying.
Automations unrelated to the running offer, long educational content, brand sequences: pause them for a few days. They dilute the message and consume attention at the most expensive moment of the year.
The day-before check
Three things, done on November 25 or 26, not on the morning itself.
A full test of each flow with a real address: trigger, content, links, phone rendering.
A check of exclusions: recent buyers, unsubscribes, winback segments.
And a look at delays: what was tuned for a normal rhythm is usually too slow for a week where everything is decided in hours.
We build these flows
Mapping, building, tuning and testing before the rush: it is the core of our email mandates, and there is just enough time left to do it properly. See our email marketing offer
Frequently asked questions
Do you need special Black Friday versions of each flow? Usually adjusting the message and delays of existing flows is enough. Creating duplicates multiplies double-send risk for marginal gain.
When do you restore the normal flows? After Cyber Monday, at the same time as returning to a normal campaign cadence. Leaving rush settings in place through December fatigues the list.
Does a small shop need all these flows? No. Abandoned cart and post-purchase first. The others get added when volume justifies them.